Sam And Saundra's Year Long Adventure - Part 80

Sam And Saundra’s Year Long Adventure – Part 80

Mexico 

3/22/09 and 3/23/09 – San Blas

YeeeeeHaaaaaaw!  No tours, no scheduled activities.  Big bunch of water, with beach attached, to explore.  Two villages close enough to investigate on our own.  After all those big cities, what more could we ask for?   We entered the park from the north and parked on the left of the drive.  On the right are the regular full hookup spaces, banos,  a large grassy shaded area and just to the north of the grassy area is the restaurant.  The restaurant has indoor and outdoor seating.  The outdoor overlooks the Sea of Cortez, open water to the left and San Blas to the right.  So we are actually at the other end of a slight crescent-shaped bay. The sunrises are great, but the sunsets are fabulous. The pool is a good sized one, relatively clean and we use it a lot.

Local Places To Stay and Dine

Beach

During our two days here, we walk the beach in front of the park, all the way past Santa Cruz and out to the tip of the point, were we could see down the coastline quite a distance.  This is a very different type of beach. Most of it is a darker, courser sand than elsewhere.  At places, there is no sand, only rocks, from small pebbles, to large rocks.  Closer to San Blas (we are about 15 miles from there), there are more sand beaches and very long, divided palapas are on the beaches, stuck into the sand.  The wood branch sides look more permanent, but the fronds on top look like they may have to be replaced maybe once or twice a year. Each division can hold a car, table, chairs, blanket, picnic, kids, animals, grandparents, all sorts of strange things.  We drove out to one (Not on Sunday – Sunday the locals get their turn at using the beach and all the fun that goes with it), but Brutus would not fit, so we parked him on the end of one palapa and set up in the end division.  We were amazed by a couple of small, light weight flying wings (ultra lights), carrying at least 2 people, which flew over us every so often.  We never did find out whether this was a local club thing or just some crazy people.  We had seen so few flying anythings, except birds.

Open Beach Picnic Palapas

San Blas Main Street

We hunt shells and rocks (not a great beach area to do that – but they are there) and walked in the waves. Two guys came by walking the waves close to shore, carrying machetes and one big white plastic bucket.  Every so often, one would let go with a big swing of their machete and strike the wave.  Then something would go into the bucket.  Of course we had to go find out what they were doing.  Turns out they were crabbing and machete-ing a bunch of them.  While we were walking in the surf, I was startled by a rock lobstrosity zipping back into the open water.  I thought for sure Stephen King was behind me laughing.  I had to admit to Sam that it wasn’t that large, it just startled me.  We did not swim in the ocean – the sand was mixed in thickly with the water. It was clean enough, but the sand did not make the water inviting.  It was great for wading. The main characteristic of this beach, compared to any other, is… the water is HOT.  Not cool, not not-cold, not warm, but HOT.  Sam guesstimates it at about 85 degrees HOT. 

Water

Pretty

We drove to San Blas twice.  We found an RV park there that is big enough to handle 2 or 3 caravans of rigs. All sites are full hookups and the bano/showers are very clean. The actual village of San Blas did not inspire either of us into writing any odes.  The town is there, the people are there. I did not feel particularly welcomed or disliked. We did miss going on the Gator river tour.  One of the star areas for both of us is Leo’s Restaurant in Santa Cruz (one of the small Santa Cruz’s). The second night, we had another bon fire to burn the rest of the wood that was brought.  Even though we were late, the cook and waiter at Leo’s did not shut and lock the kitchen on us (the eating part is all under palapa).  The first day, we had their seafood special and had lobster, shrimp and oysters (cooked) {No Sam you cannot eat raw seafood in Mexico – ask your sister Judy}.  It was so good that on our last night in San Blas we went back with Chuck and Janet, Hugh and Barbara and Klaus.  When the wonderful sunset was over, the waiter tried to devise ways to provide us with enough light to see what we were eating. The candles did not want to stay lit in the wind. The waiter fixed a plastic cup around the candle and it worked.  I have no clue what the others ordered.  I had giant shrimp.  Three of them.  They were sooo large that eating three was not easy (Sam ate one).  They tasted more like Maine lobster and were almost as big as the rock lobster.  I was so into the experience of eating that meal.  I liked the shrimp.

Beach

We walked back to camp along the beach and started the preparation for the next travel day to … let’s see.  Oh Yah! MAZATLAN !!!! “0”  ‘~’.