Puerto Penasco

Arriving in PP we quickly set about exploring the town, countryside, beaches and a local bar or two. We found that in many ways it met our expectations. Bath-warm water at white sand beaches, plenty of tourists, at least a couple of RV parks, what seemed to be communities made up entirely of American and Canadian retirees, and a thriving marina and fish market.

We arrived on Friday just after lunch and by dinner had made friends with a couple of friendly Arizonans who gave us the lowdown on what`s where and when`s what. October is one of the slowest months as the summer tourists are gone and those who will stay the winter have generally not arrived and are not likely to arrive until after American Thanksgiving or even until after Christmas (these assertions were later verified by various peddlers, hustlers, innocent bystanders and our inn-keep Oscar). Not only that, said they, but the recession has hit rather hard and for the past three years, nowhere close to as many people had been spending the winter as in years previous.

We had, in our explorations, come to remark that there were an awful lot of for sale, for rent and under construction (I use that term loosely, as it looked as if many had not been worked on for some time) properties. We began to doubt.

By Sunday afternoon I had us sorted out with regards to a shop where we would be able to build a couple or three Vestas, a steel supplier, a list of possible rental houses in the neighborhood, groceries and fine accommodations for a week at the Dreamweaver.

That done, we continued to explore the city and the environs, but in doing so remarked to ourselves that it had been at best mostly sunny, but that by 2 in the afternoon the sky would go to haze and even in the morning would not regularly exceed 80% clearness. This, in addition to the lackluster economy had us thinking about exploring further down the coast. Grandad told me that Puerto Penasco had not been his first choice, but that being so close to the border, it seemed a logical one if we were to decide to run any kind of solar dried produce exporting business. He told me about a town roughly 5 hours south that is considered a gem by the sizable ex-pat community that inhabits it. Fraser bade me do a comparison of the available solar data, and using a handy dandy NASA database of more information than I know what to do with I was able to determine that Guaymas is in fact at least 10% sunnier than Puerto Penasco. Further research indicated that Guaymas is closer to productive agricultural regions and that by comparison, Puerto Penasco is something of a party town filled with rowdy teenagers.

That settled it. We would venture to explore Guaymas before planting firm roots in Puerto Penasco. Buuuut.... seeing as we`d paid for a weeks accommodations in advance, we figured we had earned a bit of a break and so have been reclining, reading, drinking Bacardi Anejo, playing cribbage and going to the beach.

We go to Guaymas tomorrow.