Las Conchas, Sonora
Rocky Point
Crossing the border from Arizona into Mexico was as expected: small, crumbling buildings and shack-like-homes lined the dirt roads which seemed to be home to many wild dogs. And about an hour from the border, Las Conchas was not any more upscale: abandoned resorts with shattered windows and empty rooms led the way to the beach.
The beach itself was beautiful, more like the east coast, with small waves that flooded the shore, and drowned my feet in surprisingly warm water. Looking out over the water as the sun began to set, something large and brown bobbed up and down in the water. At first glance it could've been a shark, but I was shocked and thankful to discover that it was a sea lion. It was almost comforting to see an animal surviving in this place when it seemed like most of the cities’ locals were struggling to do so.
But when I turned to head back to the house, the view was unlike any American beach I had been to: exotic homes, a mixture of white, yellow and brown adobe styled homes with red clay roofs and a variation of ocean blues tile detailing.
It was also amazing to see how far the tide pulled back at night about the length of a football field, leaving only a shallow pool of water behind.
The closest convenient store is in Puerto Peñasco. The town is best described as ghetto with a grocery store, one Mexican and one Chinese restaurant and a strip club. The tacos weren't very satisfying here with little to no flavor despite the various salsas that were served on a cafeteria tray, stray dogs begged at every table and multiple vendors came up to the table trying to sell jewelry, painted mugs and other souvenirs.
Downtown Rocky Point, on the other hand, was the stereotypical commercialized street found near the beach. Souvenir shops and exotic
bars and restaurants on one side of the street overlooking the ocean on the other side. All the stores and restaurants prefer American money, which is a convenience. It's an exciting place to go for nightlife, and was relatively close.
I ate at a restaurant called Beach Bum, built to look like a large tiki hut with open walls on the top floor to let the breeze in. For an appetizer I ordered coconut onion rings with a mango dipping sauce, and for dinner I ate three baja tacos. They were served with a chipotle sauce, but instead of putting the sauce on all of them, I put chipotle on one, mango on one, and guacamole on one. It tasted very ethnic, unlike some of the Mexican restaurants found in America.
On the last day, it was extremely windy, and it was as if the world flipped horizontally overnight, and the ocean revealed a glimpse of its west coast waves. As I walked to the beach, the wind was blowing sand at my skin, stinging my legs and face. The big waves made swimming more exciting and less relaxed, but the wind made it too chilly to stay long.
Before heading back to the U.S., I stopped for more tacos from a place called Combo Taco. It was more like a food truck with its own pavilion than an actual restaurant. I ordered a fish taco and a stuffed yellow pepper taco. Once the order is up, there is a little cart with a variety of red and green salsas to choose from. For how cheap the tacos were, they were delicious.
Although it was a beautiful vacation, it still opened my eyes a bit to the poverty in Mexico that Americans automatically associate with the country. But Mexico isn’t all poverty; it’s sea lions, dramatic tide changes, colorful art and souvenirs, ethnic food and big smiles despite the poverty.