City Tour and Charity

We had a really busy day today with an all day city tour, nap, catered dinner and charity auction.

Russ Black is an American who has lived in Puerto Penasco for 13 years and owns his own tour business. 25 Escapee's piled into two 15-passenger vans to explore the whole area in and around Penasco. We drove past some really nice and expensive beach homes. Russ noted that some of these homes could be had for $1.5 million or you could divided it up among 12 individuals with each owning 1/12th of the home. The recession has hit this tourist area much harder than in the US. Many, many high rises have been started but not completed or completed but never occupied. At the end of the sand road was a an example of one such building.

Our next stop was at CEDO - Center for Education on the Desert and Ocean. This organization not only works to keep the oceans and deserts clean but educates people and children about why we should take good care of this earth. Across the estuary from CEDO is a local business that raises oysters. This particular business is run by six women who buy oyster seeds, plant them in boxes in the estuary and 9-12 months later have several thousands of the best oysters we have ever eaten. As the seeds grow, they must be sorted out and reset into different boxes. This is seven day a week job. We got to taste them raw and steamed and boy were they good! Unfortunately, they are for local sales only. We will never see them in the US. So to top the oysters, we then went to a local Tequila distillery where we learned how Tequila is made and then got to taste some really good stuff!

Lunch was at JJ's Cantina on the peninsula called Las Conchas which is about a 10 mile drive north of town past Sandy Beach where 10-12 high-rise condominiums and hotels/resorts are located. We were not impressed with JJ's but it was a nice drive.

On our way back thru town we went thru the Malecon area. Russ gave us a couple of recommendations for dinners here.

We arrived back at the RV park in time for naps before the catered dinner. Our trip leaders had contracted with 3 different restaurants to provide small plates so we could sample the variety of foods available in Penasco. There were bacon wrapped stuffed peppers, bacon wrapped hot dog covered in a tortilla and then deep fried, fish, shrimp and pork taco's. We also had Margarita's and cerveza (beer) which loosened us up for the charity auction. This group asked us to bring in-kind contributions that we bid on to raise money to give to local children's home. We came away with a very nice bottle of Port.