We know everyone has been waiting impatiently to hear about our latest adventure. So, here it is! We left Atlanta on 10 March heading for Mexico with a short side trip to Arizona and we do mean short. We had 24 hours before we had to catch our plane to Guaymas. We landed in Phoenix around noon with the intention of seeing and doing all we possibly could in the little time we had. Cathy called it our Griswald trip. We picked up a rental car and headed north quickly. You can guess who was driving. There were many things to see before the sun set. We drove to Montezuma Castle National Monument and then past Flagstaff to Walnut Canyon National Monument. Both of these sites contain cliff dwelling of the Sinagua Indians from the 12th Century. Very interesting to imagine how they lived so far from their water and food sources.
Then we drove back to south of Flagstaff and picked-up Hwy 89 (one of the top 10 drives in the US). Hwy 89 took us through Oak Creek Canyon with a short stop at Slide Rock State Park. We ended up at in Sedona just before sundown and found a nice cabin with hot tub for the night. The hot tub was bigger than the entire bathroom. In fact, the shower was so small that if we dropped the soap we would have to get out of the shower to pick it up.
After dinner we decided to take a hot air balloon flight the next day, something we always wanted to do but never had. The only problem was we had to get up at 5 am to catch the ride to the lift off site which wasn't too bad since we were still on Atlanta time. We helped blow up the balloon. That really takes a lot of huffing and puffing. Three balloons lifted off
at the same time. Zach was so intent on taking a picture of the three balloons that our balloon started to lift off without him. He had to make a quick dash and scramble on as the balloon was leaving the ground. The ride was great! We went high to see the panoramic view of the valley and went low to watch mule deer. The flight lasted an hour and a half and finished up
with a Champaign breakfast, which we understand, is a tradition on morning balloon flights. The rest of the morning we spent at various sights in the Sedona area and headed back to Phoenix.
Our condo was located in San Carlos, which is about 10 miles north of Guaymas. Guaymas is about 450 miles south of Phoenix. I t is on the Sea of Cortez. The area geography is desert and mountains mixed together. We had blue skies and sunshine everyday with morning temps in the 50s and afternoon temps around 80. The weather was perfect except for the winds. Every day started out calm. As the day progressed and became warmer the winds picked-up and became more powerful. By 5-530 pm the winds were 30 - 40 mphs with gusts to above 50 mph. Everyday shortly after the sun went down the winds would stop. Fortunately, our condo faced the water in an easterly direction and we were protected from the winds while we were there. We has a spectacular view of the water, mountains and beaches from our condo
which was right on the water. We had no TV, no radio, no phone, and no paper.
Zach, who is in charge of entertainment (Cathy is food) kept us quite busy. In fact we were so busy with physical activities everyday we were always asleep before 10 pm every night and has a hard time staying up that late. Our first full day there we hiked 4 miles to climb up the Tetas mountain, one mountain with two peaks. The climb up is probably 2000 ft with a 40-60 degree climbing angle. We had to constantly watch out for loose rock, cactus, and thorn bushes. Zach led the way. We were following the ridge but the winds became so strong we literally thought Cathy might get blown off so we moved down the ridge to a more protected area, which also had more cactus and bushes. We climbed for three hours and made it to the last
part which is an almost vertical 300-foot climb. The winds were so strong we decided that we didn't want to die that day and turned around and climbed down. Then we had to hike the four miles back to our condo.
The next morning we went running and then walked to the sports center in town and checked out two mountain bikes. We went is search of a waterfall and springs out in the desert. We biked to the end of the paved road and followed the dirt road until it came to a ranch. At the ranch we had to go through the fence and continue on the dirt road until it split. Then we took
the right fork, peddled until we went through two arroyos, and followed the trail until we couldn't ride anymore. We left the bikes and hiked into the canyon and eventually came to a jungle like area. It was about 20-30 ft wide with palm trees and lots of other greenery with a tiny stream running through the middle. On the sides were steep canyon walls devoid of anything
but cactus. We followed the little stream to the end of the canyon and found the water source.
On the way back down Zach jumped down from a large boulder and there was a 6-foot rattle snake about 5 feet away. Cathy did not want to proceed and further, but after a little encouragement she came down quickly and very quickly moved on. We returned to our bikes, found our way back and then road north past the Tetas to the Club Med, which has an excellent beach. We ended up riding about 30 miles. That night we rode the bikes to a restaurant called Le Bronco. We had
two beers, two margaritas, Chateaubrian for two and two deserts for 28 dollars. The food and service was outstanding, so good, we went back to the same restaurant the night before we left to come home.
The next morning we went for a three-hour bike ride. Then we checked out a sea kayak for two. After working through our initial coordination problems we developed a good rhythmic stroking pattern and explored several of the coastal caves. In one cave Zach was taking pictures when a big sea surge came in and raised the kayak up about 6 feet and put us into a white water situation. We worked through it and came out the other side. Zach thought it great fun and wanted to do it again. Cathy was trying to hit Zach with her paddle because she didn't think it was fun at all. We kayaked about 5
hours and were lucky the winds were a little milder that day.
The next day we thought we would take it easy. We chartered a boat to take us to San Pedro, the seal island and to do some fishing. On the way to San Pedro we had one of those once in a life time experiences. We ran into a pod of dolphins. There were hundreds of them. They were following the boat and jumping everywhere in twos, threes, and even fours. It lasted about 10 minutes and then they were gone. It took two hours to get to the island in pretty rough seas. When we finally arrived we had a good view of the seal pups. When we started to get too close the adults suddenly appeared. We
moved away and went bottom fishing in about 180 feet of water. We fished for three hours. By the time we finished we could barely reel in the lines our arms and hands were so tired. We ended up catching about forty fish; red snapper,
sea bass, and white fish. Cathy also caught an eel and a scorpion fish. The crew filleted the fish for us on the way back. We gave them half, took half and had it for dinner several nights. And it was good prepared by our chef Cathy.
The next day we again checked out the mountain bikes and went off in another direction looking for and found another oasis in the mountains. We also found a heard of cattle which Cathy wanted to avoid at all costs. Zach rode right to them so she reluctantly followed. One night we went bowling. That's right bowling in Mexico. They were AMF lanes. The most modern we have ever seen. The only thing we wanted to do and didn't was snorkeling. The Sea of Cortez is excellent for diving and snorkeling, but with water temperatures in the low 60s we didn't want to go in even with wet suits.
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