Back on the road in search of greener pastures (any pasture looks green when compared to a sand storm in the desert), we forge farther south, leaving three weeks in Sonora behind and entering the state of Sinaloa.
It’s been a long morning of driving and the crew’s getting hungry. We spot a roadside birria stand and decide to stop. Best decision we’ve made in a while.
Las Glorias is an odd little beach town. Here we are, in the final weekend of the mega holiday Benito-Juarez-Birthday-Holy-Week-Easter-Week and the palm-lined paving-stone main drag seems totally deserted. Perfect.
We arrive at our destination for the next few nights: Mr. Moro aka Casa Bonita. Also 100% deserted. Double perfect.
At least, the RV is deserted. There appears to be a handful of people milling about the on-site restaurant and beach front palapas.
A young man (who we believe to be the namesake Mr. Moro’s son) leads us to what he believes is the best spot in the park—a lush enclosure with a grassy pad and an adjacent palapa just steps away from the beach.
But there’s a small group that has taken over the palapa, making pulling into the site feel awkward in the context of an otherwise empty RV Park. Plus, the path connecting the beach and restaurant seems to run right through the site.
There’s another site adjacent to the beach on the other side of the park. But it’s devoid of shade and the pedestal electrical box is falling apart. We opt for a shaded and grassy little spot with a functional pedestal a bit farther back.
Before shutting off the engine, Lori places the bubble level on floor behind my seat. Crap. Looks like a leveling nightmare. Undeterred, I roll the coach forward a couple of feet. Perfectly level. Well, that was easy.
The boys immediately set about digging for treasures in the dune while I finish setting up the RV. Sketchy outlets with 20-amp power make me grateful we’re here before the hot season—I’d be surprised if we were able to run our A/C from any of them. The water pressure’s lower than ideal, but unlike the last place, I think I can work with this one.
As we step out onto the beach, we note the very prominent “No Motor Vehicles” sign in Spanish. Awesome. Now I don’t have to worry about my kids getting flattened while building sand castles. My relief evaporates as we walk a little farther down and see the telltale sign of countless dune buggies and quads. Seconds later, we’re buzzed by three drunken teens on motorbikes. So much for that.
So, where is everyone? Walking west, we see the “Las Glorias” letters obscuring a post-apocalyptic enclave resembling something of a landfill dotted with dilapidated palapas and hundreds of rather large beachgoers eagerly adding to the mountains of styrofoam and beer bottles. It’s clear they’ve chosen this particularly area because of the palapas, but also the murky manmade lagoon packed with kids. We do the obligatory letters photo and head back to Mr. Moro’s.
During dinner, this wandering mop top child delights us with a song and dance. Fresh out of spare change, we pay him for his efforts in quesadilla, which appears to suffice.
Noe had another loose tooth at dinner. I volunteered to pull it out for him, but he wanted to wait to get back to the RV so he didn’t lose it. Back home, it didn’t take long before the tooth twisted right out in Noe’s hand. Looks like we’ll need to alert the Tooth Fairy of our current location somehow.
As we were wrapping up dinner at the restaurant, a large family filed in with presents and food and took over the pool area. Then, the music started up. It always surprises us in Mexico that hotels and guesthouses will let people bring their own food and take over the common pool area without staying at the hotel or patronizing the restaurant. I’d like to think they paid a day use fee of some sort, but who knows.
After three days of excruciatingly loud bass and ear-bleeding karaoke at the last place, we were in no mood for this sort of thing. Fortunately, the music was barely audible from inside the RV and the party wrapped up before 11pm.
But we did manage to have problems with nearly all of our utilities during the night (no surprise there).
After midnight, the voltage began to spike every hour or so, causing our EMS to shut off. I had been running the fan on the heat pump to drown out the party noise for the boys, but ultimately just shut it off.
Then, the water went out. Our fresh water tank was nearly empty, so I couldn’t do anything about that until the morning.
Finally, we couldn’t seem to find anywhere to put the Starlink that wasn’t obstructed (a problem that persisted for the entire time we were here). The only place it seemed to work was on the ground in front of the RV. But after two close calls with cars nearly backing into it, I decided it was better to save the Dishy and just not worry about internet. Lori took her work calls in the restaurant where the Wifi sort of worked.
Cars were the biggest annoyance we encountered here. Even though there was a large and perfectly adequate car parking lot in front of the guesthouse, everyone instead decided it would be a better idea to drive into the RV park and pull into a site.
We had everything from drunken men hanging out around the RV to one guy coming within inches of plowing over our neighbor’s Starlink dish (saved at the last minute only by my yelling and waving like a mad man).
It took two days of asking, but the staff did finally put the rope up to the RV section that I imagine is suppose to prevent this sort of thing from becoming an issue in the first place.
We’ve observed for years in Mexico that the majority of domestic visitors to beach towns seem to have a strong aversion to walking, going to great lengths to skirt clearly posted and commonly accepted rules to park as ridiculously close as they can possibly get to their table at a restaurant or spot on the beach for the day.
The rules just don’t apply to these people. Certainly, self-entitlement exists in all corners of the globe, and the U.S. is no exception there. But folks of all ages and backgrounds seem to take it to another level in Mexican beach towns, where the concepts of the common good or mutual respect appear to be literally foreign ideas.
True, we’re visitors here in Mexico, but we’ve also been legal residents here for over three years. There’s a lot we chock up to cultural differences, but still there’s many frustrations that grate on us purely on a basic human level, particularly in the context of a society that largely wears its Catholic faith on its sleeve.
But I digress.
Riley wanted to help daddy grind his coffee this morning. It’s not an easy job. I think he’s good for a while.
It’s still a bit brisk in the mornings, but I look forward to setting up my office outside soon. With that said, I’ve had some nice views from my office window lately, so I’m not complaining.
Afternoons are beach fun time. Still too chilly for us to get in, but the boys don’t mind. They have plenty of other things to keep them muy contento.
After the rope went up, the Dishies came back out. The boys were excited to be able to watch their Mystery Science and Grammy storytime again.
On our final afternoon in Las Glorias, we walked into town for some treats at the local Six mini-mart to celebrate Riley’s half-birthday (5-1/2).
Usually, I leave the popsicles for the kids, but thought they sounded good today. I initially gravitated towards the strawberry creamsicle. Nah, think I’ll get the fruit pop instead. But the idea was already planted. Lori, Noe, and Riley all thought the strawberry creamsicle sounded good, and each got their own.
Big mistake.
When it comes to all things food, Riley can usually pack it away without consequences, no matter what. So I wasn’t surprised that he was spared.
But in the wee hours, Lori and Noe awoke with terrible stomach cramps and nausea, lasting into the next morning. And, it was a travel day.
If it had been any other day, we could have stayed another night and left the next morning. If we wanted to catch the solar eclipse, however, we needed to hit the road.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. For now, enjoy these final pictures of the crew frolicking carefree in their blissful ignorance of things to come.
