Buses, Ferries, Taxi’s, Oh My!

Our mission – to get to San Carlos, Sonora, Mexico. This is on the mainland, but we are in boat shopping mode, and that is the place to be. Or, so we have been told and off we go! In short, a bus to a ferry to a taxi to a bus to a taxi to a hotel at 5am!

Now, the rest of the story ;) As with any good tale, it begins on a beautiful sunny day. Granted we had just moved from our previous boat, the Litha from which we rode down on, to our new temporary location, the “SS LunaSea”, where we are currently boat sitting.

Okay, returned Susan’s bowl (the one we used to make guacamole out of with 12 Avocados!) – check, took Steven & Susan to Breakfast as a thank you – check, washed up some clothes – check, got showers (yes this is a big deal) – check, found a taxi to the bus, well barely – check, got money at the bank, again, barely – check. Got on the bus to the ferry and made it there with 2 ½ hours to spare! Oh, right, the ferry tickets. Yes, those. The ones Brian had purchased earlier in the week, well those, are still sitting where I left on the boat – OOOPS. No worries, Brian just purchased more tickets. We sure would miss that $160 later on.

Meanwhile, back in crappy attitude land, we realized that there were absolutely no amenities other than a vending machine for 3 hours. Yeah, and I waited to use the bathroom as well because the ones there were scary (lacking in the big 3 – a light, a toilet seat and paper).

At last we boarded the huge ferry. As we rode up the escalator on it, we directly went to the bar, as we were starving and we had no idea if the kitchen was open, or even if it had one. Two tequila shots and a bag of chips later, we located our seats, dumping our bags off. Then we went exploring. It was a very cool, art deco style ferry. As we watched movies in English with Spanish subtitles (you had to be really close to the big screen to hear the sound as they had it turned way down), we ate some dinner. It was very weird because the restaurant was more like a cafeteria, with line food. However, I lucked out and the head chief specially prepared these awesome, squash & zucchini quesadilla for me. Kitty was a very happy camper. Then we froze our butts off, oh, I’d say for the remaining 3 hours of the ferry ride.

Bar where we drank Tequila

Bar where we drank more tequila

On Deck - two fisted drinking

This boat is big!

At last, we arrived in Topoplobampo at 9:30pm. A bit tired we headed to the local bus but decided on a cab instead. This saved us an hour and a half, but in hind site put us at our destination too early. After finding the correct regional bus provider, we caught the bus to Guaymas. But it was no Chicken bus, as feared; this was first class all the way. Awesome, since I was ready to sleep. Alas, no such luck as within 45 minutes we were pulled over at a military drug checkpoint. Brian ate fish tacos at the little stands the locals had set up and I used the 3 pesos Banos. I guess we had about 3 more stops which they hammered the hell out of the bus looking for false compartments and more stops/searches, but I slept through them. Brian said they didn’t wake me or make anyone get off the bus during these ones. Arriving in Guaymas at 4:30am, 2 hours earlier than planned- yikes, the local bus to San Carlos was not running yet. You guessed it, off we went in a taxi. We went directly to the hotel recommended and there was actually someone at the desk. Purrrrrrr-snorrrrrr

Alternate bus driver sleeps underneath the bus in the luggage compartment!

The Auto Bus

San Carlos

What to say about this little town. It is very close to Arizona (like 2 hours from the boarder) so there are a lot of Americans here, but it still has kept its charm. It is small and centered around the Marina mostly. There are a bunch of restaurants and services on the main road/ highway into the city center too. This is where the first hotel was – Los Jitos. We switched to another hotel half way through on the recommendation of our boat broker. It was closer to town, just a crossed from the Marina and had “flavor”.

For 5 pesos/person the local bus took us all over and it was like riding with a Nascar driver, hitting forth gear in one block and then coming to a halting stop on the next corner. When Brian was by himself, they would just slow down to let him jump off, but not stop. It was a wild ride! Anyhow, we walked all over, checked everything out, went to both internet café’s numerous times and even introduced ourselves to the San Carlos Yacht Club. We used our reciprocal cards and attended their Christmas Tree Dinner. We actually extended our stay so we could make the event. This was super fun even though we were not quite dress for it. No one seemed to mind or even care.

Well, we looked at a lot of boats, but only one located in the water. Everything else was stored “on the hard” – dry storage or in Spanish “Marina Seca” (dirt harbor). This meant a lot of ladder climbing, but what an adventure! We put in an offer on one boat, but as this economic situation has hit people hard, so has it to our boat budget! They turned us down. Oh well, we will keep trying as there is another boat that we really like too so keep your fingers crossed that we get it. I’ll keep everyone posted.

San Carlos Marina

Our hotel with "flavor"

Mission San Carlos

Greek food at the beach!

Charly's Rock at the edge of town - great seafood!

Anchorage in San Carlos

For the return trip we decided to go back a different direction. If anyone has ever gone running with me you know I prefer a loop verses an out and back course. Anyhow, this time we intended to take the local bus to Guaymas (this is very close to San Carlos, like 10 miles), then the Guayas to Santa Rosalia Ferry. From there, we would take an 8 hour bus down the Sea of Cortez side, coast of Baja (since we sailed down the Pacific side of Baja on the Ha Ha) back to La Paz. It was all planned; reservations were made for a sleeper cabin, as this ferry left at 8pm and arrived at 6:30am the next day. Well, between the last minute boat shopping and chaos with the combo locks on the boat, bead shopping (yes of course we found the bead man, who specialized in turquoise!) and Brian wanting a hair cut, we ran a bit behind schedule. So much so, that we ended up getting a ride by the lady and her husband, who cut Brian’s hair! His cut only cost $15! This was extremely nice and really the only reason why we made it to the ferry at all.

The smaller ferry at dawn

Everything after that was a breeze. We ended up being the only couple in the cabin, which was great. After walking in to town to take a look around – Santa Rosalie (only a 100 feet away from the ferry terminal, max), we boarded another first class bus for the ride down to La Paz. We cruised down the coast for quite awhile and saw some amazing coastline and beautiful harbors. As well, it was a torturous, twisty highway. Again they showed a couple of movies in English, and we made one stop for Breakfast where everyone got off to eat. At the breakfast stop we meet an amazing couple who were Alaskan pioneers. He worked a trap line in the 40’s at age 15 and was a bush pilot who received one of the first snowmobiles. He spoke of amazing stories in the 35 minutes we had to talk with them. He is even in the Guinness Book of world records for recording the most amount of snowfall in a 24 hour period. We have met some truly amazing people down here.

We arrived back in La Paz just after 4pm on Sunday. Got off that bus, and then got directly onto the local bus to get back to Marina Palmira. Home boat, home – for now at least.