Mexico: A Real Big Mess

I've been going to Puerto Penasco, Sonora since I was ten years old. My family yearly May/June vacations have been the only family vacations my family has taken my entire life. They have become our solace. For my 12 year-old-sister "Mexico," as we call it, is like a second home to her. So, in all those years we have witnessed quite a lot of change in the town, in the economy, in the other visitors and in the attitudes of the locals.

Most recently, The Arizona Daily Star published an article on Feb 11, 2007 titled "'Tucson's Beach' is booming." And boy is it ever. Las Conchas, the private home community which once a single row of homes on the beach, is now two rows deep with high-rise condos under construction on the third row.

On the other side of town, Sandy Beach, five-star resorts are popping up like wild flowers and grandiose condos are decorated like a Paradise Valley estates. Not your typical picture of Mexico, but with its four hour convenient drive from both Phoenix and Tucson, lack of rules and significantly lower prices, Rocky Point is becoming a vacation haven for both college age students and families alike.

Anyway, the whole point is, Rocky Point has changed, big time and for long time vacationers, and I’m sure the locals, it hasn’t changed for the best.

But for all it’s worth if you take comfort in the less crowded areas and only venture into the town when you need to buy fresh fish or that must have token hand painted shot glass, a Rocky Point vacation can still be a perfect weekend getaway. Because it’s on the Gulf of California the water is much warmer than the Pacific, dolphins and breathtaking sunsets make regular appearances, it’s always a few degrees cooler than the desert mother land of Arizona. Not to mention the local food is cheap and fantastic as well as the alcohol.

I wish Rocky Point had stayed my secret hideaway, low-budget, relaxing vacation spot forever, but I guess it’s inevitable that the big wig developers would capitalize on it and so would everyone else. Hence the four hour traffic back up I encountered on Sunday throughout Sonoyta, the border town you cross through in Mexico. Granted the majority of the traffic at 11:30 a.m. on was due Spring Breakers trying to get back to campus before their Monday morning classes, but another part of the traffic back up had to do with the Mexicans stopping every car trying to collect money for their poor and disabled.

What is normally a four-hour trip, became an eight-hour trip and it leaves me wondering what the policies are for the Mexican police when enforcing traffic issues. Obviously policies are either undefined or not followed, but either way something is going to have to change if the increasing flow to and from Rocky Point is going to continue.

To see more of my vacation, check this out: