San Felipe: Day 1

Let's jump right into these! I was going to categorize my photos so that I'd have a post about birds one day, something else the next, but I just decided to go in order, and you'll get a mix in each post. Some are decent, some aren't great but they depict a scene I want to show you. Enjoy!

Saturday morning we left our hotel in Ontario, CA and drove down to San Felipe (about 6 hours). Crossing the border into Mexico is easy, but you still have to wait in a line. This is the general scene, in case any of you aren't familiar with it.

Once you get past the border cities, it's like Death Valley in this part of Mexico. There's lots of bare desert and these mirages that made it seem like we were near some water. It's really interesting how convincing they can be.

Some salt flats (is that what they're called?).

Eventually we reached San Felipe. Civilization! And I may have had a little fun in Photoshop on a few of these photos. :)

Since it wasn't time to check in yet, we stopped for lunch first. Anyone for stingray? My mom and I felt sad at the thought at eating a cute ray, since a) they're awesome and b) we once did a stingray snorkeling tour and got to pet and kiss them.

On the right is part of a restaurant that we walked through after lunch.

I went with the fish and shrimp tacos. They were good.

The whole time you're eating at these little outdoor restaurants, people are approaching you to sell items or music. You basically have to say "No, gracias" about 40 times throughout your meal, otherwise you'll be shown a fine selection of goofy wooden frogs. I wasn't brave about photographing them, though.

Things are a little more run-down here.

Some more photos of this restaurant, just because I liked the style.

After lunch we found the place where we'd be staying. I pretty much immediately started taking pictures of this hummingbird that I showed you before (and you get to see him again and again!).

We also came across a couple of bugs like this that made me take a different set of stairs. I'm not showing it in the post in case you get all creeped out by photos of large black beetles. (That's customer service!) I worried that this would mean constantly almost-stepping on one of these, but our trip turned out to be fairly bug-free.

Back to the cute blue and purple (Costas) hummingbird.

Hey, little guy!

The sun set very early, and though we were facing the east, it reflected on the clouds this first night and was almost as good as seeing a sunset.

We were the only guests at this time, so we had all of the terrace areas and pool to ourselves!

We stayed at Casa La Vida (aw, I just saw a couple of my photos on their site!). This is the house from the street. The owners, Dale and Bobbie (hello, if you're reading!), live on the top floor, and they have three units on the bottom floor. Dale and Bobbie (and their dog) are very nice and we rrreally enjoyed our stay. If you ever plan to vacation in San Felipe, I highly recommend staying here. No, I was not paid to say that. :)

A look at the actual sunset.


And then we all went to bed at 8pm! Such party animals, my parents and I.

Stay tuned for more photos (I have lots) in the coming days and weeks. Thanks for looking!