Part 2-Kino Bay

Part 2-Kino Bay

We continued on our way to Kino Bay, there is a lot of irrigation and farming in this area. We saw barley (I think) that was headed out already. Lots of oranges, nut trees, and grapes. Some of the oranges had been picked and some had not. Fields with other plants growing that I couldn't tell what they were. The farm camps looked in better condition than the ones we had seen last winter in the countryside around here; but were still not great. We passed through one sizable town, Miguel Aleman; but other than that it is mostly farming with a few tiny towns.
The desert is colorful right now with lots of the trees/shrubs in bloom. In a couple of places there were so many of one type of tree blooming that it smelt like perfume coming in the car window.

I think these trees are called Huizache Chino, as Jon from San Miguel Photo Of The Day has one posted on his site and it looks like the same tree. You can check out his photo here: http://sanmiguelphotooftheday.blogspot.com/2007_02_01_archive.html

There were other shrubs and flowers blooming also, here are a couple.

We arrived in Kino Bay and drove down the 8 km. stretch of road that new Kino consists of. There are very few businesses here. There is a strip of homes with a couple of small RV parks on the ocean side and on the other side of the road there is another strip of homes. We only saw one restaurant and a couple of taco stands. There were no stores or gas stations and only one OXXO.
We stopped at the restaurant and it was very busy. We added our name to the waiting list and stood there. The family in front of us had a little boy of maybe 6 months or so that dad was holding. We amused ourselves by talking to him and making faces. He leaned towards me, so I held out my arms and dad transferred him over. He was grinning and grabbing for my glasses and checking us both out. His dad was asking him if I was grandma; but the little fellow paid no notice to him. A pleasant way to pass the time, the waitress came for us, so I had to hand the little fellow back to his dad.
We sat down and ordered our lunch. While we were waiting the young fellow next to us started to chat. He was from Hermosillo and spoke very good english. We chatted a bit while we waited for our food. The lunch was good; but not exceptional, Roy had a chicken dish and I had a fish fillet. After lunch we decided to check out old Kino town.
Old Kino is where the businesses, restaurants, etc. are. We found a hotel and parked the car. The hotel had a nice courtyard with upholstered furniture to relax on in the shade, a small pool and a nice atmosphere. Our room seemed to be very new and we think that this separate building with about 6 rooms in it was a fairly new addition. There was a computer we could have used in the office area and some other amenities. In case anyone is heading to Kino Bay it is called the Eco Bay Hotel and is kind of in the center of old Kino. We paid 550 pesos (about $55.00) for a room with one bed, not bad for a resort town so close to the USA.
We then wandered down to the water. We were surprised to see so many people swimming on the beaches in both old and new Kino. I asked one fellow if the water was not too cold to swim and he said that yes, it was cold and then shook his head and grinned. We walked out onto the pier and just looked around.




There were the usual vendors selling shells and iron wood carvings along with other things.
There were some shrimp boats working quite close to shore and there is also an island that is fairly close to land. We walked the beach and then decided to walk through town.
There is a big contrast between old and new Kino. Old Kino is the everyday working mans town whereas new Kino is the holiday area. We went back to the hotel and vegged out for awhile. When we checked in the lady had given us a coupon for a free movie rental; but we didn't think that we would use it. We tried the TV and couldn't get more than one channel and cartoons were on it. We asked the young fellow from the office and he told us, yes, only 1 channel. We saw that there was a cable running into the TV from outside, so we looked and followed the wire into a dish on the roof of the office. We then figured out that they probably only had one reciever, so we had to either watch what they were watching or rent the free movie. OK, we weren't into cartoons and we ready to relax for awhile so headed to the movie rental place. We found a movie and headed back to the room. We couldn't get the DVD player to work, so back again to the office. The young fellow came to our room and he couldn't get it to work either, thank goodness as I was beginning to feel like an idiot by this time. He left and came back with a new player and voila we were in business. We relaxed and watched our movie. After having such a large, late lunch we weren't very hungry; but decided to go out for a small bite and a beer. We decided to return the movie and then walked a couple of blocks to a restaurant and ordered the smallest thing on the menu or so we thought. A hamburger. We sat back with our beer and chatted and the next thing we knew we were being given a large plate with a burger and all its fixings, (including pickles! pickles are very uncommon here) and homemade french fries. I can't remember when I last had homemade french fries and I am not a big fan of fries; but these were GOOD! Hamburgers here are not usually that good either; but this one was excellent. So much for our small bite for dinner, we stuffed ourselves. Not gourmet mexican food; but very, very tasty. We headed back to our room to finish off the evening.
Yesterday morning we drove the new Kino strip again and didn't see anything that would entice us to stay over for another day. There is a big difference between Kino Bay and San Carlos. Kino Bay seems to be more of a vacation town for a younger crowd than San Carlos, with the majority of people seeming to come from Hermosillo. There were some older snowbirds; but not nearly as many as in San Carlos. The amenities for the snowbird crowd are definately not the same. We decided to head home.
There wasn't anywhere to eat on the road home, as we were taking the back roads, so we decided to stop at our friends restaurant in San Carlos. We forgot that it was Monday and they are closed on Monday, so we ate at a different place and had huge omelets. We stopped and got groceries on our way and finally arrived home in the afternoon. I still had time to get to spanish class; but was too lazy to go.
Here are a few more photos, and the rest can be seen here: http://travel.webshots.com/album/558142109uhDdOH?vhost=travel