The sun rose right behind the Westy, the moon also, once it was close to full moon.    The night of full moon, was also full cloud, but the day before was beautiful, so the photos came out just right.

Gorgeous sun rise, what a shame that fence is there…..

Moon rise, one evening before full moon.

Moon shine over the Sea of Cortez.

As you know, i love birds, so i cannot pass it up to talk about the few we encountered here, in San Felipe.      First of all, there are the Pidgeons, a small flock lives here, and pretty soon they found out that the Westy, with myself in it or near it, was a great source of some goodies!!!       They behaved themselves quite well, Bert , with his undying love for me, tolerated them, and even Roel after a while stopped smirking at the birds!!    Thank you Roel!!!       They would sit in the van, looking around, sit with us, when we had our coffee with oat cakes, preened themselves near us, and slept right next to us!

Then there were the humming birds, at first just one, but once Ineke changed the mixture in her feeder, here they came!!!!   Lots of them!!!    One was a very beautiful little purple guy, he loved sitting on the handle bars of our bikes.   The little  Finches learned quickly that there were bread crumbs to be had, so our little aviary was complete!

Looks like he is sitting on Bert’s lap…….

No words necessary…..

You might have noticed that my posts all of a sudden disappeared and changed, yesterday, for whatever reason, the posting changed itself, the size of the photos changed, things doubled up, very , very frustrating!!!   I then shut the whole thing down , just before i was about to throw the PC into the water!!!         So, here we are again, and again, i will tell you, we had a great time in Mexico.      Ineke and myself discovered the lime margaritas, and as her and i  just talked about today, that very first one, sitting at the Malecon, the four of us, that first one tasted the best!!!     After that, i have to confess, we had several more, (on different days!!), but they were never as good as that first one….

We went out for dinner a few times , mostly together with our new found friends, one evening we went to a dollar special, everything was mostly a dollar, or two, or three, the margaritas were one dollar!!!    i ordered quail, tiny little birds, three of them, when they arrived , i could hardly see them on my plate, and they were the toughest little birds i ever ate!!       But, i love to try new things.     Ineke was smart and had the casadea, with guacamole and sour cream……ooohhh….yum!!!!

Most delicious , well presented lime margarita.

I asked Bud to stop here, on the way back, this huge arch way intrigued me, he told us ,that someone , with money at the time, built it as the entrance to a lavish hotel and resort, its a most beautiful spot, with an incredible view, once the construction stopped, people started driving into it, down to the beach, so they put in some steel posts to prevent that.   In the meantime, this is just standing there, i do wonder what is going to happen with this.

Just standing there now, this huge concrete arch.

He took us over the Malecon, the road strip along the beaches, this is where most the musicians hang out, and where the little restaurants are, we ate here several times, the food is cheap, and i really like it!!      After the Malecon we headed a bit more out of town, where we came face to face with all the unfinished buildings, huge concrete skeletons , supposing to be a hotel, or resort, rebar lying around, lots of it, cement posts sticking out of the sand, all abandoned, nothing finished, no more funds.   Its very sad to see this, we did come to one area , where they are buildings some fancy homes, more California style, the Americans live in these, but only the odd one was occupied, several were for sale, everything feels deserted and lonely.

The area outside of San Felipe, mostly large, fancy houses, with no one in them.

The red brick driveways are being build by hand.

Bud pulled his car behind his motor home, he lives all the way on Bainsbridge Island, has to take a ferry near Seattle !!!     So, on one of the nice sunny mornings, Roel ,Bert and myself settled ourselves in Bud’s car and away we went!!   Its a good thing ,he REALLY knows where to go!!!!         He took us through the streets, lined by shops, venders everywhere ,music coming from several boom boxes, the roads are very rough, some of them just loose rocks, everywhere are people, fixing things, selling things, little stands with POLO, chicken, barbecued right on the side walk, the smells are lovely, i think i could have eaten polo every day!!     Actually, i think we did!!!     mexicans with   Little carts, built on top of a bike, or trike, offer coconut drinks, pina colada, or orange juice.     We stopped at the biggest grocery store, and Bud showed us all the wares, everything looked good and fresh.     The avocados were 10 cents each!!!!!!!      We bought many……..  But we always paid in US dollars, so you try to convert it all in your head but i grew tired of that, we needed it, and that was that!!!      Bert managed to find a bike repair shop, just a little shed with a bit of a roof, and all kinds of bike parts in side.       One of my tires was about to blow up, so Bert took by bike to him, and came back with two beautiful new tires, with white walls!!!!     This is truly amazing as i have a folding bike and the tires are very small, what are the chances that someone in San Felipe has these size tires??????

On we went with Bud, he showed us the outskirts of the town, the immense poverty, the government built low cost housing  here, but they are barely  200 square feet, a cement block, people lived in some of them, others were trashed, glass broken, filled with garbage.       The amazing thing is, that those that were occupied, mainly by families, had the cleanest laundry hanging outside i have ever seen!!!!    Absolutely snow white shirts, the children here have uniforms for school, and they look spotless at all times!!!!As we drove by, people standing outside ,waved to us, and gave us a big smile.   What a lesson is this, how much we have, how rich we are, and then, we are still complaining!!    I felt helpless, what could i do, i wanted to start a garbage pickup, because all the garbage of the low cost housing lies around the buildings, in the sand.      Little kids play there, surrounded by skinny dogs, and these little boys laugh and have fun!!!!         There are so many young men standing around because the fishing has been terminated, what else can they do!????     Sell stuff to the rich Americans, come by and ask them to wash their huge motor homes, but what else can they do…….

Many of the signs are in English ,to lure the tourists.

Selling jewelry on the street, this vendor came by time and time again, i wish i could have just bought the whole thing…….