Travel/Arrival/Confusion/Sucess in Mexico (part 2)

Phone's ringing @ 10am. "I'm coming now, be ready”. "Cool, I've got to shower and pack, Jim's coming too, wake him up, and I'll you meet downstairs." "Hey, the more the merrier, see you down there." Quick shower, throw some random shit in a bag, I end up puking while trying to brush my teeth, a cigarette for breakfast, and we're off. Getting out of the city was a bitch, they were having some fucking marathon, which had many streets closed off, so we circled around for forty minutes. After that, we get on the I-10 for a bit, and then onto highway 85, which leads straight down to Puerto Penasco. There really isn't much between Phoenix and Puerto Penasco, it's about 275 miles and all there is to see is: the state prison, a weird town called Gila Bend (which seems to be stuck in the fifties), the town of Ajo (another oasis in the desert), once into Mexico you go through the border town of Sonoyta (pharmacies and taco stands everywhere), besides that, it's just vast desert and mountains. As the landscape changed from mountains to sand dunes all around, we knew we were close. When we get into the city, we have no fucking clue where to go. Jim and I have never been there before, and Craig was there once, six years ago, and fucked up out of his mind, so he forgets almost everything about the place. We drive around for a while not seeing much, then we go down this one street that looks shady as hell, with even shadier characters on it. We don’t seem to be finding much so I suggest we go down to other end of the point to see what’s there. We get down there and find a whole neighborhood of unfinished hotels and condos. We go bit farther and find a residential neighborhood with nothing in it. At this point we’re frustrated, and cursing our lack of research on this. We see this one place called The Reef out in the middle of the dunes, we decide to go in, get a few beers, maybe some food, and figure out what the hell we’re going to do. Once inside we discover a large dancehall playing some fucked up Mexican techno, but only a couple of Mexicans sitting at the bar, and another large Mexican in a tracksuit behind it. We order three Tecates and Craig heads out to the beach where he runs into an American who tells him all about where to go. With that, we down the beers and are gone, back into the center of town, to seek out the other side of the point that we missed on our first pass. When we get to the end of the road, we find the Vina del Mar. Craig vaguely remembers that he partied there all day once, so we decide to go in and get a room. After taking a few minutes to get our shit together, we leave the room and head down to the bar/pool area. For the small amount we paid for the room I was surprised by how nice the pool and Jacuzzi were, but we breezed right by it and went into the bar. After a quick round of Dos Equis, we decided it was time seek out some dinner. We walked through the main square, which consisted of mainly Mexicans, selling fish, offering boat tours, and as one of them put it “anything, I can get you anything you want.” On the way out, we spotted a seafood place built on top of a pier, and decided to go there. We went up to the second floor to find a bar, some tables, and a great view of the Gulf of California with an almost setting sun. While there, we had many more beers, a few shots of tequila, and a great fucking dinner (by the way, Mexican shrimp cocktail is much better than American shrimp cocktail). By now with the sunset, we had to figure out our plan for the night. After paying the check, we grabbed some beers and booze, and then headed back to the room. On the balcony, we drank some Negra Modelos and the Mexican vodka I’d just purchased while we discussed what we were going to do. By this time, we were pretty fucked up and I said we should go down to that seedy area we drove through before. Jim went down to the phone, called up a cab, came back up and said “2 minutes, cab 44”.

----------------------------------------
part three later......