We’d had some winds, and even a light dusting of rain since I arrived here in San Felipe a couple or three weeks ago and my car had been bombarded with bird poop on the regular so as soon as the weather cleared up I ran up the hill to my favorite car wash place. This guy does a terrific job. Vacuums the inside, cleans the dash and gauges, even cleaning the inside window glass. Washes and fully dries the exterior. Cleans and polishes the tires. Damn, all that is so much appreciated and really needed as there’s not a car wash in the US that will do all that for what this guy charges…$12.50 USD. And of course as the owner of the car, I tend to ignore the interior so it needed a good cleaning.
As you can see from the pic he has a shaded, cement pad area to work in. Has all the tools of the trade along with strong water pressure. I’ve been coming to him for years now after I’d tried 2-3 other car wash places around town the first year I visited SF. He’s the best, not the least expensive but the best. I’m not going to quibble about $2 dollars I could save somewhere else in town. BTW, there are zero automatic car wash machines in San Felipe.
With a nice shiny car with no more bird poop on it, I can drive anywhere without being mocked. Heh.
And so I did drive somewhere a few days later. Around 14 KM (8.7 Miles) northward on MX-5 to the only real brew pub in the area. SAN FELIPE BREWING CO, México 5 178, Rancho El Dorado, 21859 B.C.
I haven’t been there since the last time I was in San Felipe like 3-4 years ago so I’d forgotten about the place. Barely remembered ever being here…But first, a picture essay of the trip out to the brew pub. This is the west bound street I take out of the RV park. Up a steep hill, and then it looks like this.
If I eventually turn right to take the route over to the main drag in town, I usually go on a familiar route by a school, and in the roads around any school in town are these speed bumps. Big enough to really get your attention.
Anyway, after getting out of town and it’s a small enough town that it doesn’t take long, I’m north bound on MX-5.
Many roadside businesses scattered along the route.
Including land developed and sold basically as time share property. I’m not sure any States citizen or Canadian can actually own the land outright, they’re like co-owners with the Mexican investors/speculators. Because these properties are very near the Sea of Cortez…but maybe the laws are different now?
And here’s the strip mall where the brew pub is located. Over on the left near the end of the building.
First impression is, yowser! Look at all those brews! First choice was Baja 250 IPA. Good! Not Tucson Dragoon IPA GREAT but Good. Decided to get a 6 pack of that. I did see that I was charged $520 pesos for a 6 pack and one beer, but didn’t really calculate how much in USD that was before I left. Turned out I paid $22 freakin’ bucks for a freakin’ 6 pack of 12 oz beers. WTF! They charged me $3.67/can whereas they only charge $3.50 at the bar for what appeared to be a 12 oz glass. I’ve never in my life had that experience where they charged more per take home can than they did for a bar serving. Mainly because it takes far less labor to fill several 10’s of cans for stock in far less time and bother than it does to serve individuals sitting at the bar. No glasses to sterilize afterwards or bar to wipe down either.
Here’s a video of the video they were playing on a loop on their TV. This is how they can stay solvent during the slow times…the Baja 250, 500, 1000, etc.. brings 10’s of thousands into the Baja during race season and many of the races start and finish here near San Felipe, many go right through along side of MX-5 out in the desert, continuing on south of here. And the outrageous pricing for 6-packs help them stay afloat too. These races are the yearly big attraction, there’s several of them spread out over the winter. If you watch this video, you might see why the races are so popular. The off road vehicles are really cool.
Finished my beer, and on the way home.
You’ll see many of these boarded up properties alongside the road here near town. Many of them have gringo owners who only come down once every few years. Meanwhile they stay boarded up.
These are the welcoming arches and tiny grass park just before the town starts. Kind of traditional for Mexican towns to have these, most aren’t this big or double though.
A couple blocks behind the arches, there’s a military road block. They had this truck ahead of me pull over for a search, me they just waved through. Don’t wanna hassle the tourists.
Then this is the main route into San Felipe. Heads straight to the beach with ALTO signs every block practically.
Around the middle of the route to the sea there’s a roundabout and I take it south on alternate routes to avoid some of the Alto signs.
This day I just didn’t care and took a route I knew has Alto signs. Whatever.
Here you can see the steep drop off down to nearly sea level. This is where I’ll head, on up this hill rather than down, in the event of an earthquake and tsunami.
When I get to that white building, a hotel, I turn right to head to the RV park.
And I’m almost at the turn into the RV park. See that string of cars on the left? I turn into the campground just beyond the last car in the string.
I’ve been here at Campo SF nearly two months now and other than the Class A RV that was here when I arrived, which stayed 2 weeks, I’m practically their only customer. Occasionally a truck camper, camper van, or Class C with stay a day or two, but it’s basically dead here. Suits me fine other then the lack of fellow RVers to talk to because that means I’m usually the only one using the internet. I stream to my TV and PC for hours every day and as long as there’s no crowd downtown sucking up bandwidth or big wind storm happening, there’s rarely a buffering delay. I love it.
Remember I mentioned the seagulls who had taken up residency here in the park, sploshing my RV and car with bird poop? Here’s where they hang out. That’s a splash pool used in the summer. But it has a foot or two of water in it over the winter to keep the dirt and debris from solidifying. The birds use it to bath and drink. This is just a small group today as many of them are out on the sea fishing.
These hawks decided to hang out here on the roof overlooking the pool the seagulls like and boom, no more seagulls hanging around. They were heading south and only stuck around for a couple days but the gulls are still avoiding this place. Other than flying over it. Been a couple weeks but small groups are finally using the pool again.
This is one of the street side restaurants along the malecon, across from the sea. Decided to have b-fast here last weekend and here’s a few pics.
Right next door is another restaurant. Just that fence between them. And further on, next to that place is the Pullman style restaurant where I got that full chicken dinner. Turned out I got 5 full dinners out of their meal for two with all the food they provided.
Here’s their menu, dunno why it’s crooked.
Had a scrambled egg with bacon b-fast. Comes with all shown here except the cappuccino which comes from another business next door…I have to go there and pay when I leave.
And it wasn’t very good. Okay, but not good. The potatoes were under cooked, the refried beans were blah, the eggs were meh. The corn tortillas were good though. Fine for $6 USD.
And here some little birdies are asking for handouts. So I toss them a tortilla chip now and again.
One of these little guys was pretty brazen and hopped over and tapped my big toe. I slipped him his own chip. This was left over portion of food so took it home.
Enjoyed my meal there. If I swing around I have a view of the road, the malecon, and the sea. Down that street are many restaurants and bars and I’ve visited them all over the years I’ve stayed in SF.
That’s it until next time. Thanks for reading!
Those birds are my pals up here in Chelan. It’s amazing after 21 years the wrens show up and peck on my windows, and chirp, hey David we are back, where’s chow?
Aw, that’s cool. I would enjoy that immensely.
How about a few pictures of the beach?
I could share one of mine with the snow piled up to the eves..
4* right now and it’s only 8:30 PM.
Getting colder, even in Seattle..
Brrrrrrrrrrrrrr.
Sure, send a link or share a photo, I’ll publish it here. Good contrast to the beach photos I’ll publish soon.
I will get a bunch of beach pics! I’ve been lax, I’m just a few steps from the beach and sea and could easily get a bunch of shots. I’ll do that soon. Stay tuned!