Last Days in San Carlos and Leaving Mexico

Our last week was full of fond farewells with friends, our favorite establishments, the beaches and alot of cleaning,  packing, donating, storing...... We all got haircuts, including Boo.

It was tough telling Boo that we were leaving
and that there would be no more roaming
the beaches until December.  He was not
happy with the news.

Saying goodbye to our wonderful ocean view.  Boy,
will we ever miss this.

We spent alot of time at the pool, getting in
a little exercise and relaxation along with
all the socializing.

 Packing the car for the trip up and down from Mexico is a lesson in organization and patience.  Despite storing a few things here like canned goods and beach equipment, we still have the car packed to the hilt.

Finally got a good car wash and we are ready to pack it up.

Goodbye to our neighbor, Selena, and Charlie

Dude says goodbye to us.

We took off on the 30th and headed northeast from Hermosillo to Banamichi.  Thank goodness for our new free map app called maps.me which downloads the maps offline.  We would not have been able to negotiate our way through Hermosillo without it.  Thank you, Sam!

The ride to Banamichi parallels the Rio Sonora,
dry in many spots like this.....

 We traveled through many small farming communities.  Interesting that there is desert everywhere but the area right around the river is bright green.

A beautiful town square in Baviacora

The mission church there

We finally made it to Banamichi, which seemed to take forever.

This is the entrance to our hotel, Posada del
Rio Sonora.  Is that a terra cotta warrior from
Sichuan?  What's he doing here?

That's our room at the end of the hallway

A beautiful, festive dining room.  Because
we were guests, they would cook for us
whenever we wanted.  So we had comida
when we arrived and then snacks later on the
terrace.

The Lady of Guadalupe altar in the dining room

This is the terrace where we later enjoyed sunset and a sip
of the local mescal, Bacanora.  Mescal is any liquor
distilled from 100% agave.  Tequila is mescal from the
town of Tequila.

The front of the hotel

 We were inspired to come to Banamichi by an article in the New York Times about Linda Ronstadt returning to her roots in Banamichi in 2013.  We listen to one of our favorite albums of hers, Canciones de mi Padre, all the time-particularly when we are in Mexico.

This is a picture of Linda from the article
on the terrace at our hotel.

We went on a very interesting drive to find the local hot springs.  We had a hard time negotiating the roads and some of the signs along the way.  There were river crossings and cows and pot holes and lots of signs pointing to places in the woods which looked a little dubious.

This makes it look like the springs were alot more
presentable than they were.  Picture Ojo Caliente back in
the 70s!  Pretty funky!  Boo did not like this at all!

When I took this picture of the moon rising, there were
five vultures in this tree-now only one.  Hope they weren't
waiting for us!

We had to drive through this!  Survived!

A ranchito out in the country

A typical street in town

A little more upscale

View of the valley from one of our walks

Very upscale-wonder who lives here?

Rio Sonora where there is some water

Beautiful cacti, flowers and green trees are everywhere!

In Aconchi, there is a fabulous old mission church from the late 1600s.

We stopped at the cemetery in town.

This was a favorite.  Notice the cowboy
boot filled with flowers and the cross
made of horseshoes.  A very importante
caballero!

Leaving for the border

We headed north to Cananea.  The roads were pretty unpredictable-lots of potholes in places.  It took forever to get there.  The road from Cananea to the border crossing at Naco was wonderful-what a delight to be able to go 65 miles an hour again.  The crossing was easy-liquor? (two bottles).  Fruits, Vegetables, Meat? (no).  Welcome to the good ole USA!  Next stop-Bisbee!