Santa Rosalia is a small-town sort of wedged in a ravine with 3 main streets heading east up from the coast. I enjoyed Santa Rosalia much more than La Paz or Loreto, but not because it was necessarily a more enjoyable town in general. It was just that I had many more opportunities to enjoy it. Since we were at a marina, getting to town was as easy as stepping off the boat with no wet bouncy dinghy ride required. Plus, the town was quite close to the marina, so it was really just a short walk, although it did seem a lot longer in the blistering heat. We had dinner out several times, and although it wasn’t gourmet, we did enjoy the evenings in air-conditioned establishments. We did two big group dinners at a Chinese restaurant about a quarter-mile away from the marina. I’ve never really been a huge Chinese food fan, but these were nice evenings out. I really enjoyed a pizza place called El Muelle (The Dock) since we so rarely have pizza these days (although Lady Carolina has made excellent pizza on the boat a couple times). El Muelle makes a pizza called El Metro (The meter) which, you guessed it, is a meter-long pizza. They let you put up to 4 different sections of toppings, so everyone was happy. Like every restaurant we’ve ever been to outside the U.S., service was slow, but when the beer and wine are flowing and the kids are playing cards, it’s all good. I guess it’s just in the U.S. we have no idea how to slow down. In addition to the air-conditioned restaurants, I’m not ashamed to admit that we visited a couple street hot dog vendors. I love hot dogs with lots of toppings, but I did draw the line at nacho cheese. For some reason I can eat a hot dog, no problem, but nacho cheese just grosses me out. Our favorite place, by far, was the Splash ice cream shop. There was one streak where I went there three days in a row. They had rich and creamy ice cream (like Cold Stone) and waffle bowls and everything.
Provisioning was pretty easy just using my hiking backpack. In fact, one day I made a total of four trips into town. The people there were very friendly. You hardly passed anyone without them saying, “hola,” or “buenas tardes.” There was a fantastic bakery, although I never could figure out how to order non-whole wheat baguettes. I guess they figure all the gringos like their whole wheat. The Tortilleria in town was also excellent, in fact, I am really going to miss fresh-made tortillas when we leave Mexico. We got to know the tiendas in town by the color of their storefronts. The most popular were the “green store” and the “purple store.” In fact, they became the prominent landmarks, so if you wanted to tell someone where something was, it was always so many blocks from the green store.
We had fun in Santa Rosalia, but when it was time to go, we were dying to get back out to an anchorage with a little more space between boats and the ability to swim again
Gresham Family Exodus 