Rocky Point (Puerto Penasco): News Archives

Small world.

What now seems like a very, very long time ago I knew Mitra Taj as a journalism student - and now I'm linking her article 'Environmentalists vs. Luxury Developers' from worldpress.org. Mitra, if you're out there, drop me a line.

Environmentalists vs. Luxury Developers
Mitra Taj
August 29, 2007

Puerto Penasco, like much of the northwestern coast of Mexico still reeling from a decline in the fishing industry, is getting a makeover. The city, 60 miles south of Mexico's border with Arizona, is increasingly better known for its designer golf courses than for the 850 tons of shrimp it pulled into its harbors last year. But as investors pour millions of dollars into luxury vacation developments, many worry that the rush to cash in on tourism could destroy the unique desert-marine environment — think, coyotes hunting crabs — that draw more than 1.6 million visitors annually.

"Sometimes because we're so desperate we don't think of the future, of preserving what we have," said Fernando Garcia Pacheco, one of 11 councilmen who govern one of the fastest-growing tourist destinations in Mexico.

Here's the whole article

I'll never stop being amazed at the kind of folks you find in Puerto Peñasco.

Take Chris Ward, for example. Here's a man who just purchased his own diesel-powered beach cleaner, right when the city itself is looking at such machines.

If you've ever seen the beach after Spring Break, or maybe after a particularly tequlia-fueled party or two, you know it can be a mess. I've been cut by glass a few times, and I can't tell you how annoying that is.

Chris Ward's kind of taking the idea into his own hands, and he's just opening up his cleaner-for-hire in Puerto Peñasco. I just had to learn what makes a guy import his own beach cleaner, so I interviewed Chris here.

From Flights proposed from Southern California to Mexico's Puerto Penasco in the Press Enterprise:

LA/Ontario International Airport may add a direct flight to Puerto Penasco in Mexico, a small resort destination north of the Gulf of California popular with Arizona residents, according to a marketing firm representing the destination.

AeroMexico's regional airline Aerolitoral is expected to fly a 33-seat plane three times a week between Southern California and Rocky Point International Airport in Puerto Penasco starting next month...

We've seen charter announcements like this one come and go before, so for now, until I've confirmed it with some of the folks mentioned in the story, I'm going to take this one with a grain of salt.

But who knows, right?

Direct flights have been proposed to originate from Southern Californias LA/Ontario airports to destination Rocky Point.  The proposed flights are from airline carrier AeroMexico and would be provided by the carriers regional airline Aerolitoral. 

Mota's Place, one of the handful of shuttle services running from Arizona to Puerto Peñasco ... well, let's just say they are most likely not running any more shuttles to Puerto Peñasco anymore. Or anywhere, for that matter.

From Drug-smuggling inquiry closes down shuttle to Rocky Point in the Arizona Republic:

A popular lower-cost shuttle service between Phoenix and Rocky Point has been shut down amid allegations that its owners were involved in a conspiracy to smuggle drugs and launder the proceeds.

Federal agents raided the bus stand of Mota's Place Shuttle last week in the border town of Lukeville as arrest warrants were issued for the owners of the west Phoenix company and other defendants.

A grand jury indicted 47 defendants, including the company's owners, last week on a total of 115 counts ... The Motas have been the registered owners of Mota's Place Shuttle since 1991.

Reuters has a much better article online now.

Please remember, there are still other shuttle services you can use to get to Puerto Peñasco.

Barnard Thompson's excellent mexidata.info is running (actually it's a reprint from Frontera NorteSur) a very thorough, and very on-spot article called "Coastal Areas — the Good, the Bad and the Ugly", that covers a lot of the issues you've been hearing about over on defrente.puerto-penasco.com: real estate and beach property ownership, ecological impacts of Mexican development, etc.

From the article:

A senator from Baja California Sur, Mexico, is pushing legislation that would remove constitutional restrictions on direct foreign ownership of lands situated within 50 kilometers [31 miles] of Mexico's coasts. Senator Luis Alberto Coppola Joffroy, a member of President Felipe Calderon's National Action Party (PAN), is expected to introduce the measure in the Mexican Congress in early August. If approved, the constitutional reform will eliminate a long-standing law that was crafted to protect Mexican sovereignty from foreign encroachment.

Presently many coastal properties are owned indirectly by foreigners who purchase through trusts administered by Mexican banks. Arguing that new global economic and political conditions favor the lifting of all ownership restrictions, Senator Coppola contends that friendly legislation would boost economic growth.

The article's at http://mexidata.info/id1471.html