Healthy Living and Traveling in Mexico: GLORIOUS SUNSETS AT PLAYA LAS GLORIAS! Who wants to Zumba here?

OUR FAVORITE STOPPING OFF PLACE ON OUR DRIVE TO MAZATLAN!

Playa Las Glorias is little more than a beachfront RV Park, Restaurant, and hotel named Mr. Moro's. We look forward to going there each winter on our way south to Mazatlan. Some people ask us “What do you do there?” The answer is “Not much, except enjoy the restfulness of this quiet beach”. Playa Las Glorias (The Glory Beach) is on the Sea of Cortez, so generally the water is calm, protected as it is by the land mass of Baja California on the other side of the sea.

In the mornings, I enjoyed sitting in my beach chair on a gentle sand dune while I drank my coffee, watching the low waves break. This year, ours was the first RV to arrive at Mr. Moro's RV Park, so we had the first campsite parallel to the beach. The campground

had taken on a different look than I remembered from the last time we had been here about three years previously, as though the sand had crawled from the beach, over the low fence, and piled onto itself creating rolling waves of sand dunes. I dragged my chair to one of these rises in the sand in front of our camp to get a better view of the waves. The breakers were larger this time of day due to the high tide. It was so restful to watch the graceful pelicans flying in a line toward the north, gliding just above the water’s surface. We jokingly call them the “Mexican Air Force”, because this is as much of a flying squadron as we have ever seen in this peace-loving country. Pelicans soared by in a perfect line, following the top of the swell of a wave gathering energy, and then just as the wave began to break, they veered off to find another. One morning, I caught sight of an animal’s back breaking the surface, swimming lazily in the direction opposite of the pelicans. As I continued to watch, I saw several fins

moving in a graceful arch out and then back into the water and realized it was a pod of dolphins traveling south together, just outside the line of waves. How beautiful these marine animals were, not in any hurry to get wherever they were going. There is a lesson in that about healthy living, I think. Take time to do nothing. Even the beach dogs and Bella agreed with this concept here in Playa Las Glorias.

We learned later in our trip that in recent years Mr. Moro’s has become more of an “Event Center” for Mexican families and businesses now. Since there have been fewer RVers traveling to Playa Las Glorias, the maintenance of the RV Park has been mostly abandoned. Renting the swimming pool, restaurant, and hotel rooms for parties is what is keeping this property afloat financially. Sunday is family day in Mexico, so the beaches are the most crowded on Sundays. Mexican families get together for the day for picnics and other outings, so Sunday is a busy day at

Playa Las Glorias and other beach resort towns in Mexico, and Mr. Moro’s is a favorite. The Sunday that we were at Mr. Moro’s there was a large party held by the Sanditas Company, a major tortilla chip producer. The employees and their families started arriving by the carloads about 10:30 that morning. A Party Company showed up and soon they had set up a juke-box, a mechanical bull (it was actually a mechanical calf), and inflated jumping platforms for the kids. Mexican party music filled the air and refreshments were served. The swimming pool at Mr. Moro’s is a perfect place for a kid’s party, and soon it was full of children from age 3 to 15. The adults sat at tables around the pool eating peanuts and drinking soda, sometimes beer. Jon and I sat by the pool watching the festivities, and the children watched us. I walked over to watch people of all ages riding the mechanical calf, the operator spinning it back and forth, speeding it up until the rider fell off laughing good-naturedly! The

Mexicans know how to have fun! A couple of young women saw me taking photos and they invited me to take a ride, but I smiled and politely declined. One woman offered to take my photo, and it turned out to show me dressed in typical casual beachwear in front of our Southwind motorhome. Good memories...

Zumba classes are plentiful in Guasave according to the Zumba.com Class Finder. There are six certified Instructors listed and we half-heartedly tried to find one of the fitness centers listed. After making the one hour drive into town, trying to figure out the one-way streets so that the GPS didn't send down a street the wrong way, we found the bank, the TelCel phone store, the Pemex gas station. Then, all we wanted to do was make the one-hour drive back to Playa Las Glorias. Who wants to Zumba here, when we can hang out at the beach and watch the pelicans fly by? Maybe mañana.....

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