Friday, September 23, 2011

Memo to Steve in Puerto Peñasco


-by El Gitano Peñasco, "The Peñasco Gypsy"

Dear Steve (last name withheld--- but you know who you are). Please, I beg of you, on behalf of everyone in our fair community who knows the difference, stop telling the ‘Press’ and apparently everyone else who will listen to you that "At some point, Puerto Peñasco will be like Cabo (San Lucas)”.

For the record, Steve, I was one of the few gringos who originally moved to Cabo back in the 1980’s and it was through our collective marketing and sales efforts that we transformed what was once a tiny fishing community into a world-class destination. And the fact of the matter is, Steve, Peñasco will never be “…like Cabo…”

There are so many differences I really don’t know where to begin except with a ‘biggie’ and that would be the year round difference in the weather! You see, Steve, up here in PP it gets downright cold for many months each year and we even get fog, etc. Down south, at the tip of the Baja, that just isn’t the case.

Next would be the Grey Whales (and some humpbacks) that migrate each year in such numbers traveling past Cabo that you’re hard pressed on any given day during their season to not see them breaching out of the water, often in ‘pairs’, on both the Pacific and Sea of Cortez side.

Which leads me to yet another difference, which is that Cabo is truly at ‘Land’s End’ (next ‘land’ stop due south is very far away, you know, aka: the South Pole) and Cabo has both the great deep blue Pacific Ocean and the emerald Sea of Cortez as its door mat, so to speak!

And Cabo is really not a ‘drive-to’ destination either, Steve, which is why when Fonatur built the airport there back in the late 1980’s they did so because there was really no other real option for the ‘masses’ to come and enjoy…

I could go on (and on and on) but will end today with one simple bit of advice. That is to ‘sell’ Puerto Peñasco for what it was, is and will be. By doing so, unlike those Pump and Dump carpetbaggers who float in and out of town from time to time, we’ll develop a long term growth plan based on reality and not based on some illusions that will ultimately destroy people’s dreams, hopes and aspirations.

A Gypsy can always dream!

¡Viva Puerto Peñasco y México!

Gypsy

elgitanopenasco@gmail.com
Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover. -Mark Twain