First Choice RealtyGuide to San Carlos
Exploring Miramar and San José de Guaymas
Miramar 11 miles
The following destinations can be accessed from Highway 15. Drive south on Highway 15, as if headed for Guaymas. At the underpass, just before reaching Guaymas, take the right-hand turn, west to Miramar. A second and more scenic route leads from Boulevard Beltrones between San Carlos and Highway 15 interchange along the coast and past the Delfinario.
This is a pretty, upper class Mexican suburb with homes built high on the hills, in little subdivisions on the right side of the road, and other homes built on a busy, festive beach where families and children congregate on weekends. The kids have a great time riding the water bikes, banana boats, inner tubes etc. There is a pretty good taco restaurant too.
During the Christmas season, visit the housing subdivisions in Miramar at night to see the delightful Christmas light decorations on every street and house.
Hotel La Playa de Cortes
11.8 miles
This famous old hotel is also on the beach at Miramar and is a must see. The hotel has a gallery of interesting photos, and a seductive bar with fantastic mahogany woodcarvings. The food and drinks are not as good as they used to be, but have a drink there to enjoy the ambience. They still serve a Sunday morning buffet.
The Pearl Farm 13 miles
Perlas del Mar de Cortez (The Pearl Farm), located on the ITESM campus, is one mile from the Playa de Cortes Hotel . It is a very interesting place to visit, and there is no admission fee. You will get a guided tour of the pearl culturing farm on Bacochibampo Bay at the School of Marine Sciences. The tour guide makes the tour both educational and entertaining.
In the gift shop, they sell a nice souvenir for visitors, an oyster shell with an almost fully formed pearl embedded for only $5. The black and deep purple pearl earrings, pendants, and rings are one-of-a-kind designs. The prices are very reasonable for what you are getting.The prices range from about $70 to $500. The higher priced items are set in hand made mounts of 14-carat gold. Mon.-Fri. from 9 AM to 1 PM and 3 PM to 4:30 PM and Saturday from 9 AM to 11:30. -Phone 622-0136.
San José de Guaymas 13 miles
How to Get There
We are fortunate to live so close to this historic site. San Jose de Guaymas is only 13 miles from San Carlos. Take Highway 15, as if going to Guaymas, but before reaching Guaymas, turn left (east) onto the paved road to the Guaymas airport. The pavement on airport road runs out after 10 miles. About 12.5 miles from San Carlos, you will see a low mountain peak named El Vigia Mountain (Cerro de Vigil). This prominent landmark outside Guaymas is next to ITSON technical college, by the radio towers.
El Vigia is a favorite of hikers and climbers. The summit, 2000 feet high, is also accessible by car on a rough dirt road. On the road to San Jose you will pass close by the Hacienda Aruñez. Actually, you can’t see much of the hacienda because it's surrounded by high walls. Most of the old hacienda buildings are no longer standing, but the area still maintains a working ranch and a large orange grove.
History of San Jose de Guaymas
Although unmarked and little known to the casual tourist, this one of the earliest of the Jesuit missions in Mexico (1685). According to one source, San Jose de Guaymas Mission Church was the first mission site Kino established. However, other sources say his first mission was built in 1687 in Ures or in a town about 100 miles north called Dolores, Sonora, which was the base from which his various expeditions in Sonora and Arizona started. This mission was not built by Padre Kino, but by a contemporary of his. Kino did visit the mission during the years he devoted to building missions in the Altar area of northern Sonora and southern Arizona. The church standing there now, though old, is not the original construction. It is an interesting looking church, a good subject for painting or photographing. Some of the colored windows are made of beer bottles, and through them sunlight shines in golden patches. This church is still active, but there is no resident priest, so the church will be closed unless the local children are there receiving religious instruction on Saturday morning. Adjacent to the church is a community center. The center is sponsored, in part, by an interested group in Tucson.
The village of San Jose de Guaymas marks the site of the original settlement of Guaymas. When the seaport at Guaymas was first settled, Guaymas lacked water and it was considered to be too hot a place to live. So early settlers built their homes in San Jose de Guaymas, 10 kilometers away, where there was an estuary and streams to supply the settlement with water. Because there is water in this valley, there are several ranches, vegetable fields, orange groves, and pleasant shady homes in present day San Jose. This rather poor village is developing into a popular home site for Mexican families and a number of pleasant shady homes and gardens can be spotted along the roads.
Not until 1769 was the city of Guaymas built at its present location.
Giant Cardón Cactus Forest El Sahuaro 17.5 miles.
After you leave San Jose de Guaymas, you can turn left from the church plaza to visit the old hacienda, or keep going straight ahead to visit the Cardón Cactus Forest three miles away. There are no clear markers to this place, so go with someone who knows the way. The public land around the Cardón forest has been used as a casual trash dump in the past, but the government and local volunteers are cleaning it up nicely and converting its use to a nature reserve. The road from the Cardón forest on into Empalme actually IS a trash dump. Avoid it if you can. It is better to return from the cactus forest to San Carlos by the same road you went in on. The Cardón Forest is called in Spanish El Sahuaro , but actually there are few if any saguaros in that area.
Identifying Columnar Cactus
The Cardón cactus is a columnar cactus which strongly resembles the saguaro, the organ pipe, and the senita cactus, but the cardón is heavier and broader.
Vultures Sitting Atop A Cardón Cactus
There are many senita (rhymes with Rita) cacti growing nearby but no saguaros that I have seen. The Senita or Old Man Cactus (think “senile”) has bristly tops that look like hair brushes with long white hairy threads growing from them. It is a columnar cactus 3-9 feet high, with 6-13 branches on thin stems branching out from the base of the plant (Lophocereus schottii). The bristles are thin and twisted, giving a hairy appearance. They grow in open spaces and flower during April – August. The senita cactus in this area are not as tall as the organ pipe, which are maybe 12 feet tall, and the senita grow even smaller as you travel south.
The cardón has a massive trunk and grows to about 30 feet. That’s as tall as a city telephone pole! The cardón grow almost as tall as the oldest saguaro in Arizona, but the cardón are heavier and larger overall. Cardón cacti are rare and do not grow in the USA, even in Arizona. They grow only in Baja and Sonora.
Saguaro Cactus
Saguaro cacti are very common near Nogales and in southern Arizona, but are less common in the San Carlos area. There are however, many fine, old saguaro planted in front of the old Club Med. The cardón has a heavy trunk and thick branches arise one or two feet above the ground. Saguaro, on the other hand, does not put out branches until the cactus reaches the size of a small tree. Their branches form arms about four feet from the ground.
Organ pipe are the most common columnar cacti in this area. Their branches are slender and begin at ground level. So the silhouettes of the different cacti are so distinctive, they can be identified from a distance. The organ pipe cactus is usually seen on sloping hills but other cacti prefer flat land and plenty of space.
Other ways to tell the difference among the columnar cactus is by their height, in the number of ribs, and the color of the flowers. The best time to see the different types of columnar cactus in bloom is in June. The saguaro has small pink or lavender flowers, while cardón have white flowers.
Organ Pipe Cactus
