Tierra de Tortugas

Kino Bay: ROMANTIC PRIVATE SUITES

Kino Bay: ROMANTIC PRIVATE SUITES

Casa Tortuga Rentals offers three delightful apartments looking out over the Sea of Cortez.

At CASA TORTUGA, we have two studio apartments. The smaller, ground-floor TORTUGA STUDIO is designed for single or double occupancy,* with a double bed, kitchenette, and full bath. It's just steps to the beach:

 

The upper, PELICAN STUDIO — with a queen bed, full kitchen, sitting area with sofa, full bath, and private porch overlooking the sea with a palapa — accommodates a family of four.

 

Both are lovingly decorated in bright Mexican colors, with Talavera tiled baths and kitchens. We think the comfort and charm of our suites, combined with off-street parking, private entrances, direct access to the beach, reasonable pricing, and Casa Tortuga's attention to detail make these some of the finest rentals in Kino Bay.

And...

We also manage a larger, full apartment just two doors away from our place. CASA ENCANTADA is a delightful place with two bedrooms, a cook's kitchen, dining and living room, laundry, single-car garage...and a huge covered porch out onto the beach. It can accommodate a group of up to four adults and two children.

Large families and/or groups of friends often find it convenient to rent the apartments in combination.

For full details, pricing, availability calendars, and to make reservations, email us at  [email protected].

If you want to know more about where we are located and how to get here, visit our blog "Getting to Kino" which includes full driving and travel instructions, plus maps. 

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*May accommodate a young child, with prior approval.

The Paleontologist

Nacho was not the first to notice the strange vehicle that entered the village that morning as he was in his workshop carving a delicate design into a headboard for a wealthy lady from the city. It was Pablito, son of Pablo the gardener, who had first seen the mud-encrusted truck with the placas from ‘Meecheegan.’ Pablito was not sure where that was, but he had a feeling it was far away from the village. He watched as it turned down a dusty side street and stopped in front of the casa where Rosa Marquez lived.

A young, bearded gringo stepped from the car and stretched his arms, then he stood for a moment before walking to the heavy vine-covered gate into the courtyard. A large tree inside the courtyard provided some welcome shade as he stood for another moment studying the heavy gate, almost as if he was afraid to touch it. Then he inhaled deeply, reached up to grab the bell cord, and gave it two short tugs. The loud crisp sound of the old brass bell broke the morning quiet and seemed to announce his arrival to the entire village. He swallowed nervously and glanced at Pablito and a few of the other kids standing together under a tree on the other side of the road. They all stared back at him.

This scene, of dark brown children in ragged clothes against old adobe walls, was one he had imagined many times, and now he was actually here, in the heart of it. He couldn’t help feeling there was something so, well, ‘authentic’ about it, but he knew that would sound terribly naive to his professors. He smiled self-consciously and nodded before turning back to face the gate. On the other side, he could hear Señora Marquez set down a heavy skillet and make her way slowly from the kitchen. The gate swung open and a tiny woman gave him a quizzical look.

“Perdoname Señora, yo soy Matt Cohen.” he said in his best college Spanish.

Señora Marquez said nothing and studied him as he nervously continued. He explained that he was sent by Professor Jackson of the University of Michigan Department of Anthropology. Do you remember Professor Jackson? He was here last year and spoke to you about me coming to interview you?
Señora Marquez pursed her lips as she tried to remember. There was a gringo here last year, but she didn’t recall his name, and she wasn’t clear about what this new gringo wanted, but he seemed to indicate he’d like to come into the courtyard and talk. She beckoned him toward a chair under the tree and closed the gate behind him.

The casa of Señora Marquez was well-known to Pablito and his friends, but they had never been inside it and they stared past the open gate, which was rarely ever opened, into the secret courtyard. It was said, some of their aunts had said it, that she was a bruja who mixed strange potions in her kitchen, and they should stay away from there. Pablito suspected they just said those things to keep kids from going far from home after dark. But he couldn’t be sure, and so he always stayed a safe distance from the casa de Señora Marquez. And he never went down that street after dark.

After the gate closed, Pablito walked on down the street and turned at the corner, to his job cleaning Nacho’s workshop and helping to build interesting pieces of furniture. He worked there every morning and attended school in the afternoons. There was always lots of sawdust on the floor, mingled with those small and delicate curls of wood that fall from the work of carving. He swept and dusted everything to start each day, and he mixed it with dirt and kitchen waste to put on the garden later in the year. Nacho was a wise man who believed in using everything.

This morning as he worked, Pablito told Nacho about the strange gringo in the dirty truck from Meecheegan. Nacho continued to carve and asked him to describe the gringo and he proceeded to tell about the very light skin, the reddish beard, the clean bluejeans, the heavy lace-up boots. Pablito was used to Nacho’s endless questions and he tried to be thorough. Sometimes, when Pablito was describing a scene or event, it seemed as if Nacho had been there instead of Pablito.

“Was he left-handed?” Nacho asked.

Pablito paused searching for an answer until Nacho smiled and winked and prompted him with another question.

“Which hand did he ring the bell with?” he asked quietly.

“The right one!” grinned Pablito.

“Was he wearing a belt? Tell me about the buckle.”

“I didn’t see the belt.” Pablito admitted defeat. He’d been beaten at this morning’s game.

“Ah well. It’s probably not an important detail, anyway.” said Nacho, “Except that, if it had a big shiny buckle, he’s probably a boisterous person.”

Pablito thought for a moment that this gringo was probably too quiet to be boisterous, and so his buckle was probably not big and shiny.

Pablito returned to work, thinking quietly to himself. The morning passed quickly, Nacho handed Pablito his usual 20 pesos, and he went off to school. He knew that Nacho didn’t really need him to work there, but Nacho believed in education and told Pablito that as long as he stayed in school, he could keep the job. It was a good job, too, that gave him enough money to buy a new book now and then, and an ice cream cone sometimes after school. On the way to school he noticed that the gringo’s truck was still parked in front of the casa de Señora Marquez.

In the morning, Pablito was surprised to see the gringo’s truck parked in front of Nacho’s workshop. He entered quietly so as not to disturb the discussion, but Nacho saw him and said, “Ah, this is Pablito, my helper. Pablito, this is Matt Cohen from Meecheegan.”

Matt Cohen put out his hand and said, “Mucho gusto en conocerle.” in a very strange accent.

Pablito smiled shyly and shook his hand before beginning his duties for the day. Nacho spoke his Spanish slowly and clearly so the gringo could understand and he seemed to be speaking just loud enough for Pablito to hear every word. Pablito felt he was meant to listen closely to the conversation, so he did.

It was late morning when the gringo thanked Nacho for his time and left in his truck, and this time Pablito was filled with questions. Nacho began slowly carving the headboard again as Pablito gave him a puzzled look. “I can see you have many questions.” Nacho told his young helper. “That is a good thing.”

Pablito asked why he told the gringo those things when he had told Pablito something very different. Nacho continued carving while he spoke.

“Señor Matt Cohen has come a very long ways to study our indigenous culture,” he began, “and he should not go away disappointed.”

Nacho carefully explained the term ‘indigenous culture’ to his young friend and Pablito replied, “But you’re not from this area originally. You’re from Mexico City, aren’t you?”

“Yes I am.” Nacho replied. “Did you hear me ask what Señora Marquez had told him?”

“Yes, she said that she has seen you often gather shells and seaweed by the full moon,” said Pablito, “and that it’s an ancient custom of the people because the good energy is concentrated then. She said you return to the house to make magical potions while everyone is asleep. That you have some of the strongest magic in the village and that she knows she’s safe as long as you continue to collect the shells and seaweed in the moonlight, just as the old ones did.”

“And what did I say to him?” Asked Nacho.

“You told him it was true. That it was indeed the way of the ancients.” said Pablito.

“That is all true. And what did I tell you, my friend?”

“You said you go out under the full moon because of the incredible beauty you see there when the light is reflected from the waves. You take a bucket and gather shells and seaweed in the quiet time. You call it ‘a gift from the sea.’ Then you rinse it well and dig it into the garden for added calcium.”

“That is also true.” said Nacho.

Pablito was puzzled.

“My young friend, each of us is our own indigenous culture.” Nacho continued, “When I studied anthroplogy at the National University in Mexico City, I collected much data about ‘indigenous peoples’ and I put it all down on paper. When the stack of paper was thick enough, they filed it away in a large library where it will never be seen again, and told me I was an expert with the right to place important titles after my name. But later in life, I found that much of the information was untrue. Although it was not purposefully wrong, it was slanted by individual viewpoints, and did not apply to the entire culture I had spent all that time studying. Suddenly I felt that I had only earned the right to study life perpetually. The more I learned, the less I became an expert on anything. Each question I answer leads to a dozen more. It’s all simply part of the beauty of life.”

“Shouldn’t you have told the gringo that Señora Marquez is wrong?” asked Pablito.

“But Señora Marquez is not really wrong, although that’s not the way you or I might see it. She is old and needs to believe those things in order to feel safe. Who am I to say she’s wrong?”

“But what about the gringo? He’ll go away with strange ideas about us!”

“Yes, and he’ll put it all down on paper, they’ll file it in a large library, and they’ll call him an expert, too.” replied Nacho, “But he needs that title to continue in his carreer and why should I deny him that?”

Pablito sighed and looked away, deep in thought. Then he returned to sweeping the shop.

©2005, Perry Robert Wilkes

The Strange Saga of Frances' Tile Saw

I hope Frances doesn’t find out what happened to his tile saw. At least not soon. I know it’s inevitable, but I need more time to get my explanation together.

It all began when Frances, our seasonal neighbor two doors to the east, was kind enough to lend us his saw for our major remodeling job. It’s one of those big things that sits on a platform and uses water to cool the blade. It’s the kind of saw real professionals use, and it made our tile work far easier and more, dare we say it, ‘professional looking,’ than we ever expected.

Over the course of several months, we had cut a large number of tiles for various floors, walls and countertops, and were about halfway through tiling the beachside veranda when the saw began to make some surprising and discomfiting noises. It sounded like bearing problems, and we suspected that maybe a few other things were going wrong deep in the bowels of the beast. There was also the issue of the floppy blade guard held by a carriage bolt that had worn a groove into the aluminum housing; it now tilted precariously to the right and the nut was rusted solid to the bolt making it impossible to tighten. It leaned over so far that the blade was eating a long arc into it, adding yet another note to the increasing noise level. We finally jammed a small piece of word into it in an effort to keep it more or less level and free of the blade, but the time had come for some basic repairs.

It’s a blistering-hot Friday morning in July when we decide to load it into the van and drive the 110 kilometers to Hermosillo on one of our many hunting-and-gathering trips for construction supplies. We buy as much as we can in the ferreterias (hardware stores) of Kino, but we keep a list of things we need from the big city. With a population over 1 million, Hermosillo has most anything we can imagine we might need, although there are exceptions. And there’s always something we need to add to the list – usually on the way back to Kino after we forgot to get it in Hermosillo.

This particular hot Friday is another in a long string of record-setting days. Outside the windows of our air-conditioned van the daily life of Sonora continues under a broiling desert sun. Vendors stand at major intersections in long pants, long-sleeved shirts and hats, trying to hide from the sun as they sell nopalitos (chopped cactus), duraznos (peaches), abanicos (fans) or whatever else the market will bear. A friend of ours who works for the local gas company told us Hermosillo is the eighth-hottest city in the world, only slightly behind the other seven. It’s the main reason they don’t sell much gas for heating down here. On this Friday, a temperature of 46 degrees C° (about 115 degrees F°) is predicted.

We pull into a tool store to see if they repair large tile saws and are given the name of Juan Carlos at Taller ‘Fimbres.’ He seems to be the “go to guy” for repair work and they recommend him highly. We call his number and find that his shop is at 72 Callejon Nogales, near Avenida Jose S. Healey (named for a prominent person whose family owns the daily newspaper). We head in that general direction while scanning the map to locate this particular callejon, or alley. Although it’s listed in the index, it doesn’t seem to appear on the map. We finally locate a short, un-named alley that runs for two blocks just south of, and parallel to, Avenida Healey, but we arrive to find it named Callejon ‘Healey.’ We drive the entire area with no luck, and I joke, “Oh, everybody knows that Callejon Healey is really Callejon Nogales!” We have actually heard that sort of explanation before.

After more fruitless driving, we stop at a local tienda to ask the whereabouts of this elusive alley. Shopkeepers know their neighborhoods well; they sometimes need to make deliveries, and they know where their credit customers live. Carolyn goes in to ask while I wait in the car with the air conditioner running. Heat waves are shimmering above the street several blocks ahead of us. She emerges a few minutes later smiling wryly. “He said ‘Oh, everybody knows that Callejon Healey is really Callejon Nogales!’” Seems the name was changed a few years back and nobody has put up a new sign. In the scheme of budget priorities here, replacing incorrect or missing street signs ranks near the bottom. Add to that the custom of changing street names at the boundary of each new colonia, or neighborhood, and it makes for some interesting excursions in search of an address. But this is the sort of thing that never seems to strike the local people as unusual. It’s just the way things are.

We finally arrive at 72 Callejon Nogales, which we had actually passed a few times before in our search. Juan Carlos is sitting in a broken chair with a large spool of bright copper wire on the floor beside him, hand-winding an armature out of an electric motor. He’s a young man, sporting a small pony-tail, and there is some very good latin jazz on the stereo. A large fan is blowing hot air across his sweaty body. There are used electrical parts and pieces scattered on the floor and covering several shelves that line one wall. A pair of old couches and a sort of kitchen stand across a large room just beyond several large boxes of old, worn-out drills. To the far left there is a makeshift bedroom. He turns off the music to take a quick look at our saw, saying he’ll need a day to get it apart and give us a price for repairs.

We leave it with him and, after a few more errands, it’s time for lunch. Often we’ll go to one of the little sidewalk taco stands for some delicious fish tacos, but today we’ll splurge. We stop at the ‘Boulevard Café’ on Boulevard Kino near the Zona Hotelera (the Hotel Zone), a nice little place that would stack up against most restaurants in the US, and it’s also well air-conditioned. I order the huitlacoche crepes and Carolyn has the quiche of the day. It doesn’t get much better than this. Outside, a man washes our car for 30 pesos. In this dusty environment, it needs washing. And he needs the money.

We go on about our errands, including the purchase of a pricey new saw blade to replace the old one that wore out and started chipping the edges of the tiles. There are also problems with the water cooling system, but we think we can fix that. The little plastic ‘y’ connector that directs water to both sides of the blade has fallen apart after many years in the sun, and Carolyn duct-taped the 1/4” plastic mangueras (hoses) together to keep the water flowing. It was ugly, it leaked badly, yet it worked – after a fashion. But it was time to look for a replacement. We take the pump and the taped-up hoses into a ferreteria and ask for a replacement ‘y.’ We’re not surprised there’s no such little plastic part available locally. But Mexicanos are very resourceful. The counterman pulls out a 1/4” copper elbow and a copper connector – the kind used on swamp coolers – and suggests we have a soldaduria (welding shop) weld it all together. He laughs and calls it a ‘Mexicanada’ just as a young woman walks by. She reproaches him for using that term, and he looks properly contrite as she walks away frowning. But he smiles and winks as we leave.

We look for a place that might specialize in such connections, and end up at Mangueras Ponce. They have every imaginable kind of hose or tubing and they’ll make up almost any kind of connector we need, but they don’t have any little plastic ‘y’ fittings. Instead, they suggest using an inexpensive 1/4” copper ‘tee,’ and it fits perfectly. We buy one and a few extras for spares, along with a couple meters of 1/4” plastic tubing for further repairs. Frances’ saw has done a lot of hard work for us and we’re ready to repay the favor by putting as many things as possible right again. After a long hot day of assorted other errands, we head for home.

On Saturday, Juan Carlos calls with what he assumes is very bad news. The saw needs new bearings and brushes, and the armature needs cleaning. And yes he can fix the wobbly blade guard that was also causing problems. But the cost will be, he hesitates to say it, 600 pesos (about $US55.00).

We’re relieved at what sounds like a reasonable price for a major reconditioning job, and tell him to proceed. Juan Carlos is pleased that we’ve taken the news so well. The saw will be ready on Monday, and he’ll be at the shop at 4 pm, after finishing various ‘on-site’ jobs around the city. The timing works for us. It will be our last stop before heading due west on the narrow Kino highway well before sunset. All is well.

Over the weekend we find any number of jobs to keep us busy – we work in the early morning and late afternoon to avoid the exhausting heat – but are very much looking forward to getting the saw back so we can continue working on the veranda. The details are coming together very nicely and we’re anxious to see it finished. After eight months of continual construction, we’re anxious to see anything actually finished.

On a very hot Monday we head back to Hermosillo. Besides picking up the saw, we’ll take care of a few left-over errands from the previous Friday. The heat wave continues and we’ve heard that this is the hottest summer since they started keeping records sixty years ago. By early afternoon, the A/C fan is at its highest setting. At four o’clock we pull to the curb in front of Taller Fimbres to pick up the saw. Juan Carlos’ wife is at the stove, trying to fix dinner in the heat as several fans move hot air through the room. With a flip of the switch the motor surges quietly into life. A set of new bearings and brushes and a reconditioned armature have worked wonders. The saw is spray-painted and looking better than we’ve ever seen it. And the blade guard no longer flops to one side. Juan Carlos proudly shows us that it is now welded to the frame to eliminate any further such problems. It’s a very simple solution and I briefly wonder why they hadn’t done that originally, back at the factory. Then I remember that the blade guard is hinged in order to change the blade. Now there’s no way to install our costly new blade. I gently explain this to Juan Carlos, and he is crestfallen.

We realize that somehow cutting the blade guard loose again will mess it up pretty badly and create other problems reattaching it. We study the situation for a better solution, or at least just a workable one. Hacking off the lower part of the guard to allow the blade to tilt and slide outward seems to be the only way to accomplish our goal, but we’ll need to leave the little nipple where the water hose attaches. It suddenly appears likely that instead of returning this tool in better shape than when we got it, we might instead be buying Francies a brand new, and very expensive, tile saw after we get through butchering this one. An old saying goes through my mind, the one about the road to hell being paved with good intentions.

To my surprise, Juan Carlos sets to work with a drill. He drills a number of holes on an arc and attempts to cut sideways to connect them. After he’s created a god-awful mess, and broken two drill bits, the word Mexicanada comes to mind. I suggest we go to the guy who did the welding job in the first place. At least he’ll have some proper metal-working tools. We hope. Juan Carlos calls the welder on his cell phone, then gives us the name and address, and he discounts his price by 50 pesos in an attempt to make amends. There is a palpable look of relief on his face as we drive away on the next leg of our latest adventure.

The welding shop is a small metal shed and a shade structure. The yard is filled with car parts, motorcycle frames, and various other detritus. A huge Freightways semi-tractor sits astride the driveway. Reluctantly, we leave the cool comfort of the van to discuss our problem with Horatio, the welder. The air outside the van hits us like a blast furnace. Horatio agrees the only solution is to continue cutting away the blade guard with a metal grinder. While there is no way the saw is going to look even as good as it did just a few days ago, at least it now has the possibility of not being left with jagged and dangerous edges.

Horatio’s brother José Luis, who owns the semi truck, sits under the shade structure enjoying one ice cold cerveza after another. As the afternoon temperature hovers at well over 100 degrees F°, it looks like a rational way to deal with the shimmering heat of Hermosillo. He offers to share his chilled liquid provenance, but we decline. We still have a long drive back to Kino after this ordeal is over. Over the din of Horatio’s grinding, José Luis tells me that he used to haul loads “en el otro lado,” (on the US side of the border) but now he prefers to drive the Hermosillo to Mexicali route, through Caborca. Other than beer, driving is the love of his life. He also owns the brand new, and very large, Suzuki motorcycle parked beside the truck, and enjoys riding it through the streets of Hermosillo after downing a few cold beers. Horatio, who is sweating over the saw while we talk, is a motorcycle racer, and the trophies on the back wall of the storage shed are his. He’s modifying a motorcycle frame clamped onto the workbench to get ready for the next race season.

Horatio grinds and shapes the edges, but the blade still won’t clear the water nipple. There’s some discussion of shortening the axle that carries the blade but that sounds like a bad idea. Instead, he grinds an angle on one side of the axle to allow the blade to clear. It appears to be a safe solution to the problem, one that still allows plenty of attachment for the blade. We finally load Frances’ now significantly-modified saw into the van, Horatio wipes the sweat from his face, and I pay him 150 pesos (about $14US) for his time, plus another 50 pesos to buy José Luís some more beer. The sun draws near the horizon and we begin our long drive home with the sun in our faces, obscuring the road.

In the morning Miguel, our builder, has a couple of his strong young workers lift the heavy saw onto its platform. He looks at the butchered blade guard and shakes his head. After we tell him the story, he smiles wryly, as he often does, and mutters the word ‘mexicanada’ as he walks away to deal with the morning’s construction-related problems. A couple of his crew took yesterday off, a practice referred to here as ‘San Lunes' (Holy Monday), and there’s much work to do today.

We remove the battered blade that came with the saw and it comes off easily now, thanks to the angled axle. Then we carefully unwrap the pricey new saw blade and fit it to the axle. Well almost. There’s a one-inch diameter hole in the center of the blade but the axle measures only 5/8.” This is not normally a problem as saw blades always come with inserts of various sizes so they fit a variety of tools. But not this one. There are no inserts to be found in the package and there’s nothing around the house or garage that will suffice. There may well have been a little baggie containing inserts in the package at one time, but the package was not sealed and the baggie was probably “liberated” by someone with a similar problem.

At this point, I do the most logical thing. I ask Miguel if he might happen to have something that will fit. Mexicanos generally assume that this is how the world works, that there will be no inserts in the package, and I think I already mentioned they are very resourceful. He replies that he probably has something at the house that will fit, and indeed, when he returns that afternoon he has a suitable insert. With the insert in place the saw works as well as it probably did when new, and the replacement blade makes beautiful cuts. We are ready to finish the veranda.

Except that the heavily modified blade guard now throws out considerably more water than before. Carolyn duct–tapes a piece of heavy plastic along the side to extend the edge down to where it was before the butchery began, and the water again behaves itself. The new water skirt isn’t pretty, but it works just fine.

We call this final ‘improvement’ a “gringanada.” I can’t wait to hear what Frances calls it.

©2005, Perry Robert Wilkes

(This is a sad, but true — if somewhat amusing — tale. You might also want to read Perry’s latest fiction piece, The Palaeontologist, just posted. – CK)