Celestun

Salli and Doug, Sunday in the zocalo! Their first day in Merida, and of course, we enjoyed the street vendors for lunch.










Thursday, Jan 15, 2009
We caught the early bus to Celestun. It's overcast again, heavy dark clouds. Windy, too. This is sssoooo unusual for this time of year! This is the boat/tour guide rental booth on the beach at Celestun. This is a major bird stop-over location for all kinds of fall and spring migrating birds. There is a larger pink flamingo colony here, too. We hired a boat here, with a french couple, and ran south along the coast then up the river and eventually into the magrove forest. We saw many brown pelicans (whose bellies hold more than the billicans!), white pelicans, soprey, ahningas, cormorants, frigates and pink flamingos. And, this is the off season!



Our boat, and Captain, Poni (little horse he told us!).









We stopped at a petrified forest - salt water washed over into the fresh water area in a huge 1980 hurricane. There was quick sand here, too. The most interesting part of the trip was seeing the shrimp fishermen. They were in the river, in water that is chest deep. They have small boats, about 10 feet long maybe. The fishermen get out of the boat, turn the boat sideways to the current, and PUSH the boat against the current, with a net dragging behind them. Walking against the current for three hours at a time. And we think we work hard somedays.

In the mangrove swamp, we say giant termite nests in the trees. There was a cenote, too, where we stopped briefly, to walk on an elevated walkway, to stretch our legs. Some people were swimming, but it was too cool today for me.

When we got back to the beach, three hours later, we ate a delicious lunch of fresh fish and shrimp, and walked in the sand for a while before catching the bus back to Merida. It began raining just as we got on the bus.