Andre and Wendy: Rio Lagartos

Saturday April 21

Today we are off on our full day tour to Rio Lagartos. We are to meet outside our house at the hotel right across the street. We figured it was easier meeting here that to give a street address, we were wrong. We were told it was a Camry going to pick us up at 8AM, there was a Camry waiting outside, but it was for a Spanish couple. The driver said our driver would be there soon. The driver came outside and I checked with him again that he wasn’t going with us, no his couple were still having coffee. He looked on his phone and said that our driver was Victor and he would be here soon. Turns out Victor was at a different hotel waiting for us. He was a little embarrassed when he showed up, but a really nice guy so we were happy.

It is nearly a 2.5 hour drive from Merida to Rio Lagartos. It is really good roads so went pretty fast. We talked a lot with our driver, his English was really good, time flew by. One bathroom break and we were there.

Bathroom break, chocolate bars kept in a fridge to keep from melting

Rio Lagartos is a fishing village where you can go on a tour to visit the flamingos. It is a bit of a boat ride to get to them, but our guide came with us and we were the only 3 in the boat which was great, we could stop wherever we wanted to. On our way to see the flamingos we stopped to take pictures of the different birds in the mangrove area. Some pelicans, white egret, blue heron. We also saw a couple of crocodiles.

The "s" was missing from the sign, the "I" won't be there for much longer either

Boats used for tour

Restaurant where we will have lunch later

View from water of the town of Rio Lagartos

Off to the mangrove!

These people are coming from the mayan bath

Finally to the flamingos. You can only get so close because you don’t want to scare them, also it is very shallow so the boats can’t get too close. We saw one flock land to join the small flock that were already there. Our guide told us the best months to visit are January-March. He also told us that a tour to Celestune earlier this week only saw 3 flamingoes, that would have been so disappointing. We only saw about 40, but it was still a very pretty scenic area, and not too many boats around.

These ones seemed to be sleeping when we first arrived

After visiting the flamingoes we went to Las Coloradas which is just after the area where the flamingoes were. We didn’t realize the whole tour was done in the same boat ride. This was not what we expected at all. We had read about this pink lake. Really it is a large salt pond/lagoon where the water is trapped, whatever is in the water has made it so pink. It was much smaller than we thought, but still cool to see. I wish we could have gotten closer. You get out of the boat, but you can only walk to close. The outer pond was quite brown today, and the inner pond was really pink.

After visiting Las Coloradas we asked if we could go see the flamingoes again since we were the only ones on the boat, yeah he took us back again. They are even a little further away now, but still great to see again.

Next stop is at the Mayan mud bath. I chose to be the photographer here. But even being the photographer you sink into mud up to your knees. I was a little afraid carrying Andre's camera, but we all survived. It was slippery!

Our boat captain

Mayan mud bath time, the captain dug down for the mud

We next took a boat ride back to where we started past here to the entrance to the Gulf Of Mexico where Andre was to jump in to get all the mud off of him. I took advantage and went for a swim here too. The water was gorgeous, really pretty blues/greens. And oh so salty! It was fun seeing a few other boats along here with passengers getting cleaned up as well.

The water was beautiful here, I helped Andre get cleaned up a little

Fishing boats at the entrance

Now back to where we launched from today for lunch. We had a good shrimp soup, then some fried fish which was excellent. For some reason they didn’t have any yummy drinks like margaritas and mojitos, just beer and hard stuff. Knowing that we had over 2 hours to get home I am kind of glad I didn’t have any liquor.

Back home with “maybe” a couple of naps along the drive.

Tonight we went to Mexican night at the Paseo. I can’t believe we haven’t done this yet. Every Saturday night they have vendors set up and different places to eat. The lady that makes tacos at Santa Lucia park on Sunday is here on Saturday night, so that is where I ate. Andre ate at another vendor. Total price for supper was $15.00 because we needed to try some pie for another vendor for dessert, and then there is ice cream…. The show represents different dancers and singers from different parts of Mexico.

Italian Restaurant a couple of blocks from us that Andre wants to try

My taco lady "friend"

It was a really good show. So many people turned out to watch, mostly all Mexicans. They had Mexican singers that I think were popular? At least they sang popular songs which the audience sang along to, sorry we couldn’t contribute on that.