Mar 13 A day out to the seaside (Celestun)

  We take off south and west to the coast to visit Celestun in the coastal biosphere zone. It’s a pleasant hour long drive, getting out of town an easy drive, in fact driving around Merida has been very easy, hardly any traffic jams. The pollution is dreadful. The heaps of machinery called cars they keep on the road here is unbelievable. And we worry about cutting emissions in Canada! 

  It’s a two lane highway with no yahoo truck driver today. One nearly polished off a tourist bus on our last out of town trip. Scary to watch. Thee was a small brush fire on the roadside on our way back - and you can imagine the havoc if it took out the road, nowhere to go to escape it.

  Boiled as having a great beach area, you can’t get anywhere near the beach, a little crowded Mexican town cars parked both sides, no parking. We didn’t hang around there. 

  But the main attraction is taking a boat down the World Heritage Site waterways. You pay for the boat, find some people to share (4 of us, could have taken 6) and go off for an hour and a half down the delta to see the gorgeous nesting pink flamingos. Watching them fly in and out is special. The deep red of their feathers comes from the beta carotene in the red mangroves and the shrimp too of course.

  There are other shorebirds too, cormorants egrets, herons, eagles, elegant frigates, huge pelicans and unusual roseate spoonbills. The boatman takes you (fast!) in a covered launch into a bayou of mangrove swamp, impressive. then ties up at a natural spring where people can swim (we didn’t.) certainly worth the day drive out there.

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