Celestun Flamingos

Celestun.  This coastal town is near the south-western end of the Yucatan province.  The journey there took us by the outskirts of Merida where we then turned to travel down an narrow paved highway through a fair number of small towns.  Travelling here is interesting.  Imagine speed bumps on a major highway going through a town or a village – many sets of speed bumps in each of these pueblos.  A trip that should take about 90 minutes becomes a two and a half hour journey.

We finally made it to Celestun where we ate a late breakfast before boarding a six passenger flat boat with a canopy for shade so that we could see and photograph some flamingos.  The shallow estuary is shrimp country.  Small scale operations for gathering up shrimp are carried out by folks such as this man who is poling his way from net to net.

As we approached the flamingos, I couldn’t wait for a close picture so I ended up putting on my telescopic lens so that I could get as many photos as possible.  The last thing I wanted was to get closer and have the birds fly off before I could get any decent photos.

Little did I know that we would keep getting closer and closer until I was able to get incredible photos without having to use the extra lens for the camera.  I snapped over a hundred photos.  Some were of the bigger birds, some of their young offspring who were a mixture of white and light pink.   We watched a few of the birds fly off and then return.  It is hard to explain the sheer beauty of such a scene.

Finally, with other tour boats arriving making the scene crowded (we were the only ones there for quite some time), I agreed to move on to see if we could find other birds to photograph.  I have to admit to a bit of disappointment as there were few birds in the area.  I guess there were just too many shrimp fishermen and too many tour boats running around.  I did get this shot of a Blue Heron that I was pleased with.

We continued on towards a mangrove swamp where a natural channel took into the swamp which was well shaded.  The red mangrove trees had roots beginning high up on the trees to descend into the water in search of the rich salty soil they need.

I found this mangrove journey better than the one we experience at San Crisanto.  Like our previous mangrove swamp experience, we say termite colonies up on the trunks of the trees lining the channel.  We followed the channel for a ways then re-entered the main estuary in order to travel on to a freshwater spring  which added sweet water into the mix.  We had the opportunity to swim but decided against it preferring to walk along a raised wooden pathway through the shaded area.  Finally, our time was up and we got back onto our boat in order to head back to the lauching point of our morning adventure. 

With our touring done, we headed back to Progreso to stock up on groceries for our remaining time in Mexico.