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Vintage Ventures - Yucatán 2018
February 2018
Celestun
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VINTAGE VENTURES: I write my travel journals to look back and remember our ventures. A secondary reason is to allow me to organize all my trip photos. I have thousands of photos. Organizing them into a cohesive story makes sense. | |
Tuk-tuks are ubiquitous in Celestun. | |
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DAY 26, Wednesday, February 28, 2018
CELESTUN
We had to cancel our breakfast to get on the bus to Celestun at 8 am. At the bus depot, we met another couple going to Celestun. They were a young couple from France. The young wife couldn’t speak English, but the husband was pretty good at it. It turned out that they were doing the same thing we were doing – bussing and colectivoing to all the Yucatán sites, so we got to exchange travel stories and make recommendations.
Celestun is a sleepy fishing village on the ocean about 50 kilometers from Merida. Its claim-to-fame is the flocks of pink flamingos that gather in the backwaters behind Celestun. There are boat tours that take tourists to see the flamingos, and they usually include a side trip through a mangrove swamp and swimming in a spring. The tours typically are about 500 pesos each, and I have read many blog threads about them.
As expected in these threads, some reviews are positive, and some are negative. Being the last day of our vacation, we had a few extra pesos to burn, so we planned to go on the tour anyway. I had also read that the beach was very nice but without any wave action being on the lee side of the prevailing winds (the Mayan Riviera was on the windward side of the Yucatán Peninsula and subsequently had the bigger surf).
Just as I had guessed, our 2nd class bus stopped at every little town and village. At the village just before Celestun, a gentleman got on board and quickly started conversing with us and the young French couple. I knew the routine; he was hustling us. It turned out that he was a boat guide, and this was his gimmick at reaching the tourists before the other boat guides could – ingenious.
We lucked out. There are two areas where the boat guides operate. Celestun is on a big sand spit between the ocean and a large bay where the flamingo flocks hang out. Most of the boat guides tie up at a dock in the bay. This particular guide ties up on the ocean side. I liked this because it meant a much longer boat ride. Getting to the bay involved a long ocean boat ride around the sand spit to the bay and then another lengthy ride to the flocks.
|  | Celestun is an old, quiet, clean, and colorful oceanfront town. | The beach is gorgeous. The reviews we read about the lack of waves proved correct. | The fishing boats and tour boats lined up at the beach. | |
The ride on the ocean stretch was a blast. The boat was long, narrow, and fast. Even the little swells in this part of the ocean hammered the boat bringing glee to the passengers. To our luck, the boat guide had to make a side detour up another channel to reach a gas station to fill up. That extended our boat ride, and we also got to see another part of the fishing town.
Once we reached the big bay, the water turned glassy smooth. Just past the backside of Celestun, where the other tour boats were docked, was one big flock of pink flamingos. The boat guide must have memorized the channel, as much of the big wide bay was shallow enough for the flamingos to stand in. There weren’t any buoys or channel markers in the bay. When we reached the biggest flock, the boat crept up to within a few feet of the birds. They didn’t seem to care, so we stayed long enough for everyone to snap a zillion pictures.
Then we scooted further up the bay and entered a narrow mangrove-lined channel. Halfway through the channel, we came upon a small crocodile. After the channel, we were dropped off at a clear turquoise pool of spring-fed water—a boardwalk led into the mangrove swamp, where the clear water gushed out of the ground. The spring formed a nice-sized deep pool before draining into the muddy bay. A swing rope was set up to add to the swimming fun.
|  | Our boat tour of the area around Celestun. | The first flock of birds we encountered was this flock of pelicans. | Waiting in line to gas up the boat at the Pemex gas station. | Celestun's beautiful waterfront from our boat. | Above and below: A flock of pink flamingos. Flamingos' natural color is white. They turn pink by eating shrimp in this body of water. Flamingos are migratory birds. We were visiting Celestun in the right season to view them. | We boated through this mangrove thicket. | This big boy gave us something to think about when we swam in the Springs. | This spring was a fun swimming experience. | I am curious to know what animal constructed this mud ball. I assume it was some kind of insect, although there weren't any insects crawling anywhere near it. | |
The whole trip was at least 10 miles and took four hours. We got the price down to 400 pesos per person, which cost us about $45 US for the two of us. Once back at Celestun, Wanda and I took advantage of the lovely beach and swam for about an hour. It was a beautiful white sand beach, and except for one or two fishermen working on their boats, we were the only people there. We both rated it higher than Progreso but still under Tulum.
Along the beach were a half dozen grass-roofed beach restaurants. We chose Los Pameros (not to be confused with Las Palmas in Homun). There were few tourists in Celestun that day, and the few there seemed to be eating at this place, so we sat down and ordered using Wanda’s eatery rating method. Like the beach restaurants in Campeche, these restaurants also served freshly caught seafood.
We ordered one dish of big grilled shrimp, rice, and veggies and an order of grilled fish on a bed of shrimp and blue crab plus rice and veggies. Tapas consisted of great tortilla chips and salsa. The margaritas were the best and most potent we had ever had. So, that called for a 2nd round. We were pretty hammered when we left the restaurant. The streets were eerily deserted as we wandered, killing time before our bus left for Merida. Like Campeche and Izamal, it was clean and well-maintained. We like it.
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Our supper was at the beach restaurant, Las Palmas. | |
The best margarita we ever had. | |
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After being dropped off at the Oriente Bus Station back in Merida, we made one more trek to Plaza Grande. We wanted another fresh paleta from Jugos, Helados Y Paletas Janitzio.
We got street-hustled one more time before leaving Plaza Grande. A guy hooked Wanda on buying a 150 peso tiny canister of lens cleaner. I valiantly resisted but got badly chewed out for my effort. One good thing, the canister was so small that we’d have no trouble packing it.
Sadly, we went to bed for the last time in Mexico.
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DAY 27, Thursday, March 1, 2018
GOING HOME
Our final breakfast was excellent. We hugged our hostess and took our Uber to the airport. The driver knew the city well and took us on all these back streets, expertly avoiding the morning traffic. What took the metro bus an hour to accomplish, the Uber driver got us there in 20 minutes, all for a mere 90 pesos.
As expected, the airport was easy to access. We got our Pre-Check tickets from the American Airlines desk, quickly flew through security, and took off right on time. We had a three-hour layover in Miami and went through customs for the first time with our Global Entry Passes. Wow, it was a breeze. We filled out a small questionnaire at an electronic kiosk, took the printout to a nearly nonexistent Global Entry line, got our passports whacked, and that was it – a couple of minutes at the most. We looked at the long regular customs line and felt terrible for them.
We reached Chicago on time at 10:30 pm and were on the highway home a little after 11 pm. Last fall, when we spent a month in Spain, Bandit, our cat, was so pissed at us that it took him three days to come into the house to see us. Bandit was waiting in the house for us this time when we walked in.
Gosh, it is cold.
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