Celestún

I'm pretty sure today's excursion is going to win "favorite" for everyone in our group! It was so much fun!  I first have to go into this reminding that I have a serious and well-known irrational fear of birds-or anything that flies, for that matter.  Needless to say I was not super excited about today since I knew we were going to a flamingo reserve and a place called BIRD ISLAND!

We got on 2 little motor boats called lanchas and headed to my worst fear! But it was beautiful

Profe and the others and the other boat

Party boat!

We pulled up to the edge of this jungly penninsula and climbed out of the lancha.  We were walking through this jungle on a path made of sand bags and wooden pallets.  I didn't really understand why we were walking on them until I stepped into the mud which was actually quick sand...oops! I thought my shoe was going to be lost forever! 

We made it through and onto the shore of the other side and came to a clearing where we could see the flamingos standing in the middle of the bay

Fortunately for me this is as close as we got to the flamingos

Another victory for me is that these are the only other birds we saw today! No bird island!

Then we headed to the real adventure.  We were going super fast in our little lancha and our tour guide was headed straight into another jungle.  I thought we were going to crash until I saw a small opening in the jungle just big enough for our boat to fit through.  And yo better believe that he zoomed right into that little opening at full speed!

All of the sudden we were in the middle of a jungle which they call a manglar.  It's pretty much a big nest of twisted trees and branches.

We came out the other side after about 5 minutes and headed to a dock across the bay. We got out and headed to an ojo de agua.  I had no idea what that meant but I was not about to swim in the smelly brown water around the dock.  Then we walked through some trees and saw this

It was gorgeous.  Something about the sun and the leaves of the trees make the water appear a beautiful teal color.  We walked around a little before we jumped in and we saw this little guy swimming around

 

No big deal...we jumped in anyways (apparently he's a nice alligator and as far as anyone knows, he's never attacked anybody.)

After lots of swimming, jumping, and cannon balls, we headed back to the beach to eat.  The food was delicious!  All seafood...ceviche with snail, octopus, shrimp, and fish; seafood soup; and then fish filet for the main course!

Fishermen's boats on the shore

We also found a soccer game to join before we headed home! They may have been a bunch of 7 year old boys but they were darn good!