Today was unbelievable. We took a bus to the fishing village of Rio Lagartos where we hooked up with a guide. He took us on a boat tour of the estuary for two hours. He is a very knowledgeable fellow who seemed to have as much fun as we did - memories of our pal Shanji in southern Nepal!
The estuary is literally filled with birds. We saw many we know from home - brown pelicans, white pelicans, gulls, terns, great egrets, snowy egrets and cormorants. There was also a species called blue herons, but they seemed bigger than our great blue herons at home. This birds were far more numerous and concentrated than I´ve seen them anywhere! If I believed in spontaneous generation, like Aristotle did I might think the estuary had made all these birds!
We also saw many unfamiliar species - ahingas with long, snake like necks, tiger herons with black and yellow markings, a local eagle, a small blue heron, magnificent frigate birds with delicate, long wings hovering around us,some plovers that resembled kildeer but were a little different and flamingos. Fifty of them strutting around in a flock, searching for shrimp. They are gray when they are born, and turn pink from eating shrimp. The more shrimp they eat the pinker they are - amazing!
We also saw a coati, an aquatic mammal splashing around. There were also crocodiles, yep, just 15 feet from us! They were enjoying their basking in the sun session and ignored us.
An ultra fabulous day!
For dinner tonight I had papadzules, a traditional Yucatan dish. It´s hard boiled eggs wrapped in tortillas and covered with two sauces. One is a spicy sauce made from pumpkin seeds; the other is a spicy tomato sauce. Kate had another local dish - turkey in black sauce. We decided it might be made from black beans and peppers. Both were fabulous; we´ll look for recipes.
Feliz Navidad!
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