Thursday, July 26, 2007



To begin with what you see here is a stock image I found in Google Images. I do not have any instant pictures of flamingos even though we went to the ecological biosphere/reserve of Celestún today. It was an hour and half drive due north from Mérida. We got pretty close in our 8 person launch but only a telephoto could possibly get them any closer. Rebecca was slightly disappointed that her digital camera was not doing the scene justice.

But then some flamingos flew by and curiously their colour was deeper in flight than when resting on the very shallow waters of the Celestún lagoon. Watching them fly by (this happened repeated times) was thrilling in ways that the Discovery Channel documentaries on this bird could never even get close to. Rebecca mentioned the stench of the lagoon and I told her it was far better than seeing it without any smell from her living room chair.

Some 40 years ago I took my first cousin David Humphrey (he was 8) to the Mexico City Zoo. I showed him one of my favourite animals, a hippo in the water. David shocked me with, "He's boring. The ones in Disneyland make lots of noise and open their mouths." I tried to explain to David that unlike the hippo in Disneyland the one we were watching was flesh and blood. I resolved then to never go to Disneyland. The closest I ever got was dropping off Rosemary, Ale and Hilary at the door. When Rebecca, Bruce and Hilary were about to leave for Disneyland is just happened to be the morning of September 11. To date, Rebecca has not been to see plastic hippos.

An added bonus at Celestún was a trip through dense mangroves and swimming in a ojo de agua which is a large clear pool in the middle of the mangrove caused by the blending of an spring with the lagoon´s sea water. Rebecca thought it was a treat to swim in it even though I tried to tell her that there were crocodiles (a patent lie).

The loss of childhood 
Safe and sound in Celestún