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| Last Mon - Thurs. we decided to check out a wonderful village called Celestun (pronounced Celest -tune). It's about a 1 1/2 by car or as we did, 2 1/2 hr. trip by bus. It cost us about 7.50 pp by bus. Once we got into town we hit Victor's (owned by a nice Lebanese couple) market. We then took one of the above shown 3 wheeler motorcycle cabs about 1 1 1/2K away to our guest house. |
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| Our new home for 3 nights. |
And, oh, what a wonderful guest house it was. It's right on the water and called
www.hotelcelestevida.com This was the view out our back slider
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| Our room - Casita Brisa before we trashed it too much. There's a little kitchenette in the back of the room.75. per night. |
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| This is the main kitchen area with a built in grill for those who wanted to have fresh fish delivered or for those enterprising enough to catch their own. We did neither. We did, however, get freshly made Margaritas from one of the owners. Karen makes a mean Rita. |
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| Once settled - A view in the hammock, rita in hand and under the Palapa. I'm home! |
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| No comment necessary except to say that the beaches here are a shell seekers paradise. We also got some good kayaking in using the guest house's kayaks. |
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| Everyone seems to help bring the fish in at the end of the day. |
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| Others seem to do their thing solo. This man is filleting his catch. |
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| I had the best fish sopa (soup) here. A light tomato fish broth loaded with blue crab, shrimp and fish. So good I could cry. Very perfect with a cool Corona. This and most of the restaurants border the street and the beach. We Always ate our meals with our feet in the sand while the sun was going down. |
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| We borrowed these ancient no speed rusty boys and rode to the end of the peninsula. probably 40 miles or so total. Did I say that there was zero shade and in the high 90s. Mucho hard work. |
They also said that we could have used their pool. Guess they felt badly for us. We really did look wrung out. Anyhow we used the beach, took showers, had our picnic, some drinks and left with our dignity.
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| Back up to town for more fish and a walk around. |
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| The whole village is seeing a renaissance. New roads, revived park, lots of repairs etc. they say that the gov. is putting lots of $$$ into the place to promote tourism. Get there before it gets ruined. |
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| You'll still find a few Mayan villages within the village. |
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| And sunsets to die for |
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Dora, The Explorer in our bed. What a cute dog - day 1 - she broke into our completely zipped cool pack and squeezed the guts out of the the gel pack.... apparently there was an essence of food on it.
Day 2 - Sneaked back into the room and opened the special bolt on the fridge that was made specially by the owners for Dora proofing. Her reward this time was a half lb. of newly purchased ham and some very tasty cheese. Day 3 - midnight... her and Scooter, her accomplice, opened the slider and snuck into our room again and scared to spit out of us while we were sleeping. |
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| Ain't he cute. Scooter. |
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| Alas, one of the big draws to Celestun are the Flamingos - millions of them migrate here during the winter. |
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| Beautiful creatures |
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| So many different kinds of birds. |
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| A nice fresh water spring in the mangroves for a good cool off |
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| Sadly, we left our new French, Canadian and furry friends behind and headed back to Merida. To make the departure easier we picked up some much coveted BBQ chicken from the elusive chicken lady to bring home with us. Cooked over a wood fire and amazingly good. Celestun is a lovely place and one that we'll go back to. |
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