Celestun

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.

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

Our room - Casita Brisa before we trashed it too much. There's a little kitchenette in the back of the room.75. per night.

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.

Once settled - A view in the hammock, rita in hand and under the Palapa. I'm home!

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.

Everyone seems to help bring the fish in at the end of the day.

Others seem to do their thing solo. This man is filleting his catch.

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.

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.

The reward. We had packed ham/cheese sandwiches and ended up at this very chi chi hotel beach. Lounge chairs and waiters included. http://www.ecoparaiso.com/hotel/mastersuite_en.phphttp://www.ecoparaiso.com/hotel/mastersuite_en.php 

 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.

Back up to town for more fish and a walk around.

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.

You'll still find a few Mayan villages within the village.

And sunsets to die for

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.

Ain't he cute. Scooter.

Alas, one of the big draws to Celestun are the Flamingos - millions of them migrate here during the winter.

Beautiful creatures

So many different kinds of birds.

A nice fresh water spring in the mangroves for a good cool off

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.

Campeche Yucatan City by the Sea

Welcome to Campeche, land of Mayans, Spaniards and Pirates. This statue gives the impression that the Spaniard got the blessing while the Mayan got to row the boat.

Campeche is also a huge fishing city.

The city is walled and has many forts to keep pirates and other bad people away.

The Malecon (boardwalk) is 5k long and is outside of the city walls

                                     There's also a massive market that seems to go on forever

Acres of fresh flowers

Every vegetable that's ever been invented

Fruit too die for

                        I'll get mine at the market, thank you. I mean the other kind of market.

Everything is grass fed and organic, but still...

                                                          Fresh off the boats

Whatever you want, you can get here.

 One of the prettiest cities I've ever seen. Clean, colorful and polite drivers who actually stop to let you cross the street.

                                              Nice hotel with a little cafe on the 2nd floor overlooking one of the many  squares that came alive at night.

                                                    Too many beautiful churches to count

                               Campeche has a tremendous amount of Colonial residential areas. Real estate is quite costly. the inside of these houses and courtyards are massive.

                                              Had the coconut shrimp at a cool outdoor cafe. So good.

 Furthermore, Campeche gets a very high rating for a romantic and beautiful city to visit from Mike and I. It's about a two hour bus ride from Merida with the R/T busfare costing about 14. pp. Next time we'll stay overnight.

Chichen Itza

Here's a little bit about our recent trip to the ruins of Chichen Itza.

 As once said by someone, you can never go back. Although we adored this place and highly recommend going to it, it just didn't hold the same magic as it did the first time we went.

 Sometime in the early 80s and before Cancun and Cozemul were what they are today Mike and I rented a little VW Cabriolet and drove around the jungles of the Yucatan. One of the highlights of the trip was Chichen Itza. At the time it was fairly undiscovered and un-peopled. You could climb on and go inside the ruins. There also weren't vendors or those awful (Sorry, folks) busloads of people from the Mayan Riviera or cruise ships.

 Ah, almost the first people in the park. The trick is to get there just as the doors are opening up at 8am to beat the crowds and the heat that is guaranteed to come by late morning.

 The alarms didn't go off as planned. We got up at 5:55am for a 6:30 bus that we had to run 15 minutes away to get to. Made it with time to spare - not. ADO bus Merida - Chichen Itza's front entrance 1 3/4 ride $18. RT - Like most of the buses here it was very luxurious and comfortable. Sometimes over air conditioned but that's ok. Bring an extra long sleeve shirt.

 Kululcan's Pyramid. Fascinating stuff. This is built on top of 2 other temples. It's also depicts the genius of those who were the originators of the calender. What's most impressive is the depiction by shadows of the serpent going into and exiting the ground at equinox time.

 The outside of the ball court. one of the biggest and most important in it's day. Apparently wars were solved here.

                                      The basket for the ball. Losers lost their heads.

                                   Very large ball court with a place for spectators and royalty.

                                           Rumor - A nice place for a virgin sacrificing. Bones and other interesting things have been found in the bottom of this cenote. To the displeasure of many Mexicans, all the valuable stuff that was found in the bottom of this are now housed at Harvard.

                 Workers still after more than a century meticulously putting ruins back together

                                             These guys were everywhere

                           It's probable that these 1000+ columns were a market place, sauna and contained housing

                       Vendors were everywhere. Some had some nice things, others had reproduced caca. Having them between the ruins, using odd noise makers for attention, etc. sort of took the ambiance away from the ruins.

                                               The astronomy observatory

Despite some of my complaints this is a must see for all. The pictures barely give an idea of how immense and impressive the place really is. Put this place on your list.