NW Yucatan Part 5: The town of Celestún and its beautiful beach

A beautiful, sunny day in January at Celestún's beach. The turquoise water gleams and sparkles. The white sand beach is littered here and there with lovely white shells. Puffy clouds dot the azure sky above. In the distance, restaurants shaded by palm-thatched palapas prepare delicious meals from locally caught fish. What a day to hang out at the beach! The small town of Celestún stretches out along the coast on the strip of land that separates the Gulf of Mexico from Celestún Lagoon. It's a sleepy town, even at the height of the winter tourist season. Only about 6,200 people live here, although the population swells to 10,000 during the octopus hunting season. Other than tourism, the populations works mostly at fishing and the production of salt. These last two occupations have been central to Celestún's economy since long before the Spanish arrived. The beaches, when we were there, were mostly empty save for the handful of people sunbathing in front of some of the restaurants. For a map of Celestún and Yucatan's Gulf Coast, click here.


Celestún's Gulf Coast beach

Boats wait for tourists and fishermen as a family walks by. The town is completely surrounded by the Celestún Special Biosphere Reserve seen in Part 4 of this series. The Reserve is also called Parque Natural del Flamenco Mexicano and contains thousands of pink flamingos as well as many other species of birds and other animals. In January, the mid-day temperature averages a balmy 29C (84F) and drops at night to a comfortable 17.3C (63.1F).

Looking south, the only person in sight was a lone woman out for a stroll. In the distance, a pier stretches out into the warm, gentle waters of the Gulf. The vast majority of tourists who come to Yucatan for a beach experience go to Cancun or the Maya Riviera on the Caribbean side of the Yucatan Peninsula. Even those who visit Mérida don't seem to head for Celestún's beach. The Port of Progresso, a short distance due north of Mérida, seems to attract more attention. Those looking for a lively social scene with wet t-shirt contests etc. had best head for Cancun. Celestún is for those who seek a quiet, dreamy, seaside paradise. For anyone looking for such a place, click here for TripAdvisor hotel recommendations.

Palapa restaurants are open air and face right onto the beach. They are surrounded by small groves of palm trees fluttering in the ocean breeze. Some of them are little more than a few posts sunk into the sand and roofed with thatched palm fronds. A few plastic tables and chairs are served from an open air kitchen where fresh fish is grilled over open fires. My kind of place.

Our restaurant was large and open, with far more tables than customers. Out the front door, a group of lounge chairs waits on the beach for those intent on improving their tan. Sitting inside in the shade, the cool ocean breezes wafted through the open sides of the restaurant, creating the perfect temperature: not too hot, not too cool. Just right for enjoying a feast of fresh fish.

As I walked through the restaurant, my eye was caught by this unusual wall. The swooping design somewhat resembled an ocean swell. I stepped closer for a better look and was stunned by what I found.

Thousands of nearly identical shells were used to create the design. The rows of shells were at least 18m long (60 ft) and perhaps 1.2m (4 ft) wide. In addition to the wall covered by these shells, the floor immediately in front of the wall contained thousands more. It must have taken someone a lot of time and effort to collect all these shells, much less to cement them individually into the wall. But then, things tend to move slowly in Celestún, so perhaps he had plenty of time after all.


A stroll around town

Celestún's Palacio Municipio is small but attractive. It sits on the south side of the town plaza. There are no precise dates for when indigenous people first occupied the area of Celestún. However, it is known that the town served as a place for collecting and storing products from the sea such as seafood and salt. It was part of the ancient Maya province of Ah-Canul.

Local transportation. There were few taxis in the area, but motorcycle-driven jitneys like this one seemed to fill the gap. Other jitneys we saw were driven by bicycles. The jitney above is passing by one of the local watering holes, El Lobo (The Wolf) Restaurant. The Spanish pueblo of Celestún was founded in 1718, as a sub-district of Sisal, a port to the north. Hennequen, a natural fibre originally used by local Maya for ropes, mats and other goods, is often called sisal. The name comes from the Port of Sisal through which the hennequen passed on the way to overseas markets. In the late 19th Century, sisal was discovered to be perfect for string, and the market grew explosively.

A small Franciscan church occupies the east side of the plaza. Notice the two campanarios (bell-towers). These bells are still operated the old-fashioned way, with ropes. The one on the right has the large bell, while three small bells hang from the campanario on the left. In 1872, Celestún became part of a political district called Maxcanú. It remained a subdistrict of Maxcanún until 1918, when it became the seat of the Municipalidad de Celestún. A municipalidad (municipality) roughly corresponds to a US county and usually takes the name of the chief town within it.

Carole takes a break on one of the many benches in the plaza. Nearly all of them were empty, but at the end of the workday, I'm sure they fill up with families and courting couples from the town. A plaza forms the social center in a Mexican town where recreation, business, fiestas, and romances are conducted. One of the busy times in this plaza is Semana Santa (Easter Week). Maya people from villages of the municipalidad come to town to celebrate. The statue town's patron saint is paraded around and then loaded on a boat lined with candles and floated down the estuary and out to sea. The flotilla is joined by boats carrying the patron saints of many villages in the area.


A fascinating return trip to Mérida

Traditional Maya house, called nah in Maya or choza in Spanish. During our return trip to Mérida, we stopped in some of the villages through which our road passed. You can find Maya families living in homes like this all over the Yucatan peninsula. They do not differ significantly in design or function from those constructed 1000 years before the Spanish arrived. Over one of the doors of the famous ruin at Uxmal called the "Nuns Quadrangle" you can see a stone relief sculpture of just such a nah. The structures are made from locally gathered, natural materials. However, for all I know, this nah might be connected to the internet. The only visible modern touch is the PRI political campaign sign. The PRI is one of Mexico's three main political parties. It ruled Mexico from the 1930s to 2000 when it was finally defeated by the PAN, a conservative, business-oriented party. Current polls indicate the the PRI will return to power in the next election.

Another relic of the past. Almost concealed in jungly undergrowth are the remains of the main gate for an abandoned sisal hacienda. We had passed this ruin on the way to Celestún and I persuaded our driver to stop for a few minutes so I could take some photos. If you are one of my regular blog fans, you know I am a "ruins addict". This hacienda was probably abandoned somewhere between the beginning of the Revolution in 1910 and 1936, when President Lazaro Cardenas broke up the remaining sisal haciendas and redistributed the lands to the Maya campesinos. Often, this meant returning lands to Maya families from whom it had been illegally seized by the current hacendados (owners) or their ancestors.

The Casa Grande of the hacienda. The Casa Grande (Great House) was the home of the hacendado and the center of economic operations. However, the owners where often absent, leaving the actual running of a hacienda to professional administrators. The hacendados generally preferred their luxurious mansions in Mérida, or traveling with their families in Europe, to living in the country. Sisal was used for creating the string that bound together wheat sheaves harvested in the United States by the combines of the International Harvester Company. Both the IH Company and the hacienda owners profited mightily from this arrangement, especially since the forced labor of the Maya sisal workers was dirt cheap.

Graceful arched portales frame the porch overlooking the Casa Grande's main entrance. Life would have been good for the hacendado and his family. His house would have been filled with expensive, imported furnishings and his dinner table overflowed with the best foods and wines his hacienda could finance. For his workers, trapped by their debts to the tienda de raya (company store), life was little better than slavery. In fact, actual slavery was often used to offset labor shortages.

Another Maya house, made with slightly different materials. The thatched roof is the same as on the nah seen previously, but the walls are made of chunks of limestone, plastered over. A drowsy dog noted our photographic efforts but didn't think it worth his effort to challenge us.

Our driver/tour guide dropped us back at our hotel at the end of the day. We found all our guides for our various Mérida tours to be cheerful, knowledgeable, and willing to go out of their way to satisfy the interests of their customers. The Celestún tour van was modern, comfortable and a good way to travel the area. Our guide's smile may, in part, reflect the propina (tip) we gave him for his efforts. However, all the Maya we met were so friendly and easy-going that he probably would have acted just the same without any extra incentive.

This completes Part 5 of my Mérida series. Next, we will return to Mérida itself to take a look at some of the interesting sights you will encounter while wandering the streets of the Centro Historico. I always welcome comments and/or corrections. If you would like to do so, please leave your message in the Comments section below, or email me directly.

If you leave a question in the Comments section, PLEASE leave your email address so I can respond.

Hasta luego, Jim

NW Yucatan Part 4: The Pink Flamingos of Celestún Lagoon

Celestún's famous pink flamingos come to attention as a tour boat passes. The lagoon where they congregate in their thousands is located on Northwest Yucatan's Gulf Coast. A visit to the Celestún Biosphere Reserve was high on the list Carole and I prepared before our visit to the Yucatan. The reserve is located 90 km (56 mi.) west of Mérida near the northwestern tip of the Peninsula. In this posting, I'll focus on the lagoon, the mangrove swamp that rings it, and particularly on the wildlife found there. In the next posting, we'll take a look at the little beach town of Celestún itself, and also at some of the interesting sights you will encounter on the way to the coast and back. For a map showing the location of Celestún, and other basic information about the area, click here.


The Lagoon

Setting off. Our friends Julika (left, front) and her husband Denis (right, front) have accompanied us on other adventures, including Etzatlán, Zacatecas, and Windy Point (see Index of Topics). Julika is originally from Germany, and Denis from Ireland, but both are now naturalized US citizens who retired in Mexico. We all signed up for the Celestún tour at a local agency in Mérida. The other people in the boat were also part of the van-load of us that left Mérida early that morning for the 1.5 hour drive. The January day was sunny and warm, but when the boat got moving across the lagoon we were bathed with cool breezes. Our craft was really quite comfortable and our boatman handled it expertly. Having learned my lesson from a similar voyage at the Turtle Reserve near Manzanillo, I grabbed a spot at the prow of the boat so I could be sure of unobstructed photography.

A Maya fisherman prepares to set a crab pot near a shoal occupied by several species of birds. The salt-water lagoon is narrow and long, but relatively shallow. It parallels the Gulf Coast, separated from it by a strip of land with the only opening to the ocean at the southern tip.  The Biosphere Reserve surrounding the lagoon straddles the line separating two of the Peninsula's states, Yucatan and Campeche. The Reserve was established in 1979, and its total size is 59,130 hectares (146,000 acres). It is the main feeding area for the American Flamingo and many other species of birds and wildlife and because of this important role, it was upgraded to Special Biosphere reserve in 1989. For a Google map of the Reserve and its lagoon, click here.

A White Pelican and several seagulls keep a sharp eye out for their next meal. Here at this shoal, far out from the lagoon's shore, the depth is only a few inches. I saw both White and Brown pelicans during our visit. I was a little surprised to find Whites because I had assumed they favor fresh water lakes. Although the pink flamingos are the most famous birds to be found here, there is a huge number of species in the area, some resident and some migratory. My advice to any "birders" who visit Yucatan: plan for a stop at Celestún.

A seagull drifts with the currents near our boat. At least I am assuming this is a seagull. He appears similar to photos I Googled except for his dark bill. I am open to any corrections by birders out there. He seemed oblivious to us, although we were only a short distance away. I guess he has seen so many tourist boats that we didn't impress him much.


The Pink Flamingos

Flocks of pink flamingos feed together in the shallows. During the winter, as many as 10,000 to 18,000 of these large, graceful birds inhabit the Celestún Lagoon. In our boat, we approached flocks of several hundred, while many thousands more were visible in the distance. They are very social creatures and like to gather in close proximity. Before the Biosphere was created in 1979, their numbers had dropped to as few as 2,000. Over the next 10 years, they increased their numbers to 26,000, but then Hurricane Gilbert devastated their feeding areas in 1988. Two more hurricanes hit the area in the mid-2000s but, because it has been protected, the flamingos have been able to rebound.

The flamingos' delicate pink coloring is a bit deceptive. Their natural color is actually white, but because they consume large amounts of crustaceans, insects, algae rich in beta carotene, their white feathers turn pink. If other foods are substituted, the feathers soon return to their natural hue. When the flamingos are held captive in zoos, the keepers have to add a chemical substance called Roxanthin Red to their food to maintain the color visitors expect.

Undisturbed, a flock often appears nearly headless. They dip their whole heads underwater to scoop up the tiny creatures upon which they feed. Their curved beaks, called "Roman Noses," are dipped into the water so that they are parallel with the bottom of the lagoon. Scooping up water and food together, they then expel the water through a comb-like structure leaving the food behind. The feeding process is similar to that of the baleen whale.

Disturbed by a tourist boat that drifted too close, a flock rises into the air. Flamingos takeoffs have been compared to those of lumbering WWII bombers. However, once in the air, they are quite graceful. There are six species of flamingos, including the American. The are all long-lived, and that is a good thing because it takes several years for a flamingo to reach a sexually reproductive age. In addition, flamingo couples don't always produce off-spring in a given season. According to the Honolulu Zoo, "taking into account bad weather, predation, food resources, natural disasters and deaths, it may take an average pair of flamingos 25 years or more to produce enough offspring to replace themselves!" It is important that the flock sizes be maintained as large as possible, because small flocks don't reproduce as well. This has something to do with the group courtship behavior they perform. Apparently if not enough flamingos are available for the dance, there are too many "wallflowers" and they get discouraged.

Stretching out their normally curved necks, flamingos glide past an offending boat. They didn't fly very far, just enough to maintain their comfort zone, and then they settled down again to feed. These birds can attain a beak to tail length of 145 cm  (57 inches) and a weight of  2.7 kg to 3.6 kg (6-8 lbs). They have a wingspan of 150 cm (59 inches). Their long legs are ideal for wading in the shallow lagoon waters.


The Mangrove Swamp

After drifting with the flamingos awhile, we moved off toward the mangroves. Two White Pelicans cruised by, just above the water. Pelicans are another large bird that appear rather comical when taking off, but are lovely to watch in the air. White and Brown Pelicans have completely different approaches to catching their food. The Whites float along in the water, sometimes in great curving convoys. They herd schools of fish close into shore and then scoop them up into the great baggy pouches under their beaks. Once a White Pelican has caught a fish, it will flap its wings, throw back its head so that its beak is vertical, and swallow the prey. The Browns, by contrast, will fly along just above the water until they spot a fish. Then they go into a complicated flight pattern to gain altitude before diving almost vertically into the water. They pop up a moment later, often successful.

A Great White Egret wades in the shallows next to the mangroves. Great Whites and Snowy Egrets live year round at Lake Chapala, near where Carole and live. I was glad to see a "familiar face," so to speak. The egrets feed on small fish and snakes along the water's edge. Unlike the flamingos, they are not particularly sociable while feeding and tend to keep a strict distance from each other. I suppose the difference is that the egrets' prey is easily frighted off, while the flamingos' is not. However, they do nest in trees in close proximity to one another. The long, graceful neck of the Great White gives it an excellent vantage point from which to spot prey. When an egret spots a potential meal, it seems to tense, then lean forward slowly, its neck curved, sometimes remaining motionless for a period. Suddenly the neck straightens and the beak lashes out like a striking snake. The thin, narrow beak of an egret cannot engulf a small fish like a pelican can. The egret must delicately flip the fish to move from a sideways position to one from which it will easily slide down the bird's throat. This is not easy to do and can take some time and several attempts, hopefully not resulting in the loss of the fish.

Termite mound. We cruised along the edge of the thick mangrove forest, looking for an entrance. Finally we came to a channel the guide knew and we moved into what seemed like a green tunnel. Shafts of light penetrated here and there, but most of the forest was in deep shade. As we floated quietly along, the motor almost idling, we passed overhanging trees draped with large termite nests looking like huge decorations on jungly Christmas trees. This one was about the size of a basketball, and we saw others even bigger.

An American Crocodile gave us a toothy smile as we drifted by. It was probably 4 feet long or so, certainly big enough to give you a start if you dangled your toes in the water. Crocodylus acutus is the most widespread of the four species of the Americas. Some of these cute little guys can attain a length of 6.1 meters (20 ft). Crocodiles depend on surprise attacks to obtain food. This one's coloring made it very difficult to see at first. With its eyes and ears on the top of its head, it can rest almost submerged, waiting for an unsuspecting creature of the mangrove forest...or a tourist. On land they can charge as fast as 16 km/h (10 mph) and in the water they can attain the speed of 32 km/h (20 mph).

Another aquatic creature. When we docked at the edge of the swamp, we walked back along a wooden ramp to a beautiful pool. It was fed by underground springs that caused the water to bubble, appearing almost to boil, although it was pleasantly cool to the touch. Julika couldn't resist. As I took this photo, I hoped that any Crocodulus Acutus in the area had already had lunch.

Although there were no crocs about, Julika was not alone in the water. If you look closely, you can see dark colored fish in the photo above. With a little closer scrutiny, you will observe the small striped fish resembling Angel Fish, although I am sure they are another species.

Another old friend takes off. While a seagull looks on, a Blue Heron flaps by. These birds, relatives of egrets, have a very wide range. There used to be one that liked to fish in the little stream behind my former home in Salem, Oregon. This bird can be found in North, Central and South America, and even occasionally in Europe.

This completes Part 4 of my Northwest Yucatan series. I hope you have enjoyed this look at a few of the many creatures of the Celestún Lagoon and its mangrove swamps. If you'd like to make a comment, please do so in the Comments section below, or email me directly.

If you leave a question in the Comments section, PLEASE leave your email address so I can respond.

Hasta luego, Jim