Flaming Pink

Nearly 30,000 flamingos make their home in the shallow, murky waters of the Yucatan Peninsula’s northern coast. Thanks to the salty water of the estuaries and mangrove forests, the water of the area makes a hospitable environment for tiny organisms and algae. It’s a regular flamingo feasting ground, the carotene-rich algae making the flamingos some of the pinkest in the world.

We were lucky enough to visit the Yucatan’s Celestún Biosphere Reserve, the winter habitat of these magnificent, bizarre creatures. Vibrantly-colored, around five feet tall, and all gangly limbs and massive beak, flamingos are some of the strangest, most unique birds on the planet, bar none.

When they stretch to full height, in squawking distress about the nearness of boats or humans, it is easy to see how their shape could lead to their being used as disgruntled croquet mallets in the Queen of Hearts’ court. However, the fear and upset cause to non-fictitious flamingos by human presence has a more immediate danger; in such a delicate ecosystem, any disturbance could cause the flocks to abandon their feeding and nesting grounds, leaving these mostly non-migratory birds to seek asylum elsewhere on the peninsula.

Seeing them by the hundreds, or possibly thousands, is a breathtakingly beautiful experience. They paint the horizon in vibrant magenta patches as they spend their days feeding in the estuary bed, one-legged, necks swiveling this way and that, massive evolutionarily-designed beaks filtering water ceaselessly. There is nothing quite so amazing as seeing magnificent creatures in their natural habitat.

Mexicanyon

Cañon del Sumidero, in the Mexican state of Chiapas, makes for a lovely day trip. Seen either from above via scenic lookout points, or below on the river snaking along the canyon floor, the canyon is roughly a kilometer deep in places.

Rock walls tower overhead, striped with striations telltale of age, cacti springing forth from any small foothold. Green waters lazily slip through the canyon’s gaping throat making its way downriver, passing from brutal sun to chilling shade. Hawks circle overhead; vultures hobble on rocky shores; ducks float and dive; herons stand tall and erect.

The canyon is reminiscent of the American Southwest, a calling card from home, bringing forth a vague nostalgia. Only nowhere in Colorado or New Mexico do crocodiles lounge on the riverbanks. Nor do monkeys swing in our trees, luxuriously out of reach. 

Ruins Among the Ranches

After the manicured lawns, stay-on-the-path attitude, and intrusive presence of handicraft vendors at the ruins of Palenque, not to mention the influx of dreaded, beaded new age hippies from the nearby Rainbow Gathering, Toniná’s ruins were a surprising, but welcome, change.

A hoof-beaten path carried us to the ruins, a high Mexican sun beating down on our shoulders. Perched high atop a hill overlooking ranches and farms, Toniná boasts neither the jungle setting nor the vast throngs of tourists of many neighboring Mayan sites. Had it not been a Sunday, I suspect we would have had the place to ourselves, as the only other tourists present were Mexican. 

Stacked, tier by tier, terrace on top of terrace, the ruins climb up rather than spreading out into multiple buildings and clusters. So upward we went, sometimes on steps jagged, narrow, and uneven. Higher and higher, steep and slow. 

Between the ruins and its museum, a large number of surprisingly intact sculptures and friezes were on display, a great many showing the war-hungry inhabitants decapitating their enemies. It is amazing to see the detail that can remain after so many centuries, stories told in stone, cut and chiseled remnants of an entire culture.