Our breakfast of champions this trip is oatmeal with banana and mango. The mango’s are always super sweet, no need to wait until they are soft and ripe. We enjoy it every day.
Zeno is awake at 5, Cleo sleeps again tunil 6:30. She manages to sleep long since the very start of our trip, as if she is not sensitive to jet lags. She also sleeps under a mosquito net in our latest apartment, and she has not been bitten anymore. All the old, big, nasty bites of a few days ago are nearly healed.
This morning, Zeno uses the airconditioning remote controle as a phone and he’s calling the whole family. Favourite of the day seems to be Oma Miriam, so we give her a real video call.
We find another huge insect crawling on our bedroom floor, a cockroach the size of a baby hand. Olga throws it into the garden of our neighboors, and we hope it becomes friends with yesterdays big spiders.
We leave at 7 to buy bananas and bread to ensure we won’t be hungry today. After the supermarket, the second stop is Ek Balam, Maya ruins known by tourists because here you can still climb the pyramides. We shortly doubt when we see the entrance fee: 1362 pesos (70 euros), cash only. As much as Chichen Itza yesterday. But as we won’t come back soon, we take our loss and pay the fee.
A turquoise-browed motmot shows us the way to the ruines. They are located in a lushy forest that provides some welcome shade from the sun that’s already burning hot at 8. It’s a scorching 38 degrees today.
We first climb a temple and the palace. Then, we spot the high pyramide and we climb to the top to enjoy the view and the wind that even blows away Cleo’s cap. We luckily catch it before it’s blown into the surrounding jungle.
The high pyramide is part of a tomb of king Ukit Kan Leʼk Tok’, who ruled from 770 to 797. His tomb has the shape of the mouth of a jaguar, and also the walls around have such nice statutes that it looks like it was fully renovated yesterday. We even see some red paintings of sitting people on one of the walls.
Around the standing temples and palaces lie some mountains of stones, trees are growing on top of it. Maybe these were other pyramides that were never renovated and are given back to the jungle. We wonder what Maya artifacts could still be hidden under those stones?
After an hour and a half of exploring, we leave to visit Reserva de la Biosfera Rio Lagartos, known for its turquoise lagoon filled with flamingos and pelicanes. On the way, we pass a crocodile sanctuary, but we don’t believe they take good care of the crocodiles, so we skip it.
When we arrive at the lagoon, we already spot the flamingo’s from far away, because their pink colors contrast very well with the turquoise water. We spend our final cash pesos on a 1 hour boat trip to see the flamingos from up close. Our captain Ramon entertains the kids while cruising from flamingo group to pelicane group.
Zeno even dares to climb out of the boat and walks with Ramon through the water to the flamingo’s. Cleo does not dare to follow the two men.
Tim finally shoots a pelicane diving for fish. We also see comorands, white harrons, frigats, ….. Unfortunately, the crocodiles hide in the mangrove leaves today. The water is too high, Ramon explains. At least Cleo is relieved that we won’t see crocodiles today.
After an hour, we’re back at our car. We thank Ramon and we try to withdraw some pesos from the ATM in the village, but it asks 200 pesos service costs, so we decide to take the risk and continue our day without cash. We drive 20 minutes to a pink salt lake which we capture from above.
Ramon warned us that they would ask an entrance fee to the salt lakes. It’s indeed a challenge to find a parking spot to see the pink lake with our own eyes, as there are Mexicans everywhere that only accept cash to enable us to get closer to the lake. We find an unmanned spot in the end and take some more pictures before we call it a day and set course back to our apartment, a drive of 1,5 hours.
We make it back to the supermarket of Vallodolid and withdraw some cash with only 30 pesos extra costs. We also buy 4 water ice lollies and we eat them in a rush as they melt so quick in the 38 degrees.
We end the day in the pool, eating wraps and half a water melon. Zeno breaks the blender of our apartment, which costs us another 780 pesos. We take the loss (we’re getting good at taking losses this trip), and neverthless conclude that this was another wonderful day!