Río Lagartos

Fri 13 Oct: All the swimming and diving lately has taken there toll, and my ears are so sore, bugger. Will have to wait til we get somewhere bigger and hopefully can get some eardrops from the pharmacy. Today we headed 29 kms east to Las Coloradas, and the pink lakes. It was a fun drive for Doug, trying to avoid all the potholes. The pink lakes are actually man made salt ponds that have an algae in them causing the pink colour, and also flamingos that feed on the algae. Since Covid you can no longer just view them but have to take a 30 minute tour for $370 mxn (NZ$37). We decided it wasn't worth that, so snapped a photo from the carpark and continued on pass the town where we soon found us driving along a narrow sandspit with lagoons on one side and the gulf of Mexico on the other. It was a real lovely drive with tons of different birds to photograph including flamingos and pelicans. Although the road continued we decided eventually to turn around, but firstly went up the sandbank to check out the sea. It looked so gorgeous and inviting. I didn't want to swim because of my ears, but took my skirt of for a little wade, oh it was so nice . . . . Bra is wet now might as well go abit further but keep the head out of the water, beautiful . . . . Oh stuff the ears, under I went and throughly enjoyed it. Doug also enjoyed the plunged, not that it's difficult to plunge with the very warm sea temperature. On the way back again a lot of stops to photograph birds and iguanas. Heading back to San Felipe we first went to the bigger and more touristy town of Rio Lagartos. Had a walk along the waterfront, being continually asked if we wanted to do a flamingo tour, sorry already done our own. Couldn't find a reasonably price restaurant for lunch so continued on back to San Felipe. Our loncheria wasn't open so ended up going to a restaurant and having a delicious meal of the local fish, Corvina. Choose the garlic and coconut options - the only two we knew what they were, and both were very nice. Since it was about 3.30pm that was enough for our dinner also. Walked down the road from our hotel to the lookout at the end for the sunset, but wasn't as good tonight. There was a boardwalk leading into the mangroves from there, so walked that but it was to dark to see anything. Just spent rest of the evening in the hotel room watching the lightning out to sea, and still trying to decide whether we should go to Chichen-Itza.

Sat 14th Oct: I had a bad night sleep, couldn't get comfortable with my sore ears, and definitely feeling a lot worse this morning. Doug suggested spending another night here and just resting but I really wanted to get some eardrops so ended up driving 4 hrs back to the east coast to Playa del Carmen, which is halfway between Cancun and Tulum. Got to our accomodation and I collapsed on the bed, while Doug went in search of some ear drops. He also found a pizza place and brought one home for dinner. Discovered I must have left my kobo, hidden by the bed coverings at San Felipe ☹️. Message back to the hotel confirmed they had found it, bugger an 8 hr return trip required to pick it up.Read more