The Cool and the Uncool

A few days ago, before we came to Isla Mujeres, we took two buses to a small town a couple hours north of Valladolid called Rio Lagartos. Upon arriving, we were rather dismayed to find that the advice of the woman in the tourist office in Valladolid was quite wrong, in that we could not simply take a walk through the wildlife refuge in Rio, as she had said, but instead needed to hire a rather expensive boat to see any of the birds. We had barely enough cash to do that, almost forced to take another 50 minute bus ride to the nearest ATM, but squeaking by we made it onto a boat, and there forgot our annoyance at the bad advice-- nearly as soon as we pulled away from the dock, we came upon our first flock of wild flamingoes, standing in the water searching for shrimp to further pinken their feathers, or walking about in that knees-bending-backward way that never fails to look as if it should not be physically possible. A little bit farther out in the water, we came across two more groups of the birds; while one flock was not bothered by our presence and continued standing in the water, the other took flight, graceful feet running on top of the water to get going, the wings opening to reveal stunning black edging to the multi-hued pink of the rest. It was an exhilirating moment-- but also served, unfortunately, to render more gut-socking the theft of our camera that had occurred two nights before, on the overnight bus from Palenque to Valladolid. The sense of violation caused by this event was great, and was heightened by the fact that the thief took not only the camera-- the most expensive thing I´d ever bought, or was ever planning to buy before a house-- but also my Red Sox hat, and, just to be really annoying, our alarm clock. I was luckier than the young German man on the bus, who lost not only his camera but also all his credit cards, but it still put a damper on our travels here. I am happy to report, though, that the boat ride was a cathartic experience, the flamingoes supplemented by great snowy egrets and brown pelicans and myriad cormorants, and though we have nothing physical to show for it, the visions of those birds remain imprinted in our minds.