Bird Watching in Rio Lagartos

-          Today we visited Rio Lagartos in the morning for some bird watching.  Before we went off on the boats to go around the mangroves to look at the shorebirds, some of the people were feeding the dogs.  I noticed this throughout the trip, but people were more sympathetic to the dogs than they were to the people.  They were paying more attention to the dog and feeding it rather than paying any attention to the many people throughout Mexico that were poor and hungry.  It seemed as if no acknowledgement was being given to the poverty stricken masses.  I know that a sandwich may not be much, but rather than give it to a dog, give it to a hungry family.  It’s not that I don’t like dogs, but there are needy people that could make use of that food.  I had spoken to a two other people about this and we all found it a bit upsetting too.  There are less fortunate people that need that sandwich more than a dog.  Also, it was upsetting that throughout this trip, not that many people wanted to talk about this topic.  Aakash and I were talking about this and we thought that people fail to acknowledge this because it’s a taboo.  It’s not something that we want to face, so we try to ignore it.  When a little girl comes up to you to try and sell you something so that she can earn some money, we immediately say no gracias, but when we see a hungry dog on the street we immediately feel sorry and want to feed it.  I admit that I am at times in the position to say no and not acknowledge the poor girl, but I do feel really bad.  As a kid there is not much that I can do, aside having bought something from her.  I just wish that more people would acknowledge this misfortune because many people around the world are poor and hungry.  If more people cared about this, then it wouldn’t be a problem.

-          Anyways, we boarded the boats in a port in Rio Lagartos and were off to watch some birds.  It was amazing.  I couldn’t believe that our classroom for today was the beautiful brackish water setting near the mangroves.  (insert picture)  There were so many shore birds throughout the place.  Some of my favorite birds were the cormorants.  These birds completely submerge their bodies in the water, leaving only their neck and head above the surface.  As Robert said, they are like submarines with only the periscope sticking out of the water.  I also liked the frigate birds.  In flight, their shape and outline is very cool, almost like the bat signal that you would see in batman.  Another really cool bird that I saw was the tern, which plunge dive into the water to catch fish.  While flying, they would dive into the water to find food.  It was very cool.  While near the mangroves, we also so a crocodile.  Our boat captain was crazy and tried to get it to come closer by enticing it with a fish.  He was crazy and fed it a small barracuda.  Even though that stunt was completely insane, it was amazing. (insert picture) I told Ellen when we got on the boat that I wanted to see a crocodile, and we did.  It was amazing.

-          The very end of our boating expedition, we came upon a pink pool where salt was manufactured.  The water was pink because of the shrimp larvae in the water. (insert picture)  We all took a dip in the water and it was a very strange experience.  Because of the extremely high salt concentration in the water, you would float on the surface.  I was able to curl into a ball and stand straight and I would just float on the water.  It was an amazing experience.  The pool also had some flamingos nearby that were feeding on the shrimp larvae.  It was an amazing experience, one that I will never forget.

-          I really enjoyed Rio Lagartos.  I was really surprised that it had not become a tourist destination, completely renovated with lots of hotels.  I enjoyed the fact that it retained its local façade of a port town.  The local fishermen were still fishing for a living throughout the brackish water.  After our excursion, we got to try some of the local fish cuisine.  It was delicious.  I expected nothing less from this place.

-          After our morning excursion at Rio Lagartos, we went to Ek’ Balam, a Mayan site.  It was amazing.  The acropolis that we got to scale was really tall, the tallest one that we have scaled so far.  At the top we could see the acres of trees from the surrounding environment.  The view was spectacular.  Like many of the other sites that we saw, there were stucco structures on the acropolis sides.  They were well preserved.  The detail in the stucco was amazing.  I was completely in awe of the Mayan art.  The witz entrance at the acropolis side was beautiful.  I could not believe the detail.  It was amazing.