Uman and Celestun (and the beach!)

On Friday, our group went took a trip to the small Mayan town of Uman and to Celestun (on the far left side of the peninsula) to the Parque Natural del Flamenco Mexicano reserve. 


In Merida, there is a range of races. It was a colonized city so there is a mix if people of Spanish heritage, mestizo and fewer people of indigenous heritage. Since Uman is a Mayan town, the people that live there are nearly all of Mayan decent. They are shorter, darker and have different features than many of the Merida Mexicans. In Uman, we walked around the busy daily market- people there tend to buy their food on a daily basis rather than refrigerate anything.

 

However, Uman is not small enough to avoid Wonderbread ads from the NBA! :)

 

The reserve at Celestun is pretty unique- thousands of flamingos stay there every winter (in addition to many other bird species). Our group took boats out on the water to see some.

 Kind of hard to see from the pictures, but these are some of the many flamingos we saw :)










We also went back in these mangroves (sort of a wooded area in the water) and saw ojos de agua "eyes of water" which are natural sources of fresh water.

 




























Later, we went to a Celestun beach- it's pretty nice being on a beach in January :)