Day 351 – Valladolid
Rio Lagartos and Los Coloradas
Today we woke up just before 5.30am as we planned to explore Rio Lagartos and Los Coloradas. We left our accommodation, Hostel 230 half an hour later. The front gate was locked with a massive lock. In the early morning, I struggled to open the door. We sent a Whatsapp message to the hostel owner who woke up and came to help us open the door. During that time, I realised that I wasn’t pulling the knob out enough. I apologised a lot to the sleepy owner, before we headed off.Â
Getting to Rio Lagartos from Valladolid
We walked for less than 10 minutes to the ADO bus station. From the station we bought tickets for the 6.46am bus to Tizimin with the 2nd class bus company Oriente. It cost us 31 MXN / $2.37 AUD per person (p/p) Since we had to wait for a while, we thought we would try to find some coffee.
At 6am the rest of Valladolid was still asleep. Fortunately, the convenience chain Oxxo was opened, so we could buy some snacks and coffee. The bus arrived pretty much on time, and it left at 6.52am.
The bus left the depot, with only half the seats occupied. As we were on the road, we slowly picked up more and more passengers.
The second class Oriente bus is still really good
At 8.00am we stopped at the ADO Terminal in the smaller town of Tizimin. We walked to the Noreste bus terminal, located on the same block as the ADO Terminal to check if there were any buses. The next one was at 9.10am. We then walked to the collectivo station, to find that the next collectivo was at 10.15am.
Tizimin Bus Schedule Collectivo Station
As we were walking back to the bus stop, a taxi driver offered to depart in 20 minutes as a shared taxi (i.e. with other passengers) for 60 MXN / $4.58 AUD p/p. We agreed and went to a local store for some breakfast tortillas as we waited.
Once we got back to the taxi, he kept delaying, as he was looking for more passengers. We were starting to get impatient, as it was approaching the bus departure time (9:10am). We got out of the taxi and then the driver ran behind us saying he was leaving. It was 9am. We got back into the taxi since it wasn’t going to break the bank. The driver picked up two local tourists from a hotel before he started driving to Rio Lagartos.
Rio Lagartos and Los Coloradas Boat Tour
We arrived in Rio Lagartos at 9.50am. We were dropped off at the edge of town, which is only a short walk to the pier and all the boats. The town is tiny. We were approached by a few different tour operators, trying to sell us tours. We said we would think about it and walked towards the pier. It was low season, so not much was happening. As we sat on the pier, wondering what to do, a guy on a motorbike, offered us a tour for 550 MXN / $41.98 AUD for both of us.
Super cute… …and super quiet
The boat was small, but there was only a total of 4 tourists (including us) and the captain and his son. Unfortunately, the captain was explaining everything in Spanish. Fortunately, the other two tourists were Italian, and partially understood Spanish so they started translating for us.
The tour was really nice. We saw a handful of flamingos flying in the distance (it’s low season as most of the flamingos have migrated elsewhere), an eagle, other birds like pelicans and a few crocodiles in the red mangrove trees.Â
Apparently between December to February there are 400-500 flamingos here. We still enjoyed the 20 or so that we saw.
The captain, also showed us an animal that reminded me of the pokemon Kabuto. This animal is apparently dangerous in the water, due to its tail. However, on land its harmless. We were able to touch the underside, which was really soft and felt nothing like it should from looking at the creature.
We then left Rio Lagartos and went to the pink lakes in Los Coloradas. For us, the water was only slightly pink. Our polarised sunglasses assisted and made the lakes look slightly pink. But otherwise, it was just brown. Apparently, this is due to the wind that was present. Best conditions are sun without wind.
The brine shrimps in the water are the reason that the water appears pink. Also I learnt that the flamingos are pink because they eat this brine.Â
After the “pink” lakes, we went to a spot along the beach for a Mayan bath. This involved digging a hole and then scooping out the mud and lathering ourselves. It was a nice experience, when the mud was wet, but due to the sun, it dried really quickly, which was annoying for me. My wife didn’t mind it too much.
Mayan bath
As we were backtracking on the boat (still covered in mud), another tour boat had gotten a crocodile out from the mangroves and next to their boat. It was a really large croc. Our captain’s son tempted the crocodile to our boat, by using his flip flop in the water (I’m surprised he has all his fingers). When the crocodile was next to the boat and its mouth preoccupied by the captain, we all touched the top of it. I was super surprised by how soft the crocodiles skin was. It reminded me of the baby alligator back in Miami (Day 294).
We then went to a beautiful beach to wash of the mud. It was only 10 or so minutes away from where we saw the crocodiles. After several reassurances from the captain, we got into the water. It was a very beautiful beach.
After 15 minutes of swimming and washing in the water, we got back on the boat and went back to the pier. The tour was over at 12.50pm (approximately 2.5 hours after we departed).
Getting from Rio Lagartos to Valladolid
We walked to the Rio Lagartos sign before going back to the bus terminal. Along the way, we asked a tour operator, and he told us that the next collectivo leaves at 2pm, while the bus leaves at 2.30pm. We found a collectivo where we were dropped off (near the blue well thing). The cost was only 50 MXN / $3.82 AUD p/p. The collectivo wasn’t full but started leaving at 1.24pm. However, we were just driving around town looking for more people.
By the time we left town the collectivo was full and it was 1.54pm. The collectivo was in Tizimin at 2.30pm. We walked back to the ADO Terminal and purchased tickets on the 3pm bus back to Valladolid (31 MXN again). The bus left at 3.06pm and we arrived in Valladolid at 4.10pm.
When we had just arrived in town, we were greeted by thunderstorms. We waited out the most of it at the station and then headed back home finding Mayan mud everywhere.
The hostel owner, greeted us and was not annoyed that I had woken him. Since we missed out on breakfast, we were given dinner for free which was super kind of him.
Later that day, we went down to Calle 41 for some coffee from Conkafecito, which was also nice.
