We Watched Them; They Watched Over Us

Ramon the Ramrodder

For two years now, we have talked and loosely planned a trip to Rio Lagartos but for various reasons we never quite made it there. I guess this time, the stars were lined up right and we made it to Rio Lagartos. The biggest decision we had to make during the planning and actual journey to Rio Lagartos was: "Should we take the bus to Valladolid and then head north from there, or should we go on the thru Noreste bus?" We elected to get up early and catch the 6am bus to Valladolid and worry about the rest of the trip when we got to Valladolid. Seems we made the right decision as we had to change buses twice, but each transfer was at the perfect time with very little wait time.

We made it to Rio Lagartos right at noon, and before our feet hit the dirt street in front of the bus stop "Ramon" was there to try and line up a bio-reserve tour and help us find a place to stay. I call these guys "ramrodders". As it turned out, Ramon did a great job watching over us. Our one requirement was to stay on the waterfront and we wanted a mirador. (maybe that makes two requirements) We got that and more for 400 pesos per night. It was perfect! We shared the posada with 3 Canadians and 4 German women. There were a total of 4 rooms.

 

How to describe Rio Lagartos? The people are the nicest, most tranquil you would ever want to meet. Food was great as long as you love seafood...which we do. Botanas were some of the best we have had anywhere. There were few tourists this time of the year. The waterfront is all malecon, ie, no sandy beach and the town is off the Gulf about 2 km. on the inlet. You can see the Gulf and can easily get a boat to take you there. It's a water town. One observation we discussed was the town's cantina that opened in the morning for the fishermen that fished at night, then opened again in the evening for the fishermen that fished during the day. We decided this must be where all the consumption of alcohol takes place by the local fishermen as there was absolutely no public consumption of alcohol along the waterfront. This was unusual to not see.

 

It was interesting being invisible from above. From the mirador, we could watch the fishermen come and go, enjoy beautiful sunsets, watch children trying to net bait and just generally act like kids, we saw the occasional vehicle go by, we observed the elder dapperly-dressed couples strolling along in the late evening, and grinned at the Gringo tinkering with his two mini-splits on top of his second-story recently built home. We always say each village has its own personality and Rio Lagartos definitely has one as well. Both of us really liked the laid-back gentleness of the town.

We thought we might possibly have to contend with rain, wind, and cooler temperatures as a norte was expected to blow through, but it never happened and we had beautiful weather for our boat tour into the bioreserve the next day with Ramon----we saw an abundance of birds including osprey, a baby osprey, hawks, herons, and flamingoes. I floated in the water at the salt flats and took the mud bath. The highlight of the trip was the close encounters we had with the crocodiles. A little too close for me!

We stayed two nights and could have easily hung around longer. We have already made tentative plans to meet back up with Diego and do some fishing, partly a result of Terry seeing one of the guys casually bring in a freshly-caught trout and place it directly in the freezer at one of the restaurants we ate at. But, we hugged the owners and their son that watched over us, promising them we would be back, put on our backpacks and headed for the bus station. We had decided to take the longer route back to Tizimin just to pass through San Felipe and take a look. This was confusing to the woman at the bus station....why would we take a later bus that would take longer? She was just watching over us. It also confused the Noreste bus driver when coming into town. When he spotted us walking a couple of streets from the bus station, he stopped the bus, rolled down his window, and hollered to ask us if we were needing a ride. And, there was Ramon waiting for the next bus to arrive, so we hugged him too.

You just gotta' love that feeling of everybody watching over you!