Not all Expeditions are out of town

This past Sunday in Houston was a beautiful day. low 70s, low humidity, so we decided to ride down to Hermann Park for a mini-expedition.

This is our typical route from the park, with a few detours just for fun:

when we got there, we enjoyed just walking around the new Centennial Gardens:

We walked to the top of the Mount, and it was PACKED with people: 

Here is our path in the Garden. You can see that Google has not yet updated the layout of the park. Look at the old parking lot location!

 The spiral is our path up the Mount. The little spike on the North West part of the route was me going to take a photo with Robert Burns. It was Burns Day.

Here is the Mount:

Another view of the Pavillion:

and finally, a camellia!

Expeditions come in various shapes and sizes. This is one of my favorite.

Expedition to Celestún

On our last day in Merida we drove to a wildlife sanctuary near Celestún.

It was an interesting drive on some very flat terrain.

We drove through a couple little towns renowned for their Cochinita Pibil.

And churches:

There was a feast day going on, so I didn't get a good photo. But you can see the flowers.

Doreen had read that you want to go all the way to the beach and get a boat. So we did:

It was a very nice beach. The weather was not too hot, and it was not raining. Two very good things.

So we negotiated for a boat, and headed off to look for flamingos:

That's our boat. The captain was Jose, and I think he was about 17 years old.

We were really booking as we headed to the "Ria Celestún" or the back bay.

 The water was warm as well. I took off my shoes, of course.

It was quite a fun ride.

We saw a lot of birds on the way out. Gulls and brown pelicans, to start with.

Then we saw pods of wintering white pelicans as well. Jose said that they came from Canada. Could be, but white pelicans are pretty broadly distributed in the US as well. But we saw at least one bird with a band, so they may very well be from Canada.

It is fun to watch those while pelicans feed. They all dunk their heads at the same time.

We also spotted some flamingos in the open water. They are not swimming, they are standing:

And some more as well:

The back bay was a mangrove swamp. Very spooky when you get into it.

We saw a small cayman. Not such a big deal for us, as we see alligators around Houston all the time.

But we did see an American bittern, much to Gaye's delight:

 I didn't get too good a photo due to a) my incompetence as a photographer and b) noisy french tourists.

We saw these things all over the place. Termite mounds!

I love the auto-awesome that Google does for me:

The Ria is on top of an artesian fresh water aquifer, which allows for these fresh water wells pouring into the salt water:

As we headed back to the beach, we spotted these guys:

They were walking about, looking very imperious.

Then they took off.

Very cool

We had lunch at La Playita:

and we may have had a beer or two.

The fish was delicious. Every time I have fish on a beach I think about my friend David. While he was visiting me in Venezuela, we went to a beach and ordered fish on the beach. He related a story about an uncle of his who was eating a fish, and then got a bone stuck in his throat. It got infected, and after several miserable days in unbearable pain, he died. So David was always reluctant to order fish with bones.

He wasn't my uncle, so I didn't have that particular aversion.

It was very pretty.

and relaxing.

On the way home, we stopped at a friend's hacienda where we met the horses.

Doreen especially got along well with them:

 We also saw a goat:

 And this is Tony, our driver:

His real job was working with horses. He really loves the horses.

It was a good trip.

It was a good first Expedition for 2015.

The Governor's Mansion

This is the current governor's mansion:

 and it is totally open for you to wander about with no security at all! I love that access.

Two stories, with a nice galley view from above:

and nice open corridors:

And their history is told in art. Here is the exploitation of the peons by the elite on the sisal haciendas.

This is the sale of the Indians as slaves:

This is Galvez, as in Galveston. (well, maybe not. But I said it, so I will stick with it) This fellow was assassinated when he was 53.

Corn!

A great take on the Mexican Flag:

 A battle between the Mayan and the Spanish:

The Jaguar.

Quite a place. Quite a Palace. 

Sunday in Merida

It seems there are many cities that now have Bicycle Street days on Sundays. When I was living in Caracas (1992-1994) they shut down the "Cota Mil" (thousand meter line) a freeway that skirted the national park El Avila. I believe that it started in Bogota in the 1980s. (Why Latin America? ¿Quien Sabe?) These events are usually characterized as Ciclovías. We have them in Houston! And, of course, Merida!

 We saw this group of "low rider" bikers along the route. They had music that trailer being towed by the fellow on the right.

We were able to rent some bikes that I would characterize as "usable, no brakes" Who needs brakes? The route was along Paseo de Montejo, which has some great houses on it:

I won't go into the history of Merida (you can do that yourself) except to say that Sisal was the basis for the fortune of Merida. It has been said that around the turn of the 20th century, because of sisal, Merida had more millionaires than any other city. Of course, I have heard this said of Neenah, Wisconsin, Nederland, Colorado, and Waco, Texas as well. So I would say that that with a grain of Celestun salt. That top mansion now houses the archaeological museum. It has some cool stuff:

You'll notice she is watering the corn with her tears.

 All these guys are trying to get into heaven. Note the wings on some!

This is a roulette wheel using different types of pots as the icons! Wow.

 Second from the left is Zapata (Tierra y Liberdad!) and the third from the left is Pancho Villa

Chickens are my familiar.

 Look at that guy riding a chicken!

The Trojan Horse! I'll do a different post on the Governor's Mansion by and by.