Rio Lagartos and San Felipe

A view of the river, from the park at the end of town.

Rio Lagartos is the area mostly known for the flamingo tours offered by the local boaters.  We took a drive out in late January to see the area, but did not plan to take a boat trip.  When we arrived it was an incredibly windy day anyway, much too blustery for touring by boat, but we enjoyed looking around the area.

The malecon across the street from the restaurant we had lunch at......it was so windy, and it was an open-air restaurant.......our chips were blowing off the table!  We chatted with our server (he spoke excellent English) and found out the best time for flamingo tours is early in the morning and during the summer, so we will have to come back to Rio Lagartos later.  We did see hotels right on the malecon.

Next we drove 10 KM to the port town of San Felipe.  This is a major fishing port for the Yucatan, which had fish packing houses and many fishing boats.  Their malecon had beautiful lamp posts, and an observation tower.


Driving around town we were surprised to see that most of the homes here were constructed of wood, brightly painted in colors that reminded us of the Caribbean Islands.  Most of the construction in Telchac Puerto is concrete block.

 My neighbor Gaby has a brother and sister-in-law who live here in San Felipe.  We tried to find their house but were not successful.  We did see a very nice hotel here though, so perhaps another trip is in the future!

Hungry shorebirds await handouts from these fishermen who are cleaning their catch.