Rio Lagartos means Lizard River, but it is neither a river nor does it have lizards....HA! (it was misnamed by the Spaniards) It's an ESTUARY...and full of CROCODILES, pelicans, herons, etc......I fly over this place everytime I fly into Cancun so its about time I got here! I love it....I feel such a connection with this place.....maybe it has something to do with my southern Louisana roots of growing up in the wetlands!!
On the northern Yucatan coastline one is able to hire a tour guide and a boat and have a great day of adventure!! It begins with the guide explaining that hurricanes can have a devastating effect on the mangroves and that is why so many of the trees are dead here. He locates and points out some common bird sightings such as the mangrove hawk, boat billed heron, tropical king bird, lesser yellow head vulture....also an interesting story about the anhinga bird (photo). 
The Anhinga bird dives for fish and spears them with its sharp beak and brings it to the surface where it impales the fish on a branch and then eats it...well the Mayans would "fish" with these birds! They would tie a "string" (vine or cactus thread) to its leg and let the bird spear the fish and then when it surfaced they would remove the fish before the anhinga ate it. Our guide, Ismael Navarro who works out of Restaurant Isla Contoy said our sighting of the Bare Throated Tiger Heron was the "bird of the day!" 
Then we went to the feeding grounds of the Caribbean Flamingos. They were feeding in the salt flats at a very large Salt Extraction Plant on the coast...see Google image...click on the image to make it bigger to see the detail. 
We saw about 1000 flamingos eating brine shrimp...which gives them their pink/orange color.
I also learned how to take a photo by putting my camera up to the binoculars and if you zoom in a little with the camera you can get rid of the black area, but I like the look of it.
In peak season when the migratory flamingos come to nest and hatch their young there are about 35,000...I am returning for that event for sure!! 
Along the shore of the salt flats was this wierd foam he called spume....it was blowing everywhere and the bubbles would not pop...it covered our legs. He gave us each a bouquet of flamingo feathers.
Then we went to a place where Ismael dug through the layer of salt to get a special clay that feels like a Mayan mud mask....we would have covered our entire bodies but it was cold and I was a wus.....
THEN.....after the tour and before sunset...and this was one of the highlights...we drove to the town of Las Coloradas and played in one of the salt pools.....the factory was closed as it was a Sunday so there was noone to bother us. The water was PINK!!! The large salt crystals were just under the surface of the water....tasted like.....SALT! 
I just had to get in (kind of a Louisiana thing) and was planning on floating but discovered it was way too shallow for that....I am not sure why the water was pink and it dawned on me that maybe I should not be in there in case it was toxic, but I decided it was a mineral deposit that remains after the process of evaporation??? Well..anyways...I was not glowing in the dark afterwards!
The Mayans traded in sea salt as this area has been in production for over 2000 years....but not to the extent that this commercial operation has taken it of course...supposedly these are some of the largest salt beds in MesoAmerica....according to wikipedia.
Mari first soaks the corn overnight with lime and then the soft kernals are placed on the metate and ground into cornmeal, then mixed with water into a paste that can be flattened into a tortilla.
