Bioluminiscencia

Friday January 4, 2019-Today Dave drove us 50 minutes to Tututepec. Dave was our tour guide as we visited Palacio Nacional. There were murals on the wall depicting Mixteco, Chatino, and Afrolatino culture and heritage in this area. I felt so informed after this tour, thanks to Dave. We also visited the Catholic Church in town which used to be the old palace.

We had lunch at the “corner” restaurant /Comedor Cortes which is family run business.  For comida, we had delicious frijoles, tortilla( a given, served with every meal), chile rellenos and Jamaica (hibiscus) tea.

After the van stalled on us, Randy and Dave tried to troubleshoot but no luck. Dave had to get a mechanic from one town over who eventually fixed the problem.

In the meantime, we hung out in Cortes Comedor and had ice suckers, then eventually moved to the plaza where it was much cooler. 

We got back to Roca Blanca mission base in another van, thanks to Jesus and Chano late in the afternoon. We inhaled our afternoon meal (comida) and was able to make it to Manialtepec Lagoon for a bioluminescent boat tour.  While on the lake, we were surrounded by a mangrove, a lot of birds but no crocodiles on the lake, thank goodness. The boat took us out to the ocean where we had a coconut and  watch the sunset which was amazing.  The sunset here is beautiful. After the sun went down, we went to view the bioluminescencia.  All nine of us along with our driver Johnie jumped in the lake, the water was so refreshing.  We were very fortunate because the bioluminescent was  glowing, we had so much fun making streaks in the water to see the plankton.

What was really liberating was that while in the lake, there were no “selfies, “we all just have a special memory  of swimming in this phosphorescent lake in Mexico.

I enjoyed talking in Spanish to Johnie, he spoke slowly and clearly, I had no trouble understanding him.

We ended the evening by celebrating Eddie’s birthday with the happy birthday song in spanish and a tres leches cake.