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Dear Ron, Restaurare (Tulum) – One night we walked a few blocks south of our
hotel to this intimate, open-air vegan restaurant embraced by palm
It seems flamingos share at least one trait with humans. They, too, grow trees on the jungle side of the Playa strip.
more colorful with age. But they do it literally. Flamingo chicks start out
drab grey then blossom to flamboyant pink by the time they might be When we asked waiter/manager Roberto Terrazas where to sit he said,
receiving AARP solicitations. The color changes comes from their diet of “It doesn’t matter. The mosquitoes are the same everywhere.” Later he
shrimp and algae. Also, flamingos are monogamous and a flock is aptly hung bowls of smoking copal on trees by the tables explaining, “Bad
called a flamboyance. vibe for mosquitoes.”

Those were just a few of the flamingo facts we learned on a day-trip But no bad vibes for dinner. The tropical evening was soft; dining was
to the seaside town of Celestun, about 60 miles from Merida. Here’s by candle light. We ordered the Restaurare’s mole and some kind of tofu
another: At one time the Yucatan’s flamingo population had shrunk to dish stuffed with veggies and wrapped in leaves. Dessert was a baked
1,000 but conservation efforts created a flamingo boom. Now there are cupcake of dark chocolate from Tabasco. All delicious.
some 35,000 along the Gulf Coast from Celestun to Rio Legartos.

Celestun is flamingo central. The docks are lined with flat-bottom
power boats to take tourists through the area’s lagoons and mangrove
swamps. We were the only gringos in our group of nine. We boarded
two boats — the “Marilu” and “Alexander” — and sped toward what,
at a distance, looked like long floating ribbons of pink.

Turns out the flamboyances were walking, not floating. Their stilted
legs lifting them above the shallow lagoon waters, which range from
just 8 inches to 5 feet deep. Oh, one more flamingo fact: those back-
wards knees are really their ankles.
The boats had to keep at least 20 yards from the nearest flamingo.
“They’re very nervous,” said our guide, “We’re not allowed to get too
close.” Still, we were close enough to be awed by their clacking, click-
ing, stalking, and flapping; their take-offs and splash-downs.

But flamingoes weren’t the only stars of the boat ride. After slipping
deep into a shadowy tunnel of mangroves, we pulled up to a dilapidat-
ed boardwalk that creaked through a pristine freshwater spring (“ojo
de agua”) filled with tiny fish and overseen by a couple of crocodiles.

Apparently there are no ecological limits for croc viewing. The nine
of us edged across the beat-up, broken boards, closer and closer. Ten
yards, five yards. Then, on cue, one of the crocs smiled.

We’re happy to report, we saw no pink — or grey — feathers between
his teeth.

Love,
John and Jody

Dear Ron, Afterwards we talked to Roberto about his meatless menu. He claimed
that the Restaurare recipe for mole included 52 ingredients, including
We were looking for restaurant El Camello Jr. We’d heard it was the best six kinds of nuts and six kinds of chilies. Basically, he said, “It’s whatever
down-scale place in the city of Tulum. grandmother has in the house.”

Not certain of our directions we asked a local cop. He smiled and point- Chocolate Maya (Valladolid) -- After finishing our tour of this
ed north. “Dos cuadras (two blocks),” he said. Then he added, “ceviche,” mini-chocolate factory/museum we began tasting their chocolate vari-
and made a lip-smacking motion with his mouth and fingers. eties: chili and honey, ginger, tequila. All made with 100 percent Mex-
ican cacao.
The cop was right about El Camello’s ceviche – a heaping bowl of shrimp,
octopus, clams, white fish, cilantro, tomatoes and onion – and his cri- Co-owner Astrid Laurent was particularly proud of the cacao/anise-li-
tique could have doubled for our food adventures in the Yucatan. All in queur/honey variety. “It’s like Yucatan: an explosion of sensation, an
all, lip-smacking good. explosion of flavors,” she said.

Here are some culinary highlights of our two-week trip: Afterwards we ordered more cacao-based goodies in Chocolate Ma-

92 Wine Dine & Travel Summer/Fall 2015