El Estero del Soldado
I was out of books to read and the library that I use in San Carlos at Tecalai, is only open on Friday mornings. I had forgotten what the hours were, so had asked on the local bulletin board and been told that it was open from 10 AM to 12 PM. I had a big bag of books, and also my stuff for my spanish lesson later that day, so we took the car. When we arrived at the library I found out that it is open from 9 AM to 1PM, so now I know for next time. I turned in my books and borrowed a bunch of new ones and then we went to lunch at our friends restaurant. We were a little early for the lunch hour and they were not busy, so we had a good visit over our lunch. We were still a couple of hours early for my class when we finished our lunch, so we decided to go out to the estuary and look around.
The estuary, Estero del Soldado is a wildlife area that is protected by the WWF, and is a very interesting place. We have been wanting to visit the area since last winter; but just never seemed to get around to it. The estuary is used by many species of migratory birds and is home to many animals and sea creatures. There are signs posted along the path, telling you about the vegetation, land and animals. The signs, of course are in spanish, so I couldn't understand everything on them; but did get the main ideas. We walked along the path and sat and watched some of the birds. There are lots of Mangroves and the water is absolutely clear. The tide was going out, so we saw all the sandbars and watched the water running back into the sea. We traversed the area and arrived at a lovely, sandy beach and decided that we would be returning to try out snorkeling in the area, when the water warms up enough for us. It was a nice, warm day with a wind blowing; but I had a long sleeved shirt on. We did see some people paddling in the water and in their bathing suits. I guess they were tourists down from the colder climes, as it wasn't warm enough for me to be in a bathing suit. It is a beautiful, tranquil place and we will definately be returning there later on in the summer.
It was time for my spanish class, so we had to leave. Unfortunately, I didn't have the camera with me, so I didn't get any photos this time. I "googled" the estuary and did find some photos from someone else on this site: http://atiniui.nhm.org/gallery/main.php?g2_itemId=4367
here are a couple of their photos.
Looks like the tide was out when they were there also.
Some of the mangroves.
Saturday morning, Nancy, the landlords daughter in law, came up. She was selling tamales and barbacoa. I already had meat out for supper, so I didn't buy any barbacoa; but I get get a couple of shrimp tamales to try. I had never tried shrimp ones and they were very good. She had an olive in the center of each one along with the rest of the filling. A strange breakfast; but as they were still hot, I decided to eat them right away. Yummy.
Yesterday it was a nice day so we decided to go out to Empalme, as it was their tianguis day. I needed some new flip flops as mine had broken a week or so ago and I still hadn't replaced them. We caught the bus uptown and then caught the Empalme bus. We wandered around the market and I did find some flip flops. I also stopped at a store and got a couple of squares to embroider. I had finished the ones I had and the store here was out of them. This store had a big selection to choose from, so I picked up a couple. The tianguis in Empalme is much bigger than the one here in Guaymas, so we wandered for a couple of hours. When we got back into Guaymas we went and sat in the park for awhile. Mass was going on in the church and it must have been full as people were standing in the doorway. People were sitting on the park benches visiting, children were feeding the pigeons and running around playing, there was a dance group practising their routines. We sat and watched for awhile before going home. After returning home and relaxing from our hectic lifestyle, I made coco shrimp for supper.
Today it is back to work with spanish class and I need to go and pay the cable/internet bill.
