We decided to do a day trip to Las Coloradas on Thursday since we still wanted to see some pink lakes despite the Laguna Rosada fail a couple of weeks earlier. So we rode for about 3.5 hours and, lo and behold, we found the pink lakes! It wasn’t as bright of a pink that some heavily-edited pictures on the Internet would have you believe, but it was pink enough for me to be as excited as a five-year-old would be.
Las Coloradas is a fishing village on the Yucatán coast that is known for salt production dating back to the Mayan period. The pink colour of the lakes come from the algae, plankton, and brine shrimp that live in these waters and become visible as the water evaporates thanks to all that sunshine on the Gulf of Mexico. It is said that eating these creatures is the reason why flamingos (found hanging out in the area) are pink. Kids, don’t try this at home!
We got some cool drone footage of the area before being told by one of the guides that the area is private property and drones are prohibited. Signs would have been great, but at least he didn’t make us delete the videos so keep an eye on our YouTube channel 🙂
You can’t swim in the water, so we rode around the area and enjoyed exploring a bit before deciding to head back. We took the sandy road in the direction of El Cuyo to take a different route home. The road was full of puddles and, as any good co-pilot would do, I volunteered to walk through them to help our favourite biker gauge the depth of each of the puddles and the density of the sand underneath.
Since my trusty waterproof riding boots extend to just below my calves and some of the puddles were deeper than they looked, I ended up with water in my shoes and soggy socks. Splish splosh, at least we’d be home soon. Or would we? After riding for close to an hour, we came across a body of water that would require the bike to become a boat for us to be able to cross. Since the Africa Twin is not a transformer, we had no other choice but to ride back and take our original route home.
We made it back to Playa del Carmen by nightfall and managed to help some fellow riders along the way who were pushing their bike towards El Cuyo and had run out of gas. Carrying extra gas while on the road is always a good idea.
