Where the Sky Is Born

Dawn first breaks over México along the Yucatan Peninsula, rising in pinks and purples above the turquoise Caribbean Sea. While a chunk of this area has been consumed by massive resort development in just the last thirty years, nearly a third of the coastline has been protected as an impressive natural area, the Sian Ka'an Biosphere Reserve. The name, in the Mayan language, means where the sky is born. It is a nexus of sky and ocean and freshwater, mangroves and savannas and jungle. A thousand years ago, it was part of an important Mayan trade route. Traders would travel by canoe down the coastline to Honduras. On the edge of the mangroves sits the rock remains of an ancient lighthouse, where bonfires were kept burning to guide the boatmen through the lagoons.

We ventured into Sian Ka'an with Mark's sister and brother-in-law during an extended weekend on the Yucatan Peninsula. We rode bikes into the reserve - until the pedals fell off two of the bikes - and then we resorted to car transportation. We then took a boat tour through the brackish lagoons and saw manatees, a crocodile, brown pelicans, tri-colored herons, night herons, frigatebirds, snowy egrets, osprey, and a roseate spoonbill!

With cenotes (sinkholes, or pools, connected by subterranean tunnels through the limestock rock) connecting fresh water and salt water, the sky meeting the ocean, the viney mangrove trees extending the jungle into the lagoons, and birds mediating between it all . . . Sian Ka'an feels like a frontier of transformative processes. I am glad to know that this is where each new day approaches México.