Mexico!

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We came back from Mexico late on Sunday, but it was an incredible trip. I got to see a lot of different animals I never thought I would, which really made the trip for me.

The first day was just check in and a dinner, but the second day we had a trip to Tulum and Xel-Ha. Tulum was very interesting, I love archaeological sites. <3

There were also approximately eleventybillion iguanas roaming around. It was cool to see them in the wild.

Unfortunately, the beach access was closed, so we couldn't go down there to see the cliffs, but it was still an awesome (if blazingly hot) place to see. As we were leaving, we noticed some people with random animals - 2 squirrel monkeys, a ring-tailed lemur, and a (sleeping) baby lion from the local zoo (I assume they have an outreach program thing). It was $10 to take a photo with any of them, so I passed on that, but the guy with the squirrel monkeys came over to talk to us and put one on my arm. The other one he told to sit on my shoulder and it just sort of chilled eating a piece of cucumber. It was a very surreal experience, and I kind of wish I'd paid for photos. :p

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After Tulum, we went to a eco-waterpark-type-thing called Xel-Ha. It was insanely fun and I'd love to go back. We barely saw half of the park!

We spent most of the time snorkelling, so we saw lots of fishes (and a live conch!! :D), but not too much of the park itself. We started at the very top of the forest river that feeds the inlet and went out to the bottom. :) They also had dolphins and manatees and snuba-ing, although their version seems a bit different than what I've seen elsewhere? Not really sure the state of snuba worldwide. ;P

One thing I really liked is that they've banned non-biodegradable sunscreen park-wide to try to help keep the reef (which we also didn't see XD) healthy. They will give you compatible sunscreen if yours is not, but I'm not sure of the official impact of this. I would hope most people actually comply, but I don't know.

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The rest of the days we mostly just swam and stumbled upon animals doing their thing. We'd seen (white-nosed) coatis wandering around A LOT, but this one was clawing open coconuts to drink the water - it was really cool!

Apparently you can keep them as pets in some places... I wonder how well that works....

I like to try to keep lists of the (personally identifiable) animals I see on different trips just for fun, so here is my Mexico 2014 list:
- coatis
- dolphins
- toucan (only one :( )
- iguanas
- squirrel monkeys
- lion cub
- ring-tailed lemur
- pelicans
- hawk
- agouti (it was eating an apple piece near the path to our room!)
- opossum
- conch

Not including the tiny lizards, other birds and all the fish (though we did see a giant angel fish which was very cool)! All in all a pretty successful trip animal-wise! ^-^

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I didn't have too many safe opportunities to take photos of Bella, but I did get a few of her on our balcony wishing she were not on our balcony. :P























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I hope everyone has had an amazing week so far! <3 Check back soon for a special announcement. :)