Advertisement
Published: April 8th 2007
After arriving in Tulum at 11am, we checked in at the Hotel El Crucero, grabbed a bite to eat before taking a stroll down the road to the Tulum Ruins, which, though lacking the grandeur of Teotihuacan, Mont Alban and Palenque, still made for an awesome sight. The ruins are set on cliff tops overlooking vast stretches of palm fringed beaches and a bright turquoise Caribbean Sea. Their simple and small scale design is a reflection of the fact that they were built by a Mayan civilization in decline, around A.D. 1200 -1500 and it is thought to be one of the last Mayan cities to have been abandoned. The remaining temples and ruins are surrounded by a 2m thick, 3.5m high wall which protected the city during a time of considerable strife. We wandered around for a couple of hours, snapping away and trying to dodge the coach loads of tour groups also visiting the site. One of the highlights of the afternoon were the iguanas who can be found chomping away on the vegetation amongst the ruins. There are also several unusual looking birds around the place, including the Yucatan Jay with it’s striking black and blue plumage.
In the evening we went out for a meal at a restaurant near the hotel, which was nice enough, before getting an early night.
The following morning it was time to head to Sian Kaan. Our guide for the three days, Arturo, met us at the hotel in his pick-up and we set off for the reserve. On the way, we stopped at a cenote (it is thought that a huge meteorite struck the Yucatan Peninsular 65 million years ago leaving a 284km wide crater. Millions of years later, cracks formed below the limestone surface around the perimeter of the crater which then became filled with rainwater. At various places around the Peninsular, the surface layer has eroded away revealing the network of underground rivers. Where these rivers meet the sea and the freshwater mixes with the saltwater the water separates into two distinct layers and as such you can see freshwater species at the top and saltwater at the bottom.) for some snorkeling amongst the mangroves. We spent an hour or so here, though it was only when we were halfway through, and deep inside the mangroves, that Arturo decided to mention that the cenotes were a
favourite hangout of crocodiles and often frequented the very waters we were swimming in! However, he quickly reassured us that we didn´t have anything to worry about as the Mexican crocs were very lazy by nature and as such not a threat to man…Steve Irwin had said so himself (just like the Stingrays)! Needless to say we weren´t entirely convinced and set off as fast as we could back to the beach, leaving Arturo trailing in our wake. (If he wanted to be crocodile food it was his choice!).
After the cenote, we ventured into the reserve, arriving at the visitors centre (our home for the next two nights) around 2pm. Sian Kaan Biosphere covers an area of over 5000 sq km and includes a diverse range of habitats, from coastal lagoons and mangroves to thick tropical jungle. The visitors centre was set in the northern end of the reserve, with mangrove lagoons 50m to the west and the Caribbean Sea a couple of hundred meters to the east. While the centre was surrounded by thick vegetation (palm trees) there is a 30m high viewing tower which offers awesome views of the surrounding wilderness. The centre has to be
as self sufficient as possible and generates its own electricity through solar panels and wind energy, which makes for a very temperamental supply and there were frequent power cuts. Likewise, there was also a limited water supply and so shower had to be kept very brief, which wasn´t difficult as the water was freezing. With exception of these minor inconveniences it was actually a really good place to stay, with clean rooms and good food. The centre, as you´d expect, also has some, if a little sketchy, information about the reserve and in particular what species you can expect to see. The list included manatees, anteaters, raccoons, crocodiles, howler monkeys and armadillos as well as a whole host of bird species (400 species). The reserve is also hope to ocelots, pumas, jaguars and tapirs, although these are all rarely seen. In Arturo’s 20 odd years of working as a guide, he’s only ever seen a jaguar on 2 occasions and even then only at a distance. However, he was confident that we’d see many of the commoner species in the area around the centre.
After arriving at the centre and sorting everything out, we headed out for a bike
ride to a nearby river which is supposed to be good for birding. It was a bit of a bumpy ride but an interesting one and while we only saw a few birds (White Ibis, Black Hawk and Caspian Tern) it was still nice to do a bit of exercise and see a bit of the reserve. It´s been a few months since we’ve ridden a bike and we both nearly crashed on a few occasions which was quite amusing for Arturo.
In the evening, after watching a truly stunning sunset from the viewing tower (the best so far) and devouring an excellent meal we headed out onto the lagoon in search of crocs. Arturo thought it´d be best to take the stealthy approach so we went out on kayaks, armed only with paddles and torches. However, as so often with our wildlife experiences in Mexico, we needn´t have worried as we didn’t see a thing! When we asked if he usually saw crocs on such excursions, Arturo confidently replied “yes, all the time, but we usually have a proper spotlight so we can see them from much further a field”…great Arturo, we thought, before asking why we hadn’t
used it on this occasion: “I forgot to charge the batteries” came the reply…nice one Arturo. Maybe we´d have more luck in the morning?
We were up again at 5.30am for a sunrise kayaking trip on the lagoon. It was still pitch black when we got up (Arturo´d forgotten that we´d put the clocks forward) and so while he went back to bed for an hour, we headed down to the beach to see if there was anything about. The walk through the jungle was pretty scary and we half expected (wanted) something to jump out at us, but alas we passed through untroubled, without even a rustle in the bushes.
We eventually headed out onto the lagoon at 6.30am by which time it was pretty light. We went a bit further a field than last night and saw a few birds but still no crocs.
With the crocs failing to show we arranged to go and look for the manatees. However, as the area in which they are ´usually´ found is about 10km away we took a motorboat. As we progressed further into the lagoon we saw more birds including several Osprey, Rosette Spoonbills and Tiger
Herons. We stopped in the manatee area for all of 5 minutes before razzing off in the boat for a flying tour of the lagoon. We’re not entirely sure when they last actually saw manatees in this area but they clearly didn’t expect to see any this time round which left us feeling somewhat frustrated.
The rest of the day was largely spent walking the beach to see what odds and ends we could find. Arturo makes and sells natural (beads etc) jewelry and was quite keen to collect some seeds from the beach. Dani´d sworn never to go on a bike again after yesterday and we were pretty kayaked out and so a stroll along the beach suited us fine. It was actually really good fun and we collected a fair few seeds which we later exchanged for one of his necklaces.
On our final day, we left the centre and met up with about 10 other people from Cancun before heading off to another area of the reserve where we took a boat ride through a few of the lagoons. At one point we had to swim (drift) through a small canal linking two lagoons, which
was good fun even though we had to wear our buoyancy aids like nappies…we´d didn´t look stupid at all!!
After the lagoon we went for a walk around some nearby ruins set in the jungle. There were only a few temples that had been restored and the rest were still hidden amongst the vegetation. It was a pretty small site so we only spent an hour here before going for lunch and then on to another cenote. The Mexicans are very big on Easter and generally have a week off either side of the Easter weekend, which basically meant that the cenote was absolutely rammed with people. We weren´t too fussed about swimming and just watched while a few others went for a dip. It would have been a really lovely place if it wasn´t so busy.
From the cenote in was on to Cancun and the Presidente InterContinental hotel, arriving just after 7pm. We´d tried to arrange somewhere to stay in Cancun before leaving Tulum but everywhere was full. Thus we requested the help of base camp Sweet and fortunately they came up trumps. The InterContinental was a bit more up market than our usual haunts and
the look we got from the porter when we pulled up was priceless! I think they were embarrassed to have us (which is fair enough, we looked liked tramps!) and they quickly ushered to our room and out of view of the other guests.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.084s; Tpl: 0.016s; cc: 8; qc: 24; dbt: 0.0582s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 2;
; mem: 1.1mb
Dad
non-member comment
Photos
Great bird shots Dani plus amazing sunsets. No contribution from the close-up king recently?