An unexpected find

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One afternoon, we were still in rio Lagartos and not sure where to go to in the afternoon. We heard about El Cuyo village, a place where the beach was supposed to be really beautiful. We decided to go there. Distance is about 49 kms as crow flies, but sadly, the road along the sea does not go all the way until El Cuyo. We had to go south until we reached the road to dzonot carretero. This is a regular secundary road up to Dzonot. After that the road gets very narrow. At some point, it looks like a small road for golf carts!!

We reached El Cuyo. It was a Sunday and the beach was nice but really crowded. But the beach is quite long so you can find quiet spots.

There's a long pier advancing in the sea for about 150 meters. We saw many sea birds plunging in the sea from afar, close to the pier, so we decided to go on it.

At one moment, I saw a big dark shadow in the water, contrasting with the turquoise pale colored sea. I saw what I thought was a fin, and thought at first it was shark. But finally, realized it was a huge manta ray!! It was about 8 feet, (2.45 meters wide). It swam slowly, in direction of the pier, then turned around. It went back toward the pier and then went away again. It came 3 times like that and then finally disappeared in the deep blue sea. I saw manta rays in the past, alongside whale sharks in the open sea, but never that close to the shore. It's a really beautiful and gracious animal.

You can see 2 videos I took of it:

The day after, we went back to Playa del Carmen. We stayed again in a very nice small hotel. We still had one day left to visit.

We went back the day after to the Puerto Morelos botanical garden. Not only it's a quiet place to learn about the flora of the region, but it's also a good spot to see various animals.

We saw a couple of birds, but this time, the highlight was the spider monkeys which we were able to see very close.

finally, it was time to go.



In conclusion, it was a really nice trip. We had no real expectations as we went a couple of times to Mexico in the past, and we didn't think we would see anything special.

But each trip is different, and patience often pays off if you are always ready to explore!

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Photos

spider monkey
Monkeys were very curious and observed us for at least 5 minutes

Comments

[Ake Och Emma]

Awesome
It must have been awesome to see such a large manta ray. I've actually never seen one. I remember Playa del Carmen. I really liked that town. I have very vivid memories of a really nice café we went to several times. Wonder if it is still there... /Ake

[fer de lance]

A real suprise!
Hi Ake, yes it was a really good surprise to see such a majestic animal close to shore!