Advertisement
April 28, Tuesday
I had picked up a brochure for BioMaya, a jungle adventure site just north of Bacalar, where the beautiful 7 shades of blue fresh water lagoon is located. Deb was a little disappointed that we didn’t get to try zip-lining while in Belize, and this place offered us the chance, with the added benefit of its being directly on the way to Playa del Carmen. We pulled in to the site and were greeted by an employee with a surprised look on his face. Come to find out they didn’t expect to see anyone, as all the holidays are over in Mexico, and this was early in the middle of the week. They easily could have told us they were closed, but instead they went all out to make us feel welcome and to set us up with a great tour/adventure. We rode a big truck, outfitted with seats in the back, through about 2 miles of tough jungle road, and then alit at the “reception area”, several Palapas and a small gift shop. We were outfitted with climbing gear, all appeared to be brand new Petzl equipment, and as I checked over the stuff, I knew
these guys were running a top-notch operation. The manager spoke fairly good English, so he became our chief guide for the next four hours. We were briefed on how we’d be hooked up for zip-lining, and the other parts of the tour were explained. Then, off we went for a short trail walk through the jungle, while David explained the flora and fauna. He is very knowledgeable about all the trees, ferns and other bromalids, and told us several interesting Mayan legends. One tree, the Chechen, is fairly innocuous looking but has sap that will burn your skin. Always growing right next to it is the Chacah tree, whose sap will counteract the poison from the Chechen. The legend involves a bad son and a good son, fill in the blanks on your own. Once at the first tower (about 30 meters, 66 ft) we were hooked up to a hoist and lifted up to the top platform. From there we took turns sliding down the cable to the next tower. Another hoist took us to the top of the tallest of 5 towers at the site, (about 45 meters, 150 ft) and we slid a LONG way to the
next tower. A short hoist here and a slide along the edge of Laguna Bacalar, which took us to the site for tubing in the lake. Next we hopped into the inner tubes, and pulled ourselves along a rope course out on the water. High waves and a good stiff breeze made it interesting for us, and more so for the guy paddling the sit-on-top kayak who was there for our safety. There were about 6 employees involved in our tour. After the tubing, we dried off a bit, had a bite to eat - that being some fruit that David had picked from up in one of the trees, and we continued our nature trail hike through more jungle. David was happy for us, because at the beginning of the hike he had told us the Mayans believe that if you have a good heart, then the animals will show themselves to you, and we saw raccoons ( actually coatzils ) many lizards, multi-colored birds but sadly no jaguars. David decided we had good hearts. A fond farewell to this team, and a promise to tell my friends that they should visit BioMaya if they’re ever in the area,
and we continued on to Playa del Carmen. A bit of culture shock awaited us here, we found a hotel with secure parking, but all the shops list their prices in USD, and it seems all the help speaks English. I booked another dive for tomorrow, on the reef just offshore, and one for Friday which will be a Cenote dive (cave diving) inland.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.101s; Tpl: 0.022s; cc: 12; qc: 49; dbt: 0.0579s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 3;
; mem: 1.1mb