Xcaret

Xcaret is a perfect mixture of a water park (snorkeling through the underground river), wildlife conservation park (they breed turtle, condors, etc) and cultural center (think the PCC in Hawaii). We saw cool animals, learned about Mayan culture and history and swam. It was a great day.

We got to see some turtles finally. We saw eggs, youngsters and adults. The park is actively involved in tortuga conservation and breeding.

The bees here have no stingers. Lucky Mayans.

Soren and Tapir. He weighs the equivalent of about 4 pigs. The Tapir, not Soren.

Jaguar.

Cemetery. A hill over a candelaria underneath. The candles have been allowed to burn down so the wax build up looks like mineral deposit stalamites and stalagtites.

During the 2 hour show Xcaret puts on at the end of the night we say a Mayan ball game where two teams shoot a 6lb hard rubber ball through an unforgivingly small hole on the side of the court with their hips. Then they played a game that was literally 'ball of fire' hockey. It was like Irish hurling with a mini-comet. Then they portrayed the Conquistador invasion, Christian conversion, and mixing of races which Mexicans are proud of, symbolically through music and dance. The headresses were humongous. The dancing, the ranchera music and singers, and costumes were very well done. Mexicans went crazy during some songs--there was a dense feeling of patriotism there. At one point the mariachi band had 8 members and they raised the roof! There were also charras on horseback and an Andalusian I wanted to take home. Every school day, the park allows 100 schoolchildren from Quintana Roo to visit the park for free. It is an educational, fun, empowering experience that would make a Mexican feel very proud of his/her country.