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Today we decided to go to Akumal, as it is the best place to spot turtles near to Playa del Carmen. We got the collectivo mini bus from just down the road from our hotel, which cost less than £2 to go the 20 miles to the bay. We had found limited online instructions which only told us to get off the collectivo 'by the white road bridge', of which there turned out to be many. But by guessing what the road signs said, and talking to/at the driver, we managed to get deposited at the right spot. After crossing the aforementioned road bridge, we walked down a small, tree-lined path to the bay of Akumal.
When we arrived, we were approached by a man asking us if we wanted to watch a free orientation video about the turtle residents of Akumal Bay. Me being ever suspicious, thought he was going to try and flog us something (like timeshare, which seems to be a big thing here), but we decided to hear what he had to say, as he was very insistent that it was free! It turned out to be a good job that we did as he worked for the turtle conservation programme, and he took us to the Centre for Ecological Research, where we watched a 2 minute presentation about timeshare....no, I´m joking, about the rules of the Bay, e.g. No touching the coral, and how to avoid the boat docking zones whilst you are snorkelling.
After watching the video, the same man approached us again, and told us we could hire full snorkel gear (snorkel, mask, flippers and life jacket) for $17 USD, or we could have a guided snorkel tour for only $3 USD more. He also guaranteed that if we did not see a turtle on the guided tour, we would get our money back! So obviously, we decided to take the guided tour, because as you know, I love a bargain!
Once we had suited up in our gear, we met our guide, Sylvia, who was a large Mexican lady with a shark print surfboard. I thought that we would be part of a larger tour group, but it was actually just us two and Sylvia! Not bad for just £13 each! We waded out until we reached a ledge on the seabed, and then put our flippers on and followed Sylvia out into the water. Within five minutes of putting our faces into the water, we had seen our first turtle, rising up from the bottom of the sea - it was amazing and way bigger and more graceful at swimming than I thought it was going to be. We paddled around for a whole hour, following Sylvia who turned out to be an expert at spotting the sea life, and saw sting rays, trumpet fish and loads of other colourful fish that I couldn't even begin to identify. More excitingly, we saw five turtles in all (some of them Green Turtles if you want to see a picture). Some of them were rising to the surface of the water and some grazing on the grass-like seaweed that grows on the sea bed. They didn't mind you getting close to them, although the law states that you have to stay at least five metres away from them, and only eight snorkellers can be around a turtle at one time - Matt managed to get a short video on his underwater camera though!
The whole experience was absolutely amazing - I´ve never done anything like that before or been as close as that to such beautiful wild animals. It was a day I will never forget :)
Later we went for lunch at a thatched-roof, open air restaurant overlooking the beach, where we shared the most unusual dessert I have ever seen on a menu - SWEETCORN ICE CREAM! It was served in its own ear - Matt laughs at me when I describe it like that, but I'm sure you know what I mean! It tasted really strongly of sweetcorn at first, but died down to a nice creamy aftertaste (in case you wanted to know!)
Later we tried to hire a golf buggy from one of the stores just back from the beach, but unfortunately, the woman in the shop told Matt that they had been booked up a week in advance, so it was a no go. Bikes were available to hire, but Matt wasn't keen, so we decided to walk the 2km to Yal Ku Lagoon where we wanted to spend the afternoon. On the (sweaty) walk there in no shade, we had our first sighting of a wild coati, although this was made less exciting by the fact that it was following a rubbish truck to scavenge from it! When we got to Yal Ku, we got kitted up in yet more rented snorkelling gear and went straight into the lagoon to try and spot yet more fish. Of course, I saw a heron as soon as I got there! The lagoon was amazing with loads of colourful fish in, but I was a bit perturbed to see several jellyfish! There were loads of statues and pieces of art built into shady woodland around the lagoon, so it was a really peaceful place.
On the way back to Akumal Bay, we stumbled across a racoon eating out of a bin, and a whole group of coati stealing from a pile of rubbish - I don't know why all the wildlife we spot is eating trash!
I think the day in Akumal and at the lagoon has been the best day of my life, and to top it all off, the driver of the collectivo bus on the way home had installed a TV and DVD player into the dashboard by the steering wheel and was watching it whilst driving us down the motorway. God, I love Mexico!
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