Our first day in Mexico was at XCaret - a Mexican "theme park" which is quite different than an American version of a theme park. Most of the attraction is local animal life and nature.
One of the best parts of XCaret is the underground rivers. There are three (we swam two). They are quite long full of things to see. Some of the time we were in caves and some of the time the wall would open up for better lighting and great views. The water was chilly, which felt great because the air in Mexico was very hot and humid. All of my pictures were taken with my i-phone with a plastic waterproof cover over it. It was very cool that I could bring it with me to take pictures, but it wasn't always easy to turn it on or focus while it was wet!
The roots behind mom are called Mangroves and are an important part of the river's life system. They went on and on and were so fun to look at!
The river ended at the beach and it was so beautiful!
There were loads of hammocks to relax in. We don't really do "relaxing," but we took a short break for a swing before lunch.
Lunch was included with our ticket and we chose a seafood restaurant with an amazing buffet. This is just the cheese choices.
The is my plate. Can you spot some octopus?
We sat up above the buffet with a very pleasant ocean breeze. It was heavenly.
The boys kept finding flowers that had blown off of the trees and bringing them to me.
There were some small Mayan ruins within the park. It was very, very hot being anywhere there was no shade or in the water, so we didn't spend much time there.
We visited the aquarium - mostly because it was inside! Also, I wanted to see the sea turtles.
There were iguanas everywhere - the way we see squirrels here... maybe more.
This was our first chance to snorkel. I never really understood the fun in snorkeling until this experience. As long as I had another adult watching kids, I really enjoyed snorkeling! Watching the large variety of fish in the clear water was really neat.
They had a whole greenhouse full of orchids. So beautiful! Mom and I took Harrison there, but we had to kind of speed through it as he didn't find it as enchanting as we did.
At the end of the day - Harrison is happier than he looks. He is the only one that was willing to stay for the big show. The others headed home wiped out from the heat. Jeff took them on their own adventure to Sam's Club, which was mostly the same except for the armed guards. :)
