After squeezing in a quick scooter ride on our first day on Isla Mujeres, Ken & I were eager to rent a scooter for an entire day and explore the island a little more. We've really missed riding our own motorcycles, so the scooter was a blast!
After a ride around the perimeter of the island, we headed to the South shore for a visit to the Turtle Farm. This was a small farm dedicated to saving sea turtles, and there is a very small admission fee.
The farm had eggs labeled and buried for hatching ...
Once hatched, these tiny turtles were taken inside until they got bigger.
These albino turtles were also inside too ...
There were several tanks at the farm, including cute sea horses!
There were lots of unique fish, including this guy that looked like a rock!
The larger turtles were held in a tank outside (first photo above), and even larger turtles were kept in this outdoor area.
This guy showed us some crazy looking creatures, including this conch!
Also on the South shore is an island made of plastic floating bottles. It was a little hard to find, but we found it! See the tiny boat on the right? That's the owner giving some folks a tour. If only we'd found this a few minutes earlier, we may have been able to join them!
We were ready for lunch and headed to a place also on the South shore ... "The Joint"! This was a cool bar where we had some great garlic shrimp and enjoyed live acoustic music. Loved the reggae theme!
The view from our bar stools ...
After chillin' for a while, we headed to the Eastern tip of the island to Punta Sur. Punta Sur is a free park with a tiny Mayan ruin and several sculptures. This Mayan sculpture greeted us ...
The Eastern tip of the island is very narrow, and you can easily see both the South & North shores from Punta Sur. The views are amazing!
Here is a view of the calm South Shore ...
and here is the North Shore.
There were a ton of iguanas!
We saw a lot of the iguana "living on the edge"!
This sculpture was pretty cool!
We then headed back to the other end of the island to check out a place where a lot of the locals hang out .. Fenix Beach Club. This was a fun place on the beach with live music and a festive atmosphere. We had a few beers and some fresh pineapple that was being sold on the beach .. yum!
Before we knew it, it was time to return the scooter. There's no shortage of things to see on this tiny island!
After returning the scooter, we cooled off at the beach and then our hotel's pool for a while and then cleaned up for dinner right next to our hotel ... pizza. Who would have thought that we could get an authentic pizza made by the owner, an Italian who moved to Isla Mujeres?! It was really good!
The following day found us back on a scooter and snorkeling on the South shore. Stay tuned!
Hasta luego ... until then. Mid-Life Cruising!
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2 comments:
The turtle farm looks so awesome! I would love to see that. We got some excellent Italian, including pizza, in Playa del Carmen, by the way. There are a ton of Italian expats there. My yoga instructors, fer instance, but lots of restaurant owners/chefs as well!
Had no idea there were so many Italians in Mexico .. LOL!
The turtle farm was definitely worth the stop, and the small admission (I think $2 each) goes to a good cause.
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