15th February - Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands

After a mind blowing day yesterday, we were still mesmerized by the colour of the water and our stingray interaction. Unlike Jamaica, it was much easier (and safer) to get around by car, so we hired a little red Mercedes-Benz to hoon around the island. No when I say Mercedes, you instantly think of quality and prestige, well this one wasn’t like that. The seat adjusting handles were either missing or fell off in your hand and the high beam on the indicator stick come on when even you used the indicators. Oh well… it still did the trick.

It was quite nice being able to jump in a car and drive without worrying about what side of the road you were on. Driving on the left side is much more natural than on the right. We drove straight through the heart of the city, George Town, a mix of duty free shops and jewelers catering for the ever present cruise boat tourist which pour in every day. We stopped at a little local arts and souvenir shop further down the road which actually had some tasteful local things (and the ubiquitous ugly ones as well – like massive balsa wood macaws and rock carved stingrays).

Really, it was just a side stop before the main attraction. The Cayman Islands has the second largest skate (not sting rays) park in the world. I’ve seen a lot of skate parks in my time but this was a transition skaters heaven! Not much in the way of banks and stair but lots of capsuled out bowls, ¾ pipes, pools, half pipes, snake runs….. everything you could imagine and at all different heights. I ran around the park taking photos with Tan (not so interested) in tow! I didn’t have a board and there were no skaters there but it didn’t matter… this place was awesome!

More driving and we stopped to look at some mostly demolished houses on the coast from all of the recent hurricane activity. I found the most prickly 40 cornered jack which dug into my skin at all different orientations. I was more impressed by the way it dug than the pain it inflicted.
In Bodden Town, we visited the Pirates Caves. Part zoo with “exotic” animals and a traditional pirate cave where they stored their booty centuries ago. There were some caged animals including the Cayman Parrot (national bird) and a cocky who Tan teased with a piece of paper. The blue iguana, different to the ones we saw in Mexico, are a endangered species that only inhabit the island. We chased them around for a while too. We hit the dark and eerie Pirate’s Caves which was a Disney Land style mock up. Lots of skulls, cemented in coins and the pirate sculptures. A bit kitsch but in reality these caves were actually used by pirates centuries ago so from that side it was interesting.
More exotic animals were present including goats, ducks, turtles and a horse. The highlight was Percey the Pig who was quite lack luster until our taunts got him fired up (to eat). It was a nice warm and sunny 28C day and poor old Percey was thirsty so Tan gave him a shower and a drink which he seemed to appreciate. This chicked in the water bowl flew off in a ball of feathers when we approached. One thing we have noticed about this island is the prevalence of roosters and chooks. They are walking wildly(?) everywhere and we nearly run some over. We have seen quite a number of macaws on this adventure through Central America, but these two we saw were quite nasty. They wanted to have a go at anything even remotely close to the cage. Repeated strikes with their upper hooked jaw made us want to sitr them up (so Tan did).
The lady that runs Pirates Caves was quite nice, from England, though she has been on the island for three years without leaving. It is a beautiful place but like outback mining towns there isn’t much in the way of choice for shopping etc. (for women). For blokes it is a fishing paradise and you wouldn’t want to leave!! She said there were some people that come the cruise boats that visit who are so ignorant about everything. There was a container of plastic replica pirate coins on the bench near the till and one guy asked if that was the currency of island (and was serious about it!).

We drove to the northern side of the island and her recommendation we had lunch at “Over the edge”. A restaurant with a large deck over the sea. It was a nice place for lunch and beer/wine. Wahoo fillet for me! Yum. Service was terrible though. Rum Point is a delightful place. Sun lounges in the white sands over looking the turquoise waters under the shade of casaurina trees (yep.. the Australian trees are everywhere on the island). Tan relaxed while I went out snorkeling. The wind was a bit gusty and it made it hard to snorkel under the pier (especially as I haven’t snorkeled with flippers for a fair while). The fish were good but not spectacular and the water was nice. Rum Point is adorned with many signs, such as a city/country locator post, history of cyclones and just plain old interesting information signs. Like the Pirates Caves, Rum Point also had a macaw who was just as nasty!!!
The fibreglass iguana, like this one, are dotted around the island’s beaches.
On the way home we stopped at the Blowholes which weren’t too bad.
We tried to race home for sunset but without a good map we missed from our hotel and ended up on a beach near George Town.

27th November – Playa Del Carmen, Mexico

We actually had to get out of bed early this morning as we were spending the day out at Xcaret. Xcaret used to be an eco park. It still it is, but it is also what our Lonely Planet describes as a “Disneyland Eco Park” meaning that it has been set up purely for tourists. We decided to head out there on our own and do our own thing rather than joining one of the many tour groups out there. We caught a taxi – a scary experience when the taxi driver is doing nearly 140lm in a 80km zone and there are no seatbelts, but we made it there alive. We paid our $69US each for entry and started our day. First thing we saw were a number of "Scottish" macaws on their perches and flamingoes in their ponds. They were noisy but very colourful.

We went through the obligatory tourist shop and had to do the obligatory tourist photo with our sombrero’s. We walked through a number of very average animal exhibits including a raccoon and wild boar and started to think that perhaps we had been boned by Mexico and Xcaret was going to disappoint. Still we powered on. Next stop the butterfly pavilion. There were all different species of butterflies in a large tropical enclosure. The blue ones were our favourite but were far too elusive to obtain a photo. We then saw some Jaguars. They were on a tiny island and had put tracks in the ground walking back and forth. It was quite sad to see really.
The day then got better when we spotted our first Iguana! This one was just sitting on the wall minding his own business. That was until we started prodding himn with a branch to made him run along the wall. Poor thing. We don’t think that he was too traumatized though.
Even better, we headed towards the coast and found some rock pools carved into the side of a limestone wall with the sea water crashing in from time to time. The water was relatively shallow (standing room) clear enough to see the floor and all of the fish swimming around. Even better though, because we had gotten there so early, we had it all to ourselves and enjoyed lazing around in the water. After a while we pushed on and found a large double hammock to laze in the sun and dry off in. We then headed off to watch a bit of a Dolphin show. You had the option of paying to swim with the dolphins and after watching a group in the water we were quite glad that we didn’t as the actual interaction didn’t go that long and it was more about the staff taking your photo with the dolphin. Still they are beautiful creatures to watch. Although, as I said to Dan they should be out swimming in the ocean somewhere, not cooped up and performing in a tiny pen.
We then saw possibly one the most boring animals on earth, a manatees. All it seemed to do was spin around in slow circles and eat lettuce.
We saw a few average looking ruins at the park. Nothing compared to some the ones we will see on our three week trip.

The park does a realty good program with sea turtles where their eggs are removed off the beach and incubated. The turtles are then raised in captivity until they are big enough to go back into the ocean and hopefully have a greater chance of surviving. They had the turtles in different ponds dependent on their size from tin ones that must have been days old to ones a few weeks right through to massive fully grown ones. We could get so close we could touch their shells. We also saw a caiman (crocodile) in a tiny enclosure not doing much at all, but Dan got a good shot of him.
We found some more hammocks overlooking the ocean and lazed in them for a while. Dan was in his element as shortly after we arrived a photo crew arrived for a model shoot so right next to us were theses gorgeous girls being photographed. For some reason he wasn’t too keen to leave! We headed off to the aquarium, interesting but we’ve been to lots of aquariums around the world and seen better than this one we thought. The highlight was seeing a bonefish - the speedsters of the reef. Check out "A River Somewhere".We also saw some other wildlife including some cute monkeys. The last thing we wanted to do was take a swim down a large canal that snaked through the park. Basically, most of the park is made of limestone and channels have been cut through it including caves. You simply put on a lifejacket and float off along. The water was aqua and crystal clear and it was very quiet. One of the highlights of the day we agreed.

So whilst we didn’t have great expectations at the beginning of the day we ended up having a great time making it back to the hotel as the sun was setting. We booked last night into the Steakhouse restaurant over the pool for a seven o’clock sitting. The meal was a set menu five course with the option of choosing your main. Dan went the steak and I had the sea and land kebab. We had a front row seat to watch the chefs run a production line of around 100 meals. Everyone at the tables was mesmorised. We both had a great meal too. For desert the chef lit up the cake with Sambucca and made flaming waterfalls. Later that night we went to another hotel try their bar. A great band was playing and we parked up at the bar for quite some time. Dan mainly drank his new holiday favourite, Pina Colada, but tried a few other drinks such as Melon Balls and Tequila Sunrise singing along with the band. A great night.