This morning, we went to the beach at 8, where our dolphin-turtle tour started. In a little boat that moved quite a lot with the waves, we went out on the ocean, looking for dolphins and turtles. It was hot already but with the sea-wind everything was okay.
At first, 3 or 4 dolphins turned up, jumping not far from us, then we could see a couple of turtles making love. The captain of the boat explained us that turtle-sex normally lasts 3-5 hours and that the bigger female turtle is on the bottom in the water, while the male holds on firmly to its armor. Therefore, the male is often very exhausted afterwards because he cannot eat anything while the female grabs a bite every once in a while under water. We passed by very close and stopped for a few minutes to watch.
We kept on driving further from the coast for another 8 km and after some 15 minutes, flying fish were showing up on the horizon. The closer we got, the bigger they turned out to be. In the end it was a gigantic swarm of dolphins. Soon we were surrounded by hundreds of them, swimming with the boat and doing amazing stunts. The better jumps were at least 4 meters high with a triple spin. They were right next to us and we could have touched them from the boat. It was a very special spectacle that I had never seen like this before.
Finally we jumped into the water to swim with them and watch them under water. As they were wild, they didn’t keep on jumping and swimming on the surface around us but swam lower, maybe 10, 20, 30 meters below us. The water was crystal clear and deeply blue beneath us and we could see them swimming down there in the depth of the Pacific ocean – It was spectacular! I didn’t take any photos of the boat-trip but am confident that I might get some photos of another girl on the boat.
We went up to the boat and into the sea again a few times at different spots before starting our way back to the coast. We saw a few more dolphins and turtles and big birds until we got to the shore. We jumped into the water again, close to the rocks to do some snorkeling and I saw different types of colorful and weirdly shaped exotic fish and a small, relatively grey coral reef.
To get the boat out of the water again, they had to accelerate to the maximum from some 200 meters before the shore and drive high-speed onto the sand to avoid the waves. Everyone who could swim had to get out before that and swim to the coast, which I clearly preferred, even if the procedure looked very spectacular.
We had breakfast at a bar and booked an accommodation for tomorrow.
After this, the group split up: Me, Susana, Iratxe and Esmeralda decided to ignore the incredible heat and go watch crocodiles in the lagoon of La Ventanilla. The rest of the group stayed at home to relax and escape the heat.
It was exactly mid-day during our crocodile trip and the heat was unbearable at the crocodiles place. We took a “colectivo” to get there, a van that is commonly used for transporting stuff or animals with the back part prepared with two benches. It took us 15 minutes until we arrived at the forest from where we walked to the lagoon.
I estimate that it was around 39°C hot with an extremely high humidity and a very strong sunlight. After having a cold drink, we took a little boat with a guide that gave us a nice tour across the lagoon, identifying and pointing out crocodiles, birds, turtles, plants and iguanas and explaining the reforestation project of the biosphere. I learned about the “manglares”, the trees that define the lagoon and their capacity of filtering salt out of the water.
We saw 10 crocodiles, one bigger than the other, that were hanging out on the shores of the lagoon. The biggest was maybe 5 meters long and pretty fat. There were also iguanas of different colours that came to say hello when we passed by and lots if different birds, some sitting in the trees and fighting with each other, some diving for fish. A few small turtles and lots of coconut palm trees completed the picture.
Despite the incredible heat (I rented an umbrella to at least have some shade), it was a great experience to see all the animals and we learned a lot by what the guide explained during the tour.
Instead of taking the colectivo bus staight home, we went on further all the way to a different village on the coast. It took 20 minutes and the village was similar to the one we live in. I was really overheated and tired when we got there and just took a quick reviving swim in the ocean and returned alone to Mazunte.
I bought and ate a mango, organized some stuff, got the bus tickets for tomorrow and took a very necessary shower before we went out for dinner again.
