Cancun Anniversary Trip Part 3

From the warm, sandy beaches, strewn with hammocks and palm trees to the wild, rocky shores of the Caribbean with it’s turquoise water, to the ocean sunsets, to walking miles through the jungle, large pina coladas, fresh coconuts and all-you-can-eat ocean buffets, to a romantic dinner on the beach, this trip was one of our best and most memorable experiences. Come along as I give you another glimpse into one of our favorite anniversary trips ever.

The aviary, or bird sanctuary was definitely one of my favorite. Rushing waterfalls, pelicans, ducks, and all kinds of tropical birds live in this paradise.

These pelicans were so interesting to watch! The top one is a brown pelican and the bottom one is a white pelican. Check out that enormous beak! I had about 5 seconds to capture that strange phenomenon as it pushed it’s spine up through it’s throat. I did some research later and I discovered that they do this to help cool off. Isn’t that weird?! It’s fascinating though and I felt very lucky to be able to capture this!

The keel billed toucan shown here is an rare species seen in the bird sanctuary. It’s bright colors and enormous bill were truly amazing!

The park was home to quite a large number of different species of parrots. I love the brilliant colors and the unique story behind these beautiful birds. There is a large building inside the park where you can watch how they raise these birds from eggs, how they are hatched and the growing process. It’s so interesting!

I also enjoyed watching the roseate spoonbills as they swept their unique bills through the water to fish for food.

Some of the other species included the rose- breasted grosbeak, jungle turkey, flamingo, white-winged dove, hooded oriole, and the great Kiskadee. ( pictured here) There was also a variety of warblers and ducks and other songbirds which I didn’t get pictures of.

Besides the bird sanctuary, we also spent time walking the beach and along the shoreline, breathing in the salty ocean air and marveling at the beauty of this tropical paradise. We saw dolphins, a black puma, a jaguar, giant sea turtles and giant iguanas.

We walked through an aquarium with hundreds and thousands of plant life and ocean life. Later in the week we were excited ( and terrified;) ) to experience a thirty minute sea walk. We donned special helmets attached to oxygen cords and were lowered 20 feet, all the way to the bottom of the ocean. There was a built in stairway and railing that we had to grab onto to guide us from the start point to the finish point. After the initial scare of going 20 feet underwater, it turned out to be one of my favorite experiences ever! Hundreds of different species of fish and coral reef and ocean life swam all around us and gave me a completely new perspective on a whole new world under water.

We had life guards and safety guides and underwater camera men stationed all through out the walk. Since I am not a good swimmer, I was terrified at first but, they assured me that to do this you don’t even need to know how to swim. Basically you just need water shoes to be able to walk over the ocean floor, hold onto the railing and stay upright at all times as tilting your body would result in water going up into the helmet. There was a certain amount of pressure inside it that would keep you from floating to the top and other than ears popping from the pressure change underwater, we could easily walk and breathe with the help of the shoes and the oxygen cords. It was so amazing and I felt quite proud of myself for conquering my fear and ended up with one of the most amazing experiences in my life! 🙂

We also visited the Explore park, about 10 minutes away from Xcaret, where we walked through caves and drove an ATV through the park. Jabel also went zip lining, and I explored the shops inside the caves.

On our last evening there Jabel had ordered a special, romantic dinner on the beach for us. It was, well, magical. Our own private, ocean front gazebo, and a six course meal, complete with the ocean sunrise and a full moon was more than the cherry on top for our 2021 Cancun Vacation. It was a celebration of 5 years of marriage and a culmination of things we worked hard for and a toast for seeing dreams become reality now and even more so in the next 5 years. We feel so blessed that we were able to experience this with each other!