Ray Encounter opens at ecotourism park in Mexico

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Mexico’s Xel-Ha Caribbean ecotourism park is using sound to attract rays, leading the creatures to play and interact with tourists.

Visitors can enjoy the “Ray Encounter” this summer at the park, located in the Riviera Maya, taking advantage of the opportunity to interact with the animals, Xel-Ha said.

“This species is found widely in the coves and we have been working with them for eight years so they will respond to sound stimulus and will voluntarily go near the activity site and interact with visitors,” the ecotourism park said.

Visitors can touch the rays and play with them for 30 minutes under the supervision of a group of trainers, who provide information about the animals’ feeding, reproduction, anatomy and habitat.

“At the end of the activity, visitors can kiss them and get a ‘massage’ from the rays,” Xel-Ha said.

The program’s goal is to teach tourists “the difference between enjoying marine species through a glass wall in an aquarium and being able to touch and co-exist with them in their habitat under conditions that are completely free,” the ecotourism park said.

Xel-Ha Aquatic Institute biologists examine the rays living in the area periodically and remove the parasites plaguing them, and they even treat the cataracts commounly found in the animals’ eyes.

The biologists treat any wounds found on the rays, Xel-Ha said.

Xel-Ha is owned by Grupo Xcaret, which operates the Xplor and Xcaret ecotourism parks in the Riviera Maya.

The marine park also provides visitors with the opportunity to swim with manatees and dolphins, scuba dive, go snorkeling, walk on the sea bottom, go to a spa and explore mangroves, sinkholes and underwater caverns, among other activities.

From Treehugger: Cancun and Eco-Tourism

Image via Wikipedia

There are a select few blogs that I always enjoy from other eco-bloggers (did I make that term up?  Probably not.).  One is treehugger.com, from which the following was taken.  Read the rest at http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/10/beyond_cancun_d.php

When my boyfriend had surprised me with two round-trip tickets to Cancun for my birthday, let’s just say I was surprised. He’s in school for a Masters of Science in Environmental Management. I like to wax poetic about the benefits of ecotourism. Cancun, the infamous Spring break destination (thanks, MTV!) known for over-developed hotel strips, excessive water usage and lackadaisical waste management hardly makes it to any greenie’s get-away list.

Little did I know that Cancun, home to the Yucatan Peninsula‘s main airport, would merely serve as our portal to the peninsula’s off-the-beaten track beauty and tropical paradise like that discovered within Centro Ecologico Sian Ka’an (CESiaK).

The gem of a mid-sized beach resort is located south of Maya Tulum’s hotel zone, just beyond the bumpy, dirt road entrance of the Sian Kaan Biosphere–the largest protected area (around 1.3 million acres) in the Mexican Caribbean. This also happens to be a declared World Heritage Site by the United Nation’s UNESCO program.

Off-the-Grid Paradise

Within CESiaK we found a completely off of the grid paradise, powered up by wind and solar, equipped with composting toilets and a rainwater harvesting system providing the water used for bathing and brushing teeth.

The charming, private cabanas (bedroom-sized tents covered by palm-thatched roofs) dispersed through the property’s snaking, jungle paths are elevated on stilts, providing roomy travel paths for iguanas, hermit crabs and blue crabs making their homes in the area adjacent to the Caribbean Sea‘s coastline.

No air conditioning, room fans or light switches here. (And trust me, I’d be lying if I said this discovery didn’t daunt me–Mexico in August is hardly the most comfortable time of the year.) But the ocean breezes that pour through our cabana deliver a surprisingly delicious respite from the Mayan sun and our nightly walk back to our cabana with battery operated lanterns provided at the reception’s front desk is romantic and fun. It’s complete, unadulterated wilderness and we are in love.

Local Food, Mexican-Caribbean Style

Our love affair doesn’t end, however, with the accommodations that only Emerson or Thoreau could’ve thoroughly appreciated. It deepens and grows with the local foodprepared with love from CESiaK’s local chef Fausto. We sample almost everything off of the restaurant’s menu devouring dishes like ceviche made with responsibly caught fish from local fisherman, ensalada de nopales (cactus salad), Sopa Azteca, guacamole, enchiladas and Maya Tulum’s best Margharitas. Dining to the rooftop view of the neighboring lagoon is also equally delicious.

Low-Impact Excursions

We develop admiration for the on-staff guides who lead educational programs and low-impact excursions like lagoon kayaking and bird watching tours. Each guide has an expertise in some form or another. Like Rene who’s currently writing a guidebook about the local bird population or Jorge the charismatic ornithologist who has worked on restoring the local marine turtle population for over a decade–and who often sacrifices his sleep during nesting season.

Turtle Conservation

One night Jorge gives us an educational talk about CESiaK’s turtle conservationefforts and allows us to accompany him on a nighttime marine turtle watch. Hours after retiring to our cabana he comes to wake us up. He’s spotted a mama Green Turtle making a nest and a separate nest of baby Loggerheads–no mom to be found.

In the pitchest of black (no lights or lanterns allowed), we trek out to CESiaK’s strip of private beach and help him record the giant Green Turtle’s shell before she barrels out to sea. We also set free the batch of baby loggerheads–who only have a 1 in 1,000 chance of surviving to adult age.

Watching the creatures leave land for their underwater destiny is like watching a piece of pre-historic history. It is beautiful–but overwhelmingly sad. We know that the fate of these baby turtles is grim but better then most. As we are reminded in our educational talk prior to the volunteer expedition, other less fortunate turtles born on more developed strips of hotel and resort beaches easily confuse the artificial lights dotting the developed strips for the moon. They end up walking away from the natural home they’re evolutionarily designed for, the ocean, thus making them more likely to be caught and killed by either a poacher or predator. Or killed even wandering onto nearby roads…

I had never known how much forming a personal relationship with a green-shelled reptile could re-ignite, inspire and motivate my take-action-ness. Not only for the turtles–for this entire environmental movement.

Eco-Tourism’s Real Purpose

CESiaK’s solar and wind power, composting toilets and rainwater harvesting wasn’t there solely for the sake of “being green”–like so many other eco-resorts I had been to touting little more than a vanity stocked with organic mini-soaps and where I left forgetting ecotourism’s real purpose.

Refreshingly, CESiaK’s educational programs, talks, and expert, eco-minded staff, remember to intelligently tie together the bigger picture. CESiaK exists for the turtles, the Yucatan Peninsula’s fragile, local, eco-systems and for us, the human race. As their website states, “Sian Ka’an faces the greatest challenge of conservation: to find a way to integrate human activities without compromising other forms of life contained within its boundaries.”

 

 

 

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Death and Scuba Diving in Cenotes

As a scuba diver, Cenotes fascinate me.  I’ve always been intrigued by these freshwater deep caves, which seem somewhat mysterious.  And it didn’t fascinate just me – the ancient Maya believed that cenotes were pathways to the afterlife and would sacrifice humans and items of value to the cenotes.

The cenotes in the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico still have the skulls and bones from ancient sacrifices, as you can see in the amazing video below.

Image by Mark Busse via Flickr

Several years ago, I read the fascinating story of diver David Shaw, who made a cenote deep dive (almost 900 feet) to retrieve the body of Deon Dreyer, who had died there 10 years before.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Shaw_%28diver%29

Amazingly, David Shaw videotaped his descent and the attempted retrieval of the remarkably preserved body, and ended up videotaping his own death.

WHAT IS A CENOTE AND HOW WERE THEY FORMED?

Millions of years ago, the Yucatan Peninsula was a giant reef set under several feet of ocean water. During the last ice age, the ocean level dropped, exposing the reef to the surface. The coral died, and jungle grew over the mile thick limestone platform created by the coral reef. Fossils found far inland are proof of this and are commonly seen during a “cenote dive.” In time, the rain filtered through the organic jungle soil, carving tunnels through the softer limestone creating a giant network of caves and tunnels. This filtering of rain water continues today, forming stalactites, hanging from the vaults, and stalagmites, projecting from the floor, which often join to create columns. These stalactites and stalagmites number in the millions and range in size from that of a pencil to the size of a big tree.

When the ice age was over, the ocean rose back to today’s current level, partially submerging the cave network with crystal clear fresh water and sometimes collapsing the limestone creating sinkholes. A “Cenote” is a natural sinkhole created where a cave ceiling has collapsed, a window to this spectacular world. Cenotes were the only source of water in the jungle for the Mayan civilization and are considered sacred by the Mayan people. The Mayan consider cenotes to be an entrance to their “underworld” where their gods live and their spirits reside after death. The Mayans first called these sinkholes “Dznot” or sacred well. A word which had been perverted into “cenote” by the Spanish “conquistadors.”

EXPLORING CENOTES:

There is a very strict protocol of conservation for Cenotes, and visitors should take it seriously: Nothing is to be touched or removed. Take only memories, kill only time, and leave nothing behind, but bubbles. One can enjoy the beautiful cenotes of the Yucatan Peninsula through a relaxing swim or snorkel or for the more adventurous by diving.

Cavern Diving. If you are a certified diver, you can visit the natural light area of the cavern safely, under the guidance of a local cavern diving instructor.

Cave Diving is different from cavern diving and means further penetration into the area beyond the natural sunlight. Extensive training and special equipment is required to enter these areas. A Full Cave Diver Course and Certification is required.

The amazing story in Outside Magazine you can still find here.  It’s really a good read – highly recommended:

http://outside.away.com/outside/features/200508/dave-shaw-1.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Shaw_%28diver%29

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