Sandos Caracol Eco-resort in the Mayan Riviera

As my various posts are supposed to have ecological content (and be related to our northern environment), I thought you might be interested in an extended version of this thesis that involves escaping our northern environment in the dead of winter to another ecologically interesting venue, i.e., the Yucatan peninsula of Mexico about 40 miles south of Cancun. Every winter for the past several decades, we and our long time friends, Jock and Karen Wilcox, escape our northern scenes at least once in February or March. Recently, one of our winter jaunts was to an all exclusive Eco-Resort called Sandos Caracol, just north of Playa del Carmen. This resort occupies about 50 acres of jungle, which has been kept in its original form minus the paths and buildings. This year it is Nancy's and my 50th wedding anniversary, so we thought it would be fun to take all the kids with us to Sandos - during their spring break in March. We were pretty sure that the kids and grands would like the many things that were available for them to engage in at that site. This sounds like it might be an endorsement for the resort, and it is, with lots of fun pictures to show you!

You arrive at the registration site under a lovely giant palapa, which is well designed for that environment -- air moves through it freely, but sometimes a little rain gets in past the palm leaf roof!

From here we all went to our various condos. Nancy and I selected a penthouse for the simple reason that it is larger than the regular condos and it is up on the 3rd level in the tree tops, where much of the animal life presents itself daily. I show you the outside porch area, which can accommodate several people and also has a Jacuzzi.

...and then when the family arrive for toddies before dinner we have the space.

...and the grandchildren can hang out in the Jacuzzi: i.e.,  Siobhan, Jakob and Ceilah.

This is also where many birds and critters would show up in the adjacent trees most afternoons when we were on the porch, including the beautiful Altamira Oriole, only seen outside of Mexico in southern Texas...

...as well as the Yucatan jay, both the yellow beaked juvenile..

...and black beaked adult.

Often our 'happy hours' were associated with the appearance of one or more white-nosed coatimundi, the Mexican version of our raccoon. What a great site for exposure to feral animals, which are not afraid of humans.

This kaleidoscope of life often included a parade of spider monkeys of all ages, including a mother with infant,

a juvenile male with a fondness for our red delicious apples,

and a provocative mature female that wished me to buy her a drink. Of course I judiciously refused.

They often feed on the tree in which she is sitting.

To show you the ballistic manner in which they can appear on the porch, I thought you might enjoy the brief video of the entrance of a juvenile male!

With this fearless creature in mind, a brief story. One afternoon I heard a Canadian 'eh' from the penthouse next to  us, so I inquired as to their origins: Kingston Ontario it seems. This was followed from them by the question: "so where are the monkeys we have heard about"? My response - "they usually show up in the late afternoon, but unexpectedly. Don't leave your door open or you are apt to have a visitor". About an hour later, I watched a spider monkey exit from their room with a clock radio hanging from his prehensile tail!! Up and over the roof he went with the radio, probably to listen to the CBC.

Once you leave your room, the pathways lead throughout the resort area to include the restaurants, spa/gym, swimming pools, beaches, amusement areas, Mayan ruins, and cenotes. The cenotes are freshwater pools that surface throughout the property and are interconnect underground leading to the ocean. By the same token ocean fish that can stand fresh water can go between the two water bodies. The large registration palapa was build on the edge of the largest cenotes where people like to swim, although life jackets are required in this one.

Son-in-law Scott is swimming near the bottom here to check out the fish species present.

The cenotes come in a variety of sizes. Here is a smaller one that you can 'swim in' without a life jacket being guarded by Jock, Karen and Nancy. Nearly all transiently have fish in them.

In a slightly larger one, Tracey spotted a 3 foot tarpon.

So we all got in the water to see it.

And sure enough it was there, which I think Scott snapped in black and white.

Many of the pathways tour you through the jungle and/or mangrove.

Where you will encounter many other critters, like peacocks.

Iguanas,

and penned white tail deer. Note the spider monkey feeding one of the many deer in the impoundment and a coatimundi sitting at the based on the tree to the upper right!

And there are several benign snakes, all with a similar pedigree that pop up here and there along the way.

Eventually you come to the ocean, where we seniors prefer the less sunny locations under the palms rather than the more sunny locations, as we all have had some version of sun damage and need no more of it.

On the way to these beach locations, we would likely have lost the children and/or grand children to one of the several play areas with a watery venue.

The trails and living areas are full of groomed vegetation, both familiar like bougainvillea

and some unknown to me.

Since we had rented several autos, we took a couple of side trips. Jamie and family went to Tulum one day.  I didn't go, having been twice before.

Several of us went snorkeling on another day at the nearby Akumal beach area about 20 miles south.

Here the water was clear and protected from the ocean winds, yet there were many fish species to view. You can see the fish between me and the adjacent rocks, many of which were Sargent fish.

We were also able to rent a little palapa there for peanuts to store our gear and hang out when we were not snorkeling.

At the end of the day was my favorite time, which involved toddies and dinner. The dinner venues were quite extensive and included restaurants that served Mexican, Italian, Japanese, International, Brazilian, vegan, seafood and a few others. One of our favorites was the seafood, where we gathered twice. My choice was yellow fin tuna, of course, but other winners included sea bass.

And they kindly supported our families reason to be there at Sandos this time.

And we all gathered for a family portrait courtesy of some willing victim who was waiting to get into the restaurant. For those who don't know the contestants, from left to right are son-in-law Peter, son Jamie, grand Siobhan, daughter-in-law Tracey, grand Ceilah, grand Jakob, daughter Tobi, Nancy, me, daughter Jenifer and son-in-law Scott. And there you have it.

Like all good things, it must come to an end. And so the next morning our two grand daughters were on the beach at dawn to say good bye to Neptune.

Then onto West Jet for our return to the great white north the end of March.

This certainly reduces the pain of winter and needs to be rerun. Not surprisingly, we heartily endorse this location and will be there next year again I am quite sure. Adios amigos....

Windigo's journey from inception to present

After the waterfowl lake, Windigo, was excavated, we breached the berm to drain it so that the dump trucks could drive to the compost piles and be loaded. This left an empty lake area that needed to refill with the fall rains. In anticipation of a new life, we also left several inches of clay and detritus on the bottom to hopefully cultivate a weed food source for the birds and protection for the minnows and frogs, etc.

Of course, we also left the little islands as nesting sites for the ducks and safe areas for does to have their fawns in the spring, where they could hopefully escape the omnipresent coyotes.

When the water began to refill the lake, the grasses and cattails appeared along the berm. Not knowing if there would be a weed cover as a food source for the ducks, in the previous fall I purchased and cast 100 pounds of wild rice throughout the lake. In the spring the ducks ate the rice shoots up so fast that there were none left intact to reseed itself in the fall -- thus a failed experiment, and an additional disappointment for me cause I was planning on harvesting some wild rice myself!

However, a lovely delicate weed appeared spontaneously and completely covered the bottom of the lake, and the ducks love it!

Even the rare Blandings turtles found it a good place, under water in the weeds, to consumate their mating ritual.

The Blandings turtles look a little different when they are walking across your lawn. Note below  the bright yellow color of the throat and chest. The majority of turtles in the lake, however, are of the painted variety.

In the second season, the lake was full of blue and green winged teal, mallards and a 'resident' pair of geese. The wood ducks had not yet shown up, largely because I had not yet build nesting boxes for them (a different posting).

The most successful of the nesting birds were the mallards. The hen that laid these eggs has been here every year for the last five seasons. She is easily recognized because she limps on her left leg, Which doesn't seem to bother her consort at all. But then we know about the minimal requirement for males 😏.

That same season the lake was worked steadily by six black terns. I had never seen one before. As seen in the picture below with terns flying in the foreground (Find Waldo!), they flew endlessly around the lake during daylight hours catching insects. Life was good.

But then the summer of 2012 arrived. When the drought began, the water level in the lake dropped, and eventually dried up completely (along with all the marsh-land south of Windigo). As it did so, the animal life became intensely concentrated, and the hunting opportunity for the wading birds became wonderful. That year during the water recession, for several weeks we had 6 full time great blue herons a variety of others, like night herons and American bitterns, but amazingly 14 great white egrets. This is the only place in Canada where they show up -- just a little spot west of Ottawa, shown in Roger Tory Peterson's Field Guide to Birds of Eastern and Central North America.  We had another 4-month drought in 2016, but we didn't see egrets or herons that year, for some reason, like poor recovery of the minnow population.

Once the food was gone, these wading predators all left too. I read that 'draining' a pond every few years is good for it, as it rejuvenates the weed growth in the coming year. However, it sure is tough on the minnows, frogs and water insects that were in the lake since they all have to start again in the next season, if they can!

The various droughts, however, did not seriously impact our trout pond, even though the water levels there dropped by about 6 -8 feet.

And despite the drastic drop in water level with a concomitant raising of water temperature, beautiful trout were still available to be invited for dinner. Here we see one brook trout and a similar size rainbow trout, which I periodically take when required for a meal.

When Windigo dries down, you get to see who is cruising the area by the tracks they leave in the mud. In this case, a good sized black bear has been through, who often makes a mess of the neighbor's corn fields. In such cases, it too can be invited for dinner.

This year, with the vast quantity of rain that we have experienced lately (see my fourth posting), the odds of a drought occurring is very slim -- thankfully. But that doesn't mean that Mother Nature can't still throw us a curve. After all, June is still a couple of days away.