You've already seen some of my scenic shots of the Mexico seascape. Now let's look at some other exotic beauty I saw there. (As always, click pics to enlarge.)
I'm not great at identifying flowers, but I think these are bougainvilleas. Anyone? Anyone? Confirm or correct me, if anybody knows for sure. At any rate, they grew all over the place down there. Lovely.
How about these? Anybody? I thought maybe mandevilla, but I think those are more of a vine plant. These were more of a shrub/bush type of thing. Again, they were used heavily in the landscaping all around the hotel.
Tropical foliage (or "foilage," as Marge Simpson would say) at a Mayan co-op we visited (more on that in a later blog installment). Mmmm...lush.
Christy and I were both missing our kitties during this trip, but never fear, we met some felines roaming the grounds of the hotel. Behold: Los Gatos de Mexico! These are tropical cats, unafraid to curl up in the wet grass after a hard rain (unlike those wimpy critters we have back home). This black and white one was a little shy and wouldn't let us get too close.
Her stripey friend, however, was very outgoing. He really liked me, as you can see, but...
...he LOVED Christy. Curled right up on her lap and made himself comfy. Awwwww. What a cutie pie.
In the feathered friend category, we have these guys. This man walked all over the resort with them. We saw him with them one rainy day and he said they didn't mind the rain but, "They smell like a wet pillow."
Less colorful and more feisty were these little birds. The black ones looked like crows to me, but had a pretty song. Not sure what the smaller brown ones were. I like this photo. The bigger bird is all up in brown bird's face, giving major sass. Brown bird like, "Um, yeah, whatever. Talk to the wing."
Moving on to the reptiles, here we have an example of the omnipresent geckos. They were very cute, but hard to photograph because they're so small and quick. I managed to get a shot of this one only after several failed attempts.
The iguanas were much less camera-shy. Here's one that popped out from a ditch at the hotel...
and here's one sunning itself on a rock at Tulum. Practically posing, really. Very impressive animals.
Finally, here's a picture that would have been much better if I'd had an underwater camera. These are some of the fish we encountered while snorkeling. The best I could do picture-wise was sit in the shallow water and photograph them from above, hoping I wouldn't drop my camera into the Caribbean. These fish were about 8-10 inches long, and at times I found myself swimming through schools of dozens of them, maybe hundreds. (Sorry, Brannon, if the thought of that just made you pass out.) We saw lots more colorful fish in the deeper water, but these guys were definitely a staple of our snorkeling experience.
COMING SOON: Mayans and their ruins!

