Quintana Roo, Mexico

A map of our travels... we arrived in Cancun, Mexico on April 9, 2008 and flew home from San Jose, Costa Rica on June 11th, 2008.

These shots are from Xcaret theme park, an hour south of Cancun. The park is so expensive ($130 US just for admission, $165 if you plan to eat and use the bathroom!) that we went to a timeshare presentation and pretended to be interested just to get "free" entry to the park as a gift. It was worth it though, because the park was amazing...underwater river, snorkeling, gardens, dolphins, hammocks, animal preservation projects and a Mexican cultural show and village.
Sadly, it was owned by a large corporation and (according to a couple of waiters we met at the park) doesn't pay it's employees well. This is a recurring theme we noticed throughout our travels... foreign-owned businesses are the backbone of the tourism industry in Central America, which minimizes the financial benefit to the local population by putting them in subordinate roles, working for expats. We tried to support local busniess as much as possible, but found these services to be less reliable and less aware of what a tourist/backpacker wants (not in every case, we found some great local-owned businesses). Many of the foreign business owners we spoke to chalked it up to the locals' inability to travel which denies them the understanding of what travelers want.
The animals are all from the area and in the birds' case, they are part of a captive breeding program that's helping stabilize the population of some endangered species. They also grow tons of herbs, mushrooms and native plants and flowers.

Pumas in love... the breeding program in action ;>)

Even the urinals were wild!

"Portal to Heaven" there was a cool room here that carried sound...you could speak softly into the corner and hear it on the opposite side of the room.

Amazing fruit! (this is the 'before' picture of Bonnie's tan)
Isla Mujeres shipwreck

We saw this Chihuahua many times on Isla Mujeres, but never without her miniskirt.
Isla Mujeres has amazing sunsets...and you can watch the pelicans dive-bomb for fish in the video below.



With Raul at Siete Bocas cenotes. Roots around a cenote.
We did swim in them, though we used the ladder instead.
Sergio, Raul and Bonnie in a treehouse. Bonnie says "tweet tweet."
Spotted him just in time!

Palenque and waterfalls in Chiapas, Mexico

Here we visited Palenque, Misol-Ha, Agua Azul, Agua Clara.
This is a panoramic shot of Palenque from on top of one of the buildings Giant Bonnie!

One of the most beautiful places we've ever seen.

Masks found inside the ruins.

Misol-Ha waterfall...amazing!

Our home away from home in the jungle.

Agua Clara. This bridge was right out of Indiana Jones...holes everywhere!
Agua Azul
These waterfalls went on for miles, all the way up the mountain.

One idea we had internalized before departing was the concept of the ‘noble savage,’ or the indigenous person who lives in harmony with nature. While we met many indigenous people who were well aware of the environmental impacts of their actions and the need to minimize them, the majority of people we spoke to were not thinking along such lines. The people we met who were most concerned with environmental causes were people who have been privileged enough not to have to worry about their own basic survival. When it comes down to saving a tree, a frog, or a coral reef, it seems that in the eyes of impoverished locals, human needs come first. It is easy for me to sit in my safe and comfortable surroundings in Oregon (with plenty of food in the fridge – which is powered by consistently working electricity) and worry about the plight of other environments such as Central America’s, but I am not the one who is depending on those forests, mountains, rivers and oceans for sustenance. It is in this light that I can see the hypocrisy of our activism from the perspective of poor Central Americans: we have already exploited our own environments (and theirs) and now we are telling them not to use their own resources.
A few glaring examples we noticed follow. In Chiapas, Mexico we observed large swaths of clear-cut forest. When we asked our local friend about the impact on the Lacandón rainforest (which we have heard is substantial) he replied that the forest is fine, that there is no illegal cutting occurring any longer and that they are growing more trees to replace those that have been felled. Besides, our friend explained, the people need the wood for fires and they can’t afford fuel, so what else can they do? In that sentence, our friend revealed that he accepted the Mexican government’s official stance on illegal logging in the Lacandón (that it’s not happening), while simultaneously implying that the poor ought to have the right to cut because their immediate material needs are more important than the long-term welfare of the forest.
In the coastal and island Caribbean communities we visited such as Isla Mujeres in Mexico, Utila in Honduras, Bocas del Toro in Panama and Manzanillo in Costa Rica, we witnessed significant degradation of fish populations and the coral reefs which they depend on. In each case, it was clear to us that although numerous locals who made their livings from the ocean were telling us that they noticed a marked decline in the fish, shark and crustacean populations, along with coral reef decay, they would not stop their own activities which contribute to such problems because ‘this is how they have always lived’ and because even if they stop, others would not, so why bother?
While such attitudes are difficult to accept by outsiders such as ourselves who are so impressed with the beauty of these places, we have come to appreciate the perspective of the locals who feel they have no other choice. Only by having more opportunity and options in the ways they may choose to sustain themselves can we expect a shift away from the kinds of survival strategies that endanger our planet’s ecosystems. The solution to such a problem is complicated and involves changes by those responsible for the structural factors that result in poverty of opportunity on the macro-level such as government and industry, as well as on the micro-level with the responsibility of the locals themselves.