... and more Creatures...

We all know, of course, that ants are colony creatures, the whole more powerful than the sum of its parts and all that stuff. Well, ants may be small but collectively they can use a mobile phone to text their chums and keep the news flowing across jungles and entire continents. I'm something of a star meal with the ant population of the world's more tropical areas and I can just imagine the crazy little things texting each colony to say 'Grab yer napkins, lads, Owen's back!' as they descend on wherever I happen to be. Yum yum, you can hear them sharpening knives, forks and teeth as soon as I get off the plane. I don't have a photo of the bites in all their glory but this should give you an idea...

My ankles, legs and arms were a veritable feast for the first week in Mexico and I even attracted my very own vampire mozzies. Yes, I know they all drink blood, but they drank from my neck and I have the marks to prove it! [As an aside, one also dive bombed my bum which must have been sticking out from under the sheets on one of the more stiffling nights, but the less said about that the better.]

There are, of course, nicer creatures as well, partricularly my great friend, the mythical Hola parrot. He's a gorgeous green parrot who shrilly shouts 'Hola' followed by the cheekiest giggle you ever did hear. Here he is in all his glory. Unfortunately, I didn't think to video him with my phone so I have no proof he ever existed and he wasn't there when we back to XCaret a few days later... Personally, I think he was hiding his superhero identity by playing dumb and just chirping rather than saving the world with a mighty 'Hola [giggle]'.

And there were lots more parrots too, all colours and sizes. And a tapir called Tollok. And horses.


And there were cats too. Pumas and jaguars but most especially the little Tigrillo kittens - tiger cats! They were in a cage being 'environmentally conditioned' into their new surroundings since they're an endangered species. Cute doesn't come close to describing them - a ball of three sleepy kittens in the afternoon heat, too lazy to even growl at gawping tourists.

Fish? Have I mentioned fish yet? The lovely turquoise sea is clear and it's easy to look down into the waves and see fish swimming. There's also an excellent aquarium at XCaret with a whole host of different fish swimming round and showing off, all colours you can imagine and all sizes. Separately, there are also sharks and turtles and even a few aligators. I'm not a big fan of zoos, but these were very well laid out with, in general, lots of space and clean environments. The exception was the manatee family (parents and two babies) that seemed a bit cramped, but it was nice to see them being fed lettuces and the babies resting their flippers on the feet of the feeders to help them keep their mouths above water for a good chomp.

I didn't swim with the dolphins, however, since I don't like the idea of them performing tricks for us to gawp at and all the swimming-with-dolphins opportunities all seemed to be based around doing tricks with them. No thank you.

All in all, more creatures than you could shake a stick at. And, of course, there be dragons too!