Backtrack: April 12 ❤ Xel-Ha

We woke up early to go to Xel-Ha, which boasts that it's the world's largest natural aquarium.  We got on the tour bus and were off.  After a couple hours we were at the park and it was amazing.  The food and drinks were limitless so we ate some breakfast before we got into any activities.  I had some fresh watermelon juice with my breakfast.  SO yummy.

I have been nervous about snorkeling since I was a kid and had a bad experience in the ocean, so I was a little bit hesitant.  Juan was really patient with me and showed me how to try on the masks and how I should breathe, all before we even were near the water.  We lathered up with sunscreen and then made our way out to the natural pool.  Equipped with my life jacket and Juan's patient words, I had no trouble snorkeling.  Fear conquered!!!  :)  We swam all around, saw lots of fish, and took pictures with our underwater camera.  We were going to get out and there was a swarm of fish right around the stairs to get out.  Too bad we'd already finished up all the pictures on the camera.  

Some of the fishies we saw while snorkeling.

Snorkeling!!!

We sat on the side of the natural pool to dry off, enjoy the beautiful view, and also enjoy a piña colada and michelada.  That was the first I'd heard of a michelada...I had a taste of Juan's and it was yummy.  :)

Relaxing in my lounge chair.

Juan with his michelada.

After a bit of a rest, we went for a mini bike ride and came upon some iguanas and these funny-looking animals.  If anyone can tell me what these are, that would be amazing.  My best guess is some type of lemur.

Iguana and funny little animals.

After our bike ride, we jumped on a raft for two and started to paddle toward the ziplines.  The current was taking us the wrong way though and we had to come up with a good way to paddle ourselves against the current.  We finally managed with some teamwork.  :)  The ziplines took you straight into the water and you could either hold onto a bar or sit on a round wooden seat on your ride down.  We tried it both ways and it was a lot of fun.  After that we tried to walk a tightrope, where you walk across a rope and hold onto a rope on top.  I was doing fine until we were almost to the end and my arms were about to give out, so I hopped into the water.  Oh well.  When we were done, we paddled back on our double raft and then went to get food and margaritas before we hit the showers and headed back to the bus.  It was a beautiful day and we were exhausted.  We slept the whole way back.  :)