Melissa and I actually started by snorkling (minus the snorkle, so I'd call it...goggeling) with fish and stingrays. We were out in the open sea, but it was roped and fenced in. So not technically open, but certainly not a swimming pool full of fish. When we were done there we went to the shark tank, full of Bull Sharks. Swimming with them involved being behind a cage that encircled their tank. We went straight from the sharks to our sea lion interaction. For this we got paired with about eight other people and a trainer. The sea lion, Nena, did a bunch of tricks and took pictures with everyone. A picture of her giving us a kiss, and a picture with her propped up on our shoulders. Nena needs to eat less cake.
When Nena was done they brought out Ceasar and Sabina, manatees. They floated around and we petted them while they munched on lettuce. They're a little one-tracked when it comes to thinking. A rogue clump of lettuce got lose and it took all of four seconds for Sabina to grab it and swim away. She eventually came back, when she was good and done eating. We took pictures with manatees too. More kisses and a "hug" which is more accurately described as us trying to hold onto an 800 pound sea cow.
We had to watch a short educational video before the dolphins so that we'd know what to do with them, then they split us into smaller groups. The dolphins we met were Daniella and Padme. We got to hold onto their dorsal fins while they pulled us, get a kiss, "dance" with them, get a hug, and have them push us up out of the water by the bottoms of our feet. That was my favorite. Aside from pictures with the dolphins we got a video of our entire time with them.
The day still wasn't over even after we'd played with all the animals. We took a ferry back to downtown Isla Mujeres and rented a golf cart. I drove us around town and we stopped in a few shops. We hit some good stores for t-shirts and beautiful silver jewelry (ok, ok, we only went in the jewelry store cause it was air conditioned, but we did buy stuff). A ferry took us back to Dolphin Discovery, and another ferry took us back to Cancun.
We took another hour or so to relax in the hotel room. We spent our time learning spanish by watching an english version of Friends with spanish subtitles. I found this to be an extremely viable method. Our nightly routine of taking the bus to downtown continued. This time when we arrived we saw that a show was going on in the open air mall around the Hard Rock. It was a performance with costumes and songs from The Lion King. We watched what was left of the show and then ate at The Rainforest Cafe.
We ignored the nightlife for our cool hotel room again. But when you have to set your alarm clock for 6:30 I think that's perfectly understandable.
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