Trip to Isla Mujeres, Mexico – Part III: The First Day Around the Island -

While walking around town, taking photos, and enjoying the simmering hot weather, we encountered a series of street merchants soliciting their rental golf carts. On each encounter, we shnuned them off with disinterested facial expression while walking pass them with a hand wave expressing mild annoyance. At some point, we realized that it might not be a bad idea driving around the small island since we did not have anything planned without our luggage and bathing suits.

So we walked towards one of the rental golf cart solicitors and negotiated with the rental price. The first one said $45 for 5 hours. The price was already discounted from what was listed on a white board on the wall with green and black letters. We said we would think about it and went to the other one a block away. We said the other merchant would give us 5 hours for $40 and we got a deal at $35. Deals do work in towns of which economy relies solely on tourist. It’s fun making deals.

Here’s me getting a tutorial on how to operate the golf cart.

We obtained a pamphlet that had the map of the island. There were two tourist attractions of our interest: the Mayan post which is located at the east end of the island, and the Tortuganja which is the sea turtle reservation area.

We first arrived at the Tortuganja. This was my first time touching a live sea turtle. The shell felt like wet suede leather.

This is where the eggs are protected under surveillance.

There are many pools in which the turtles remain. Each pool carries a group of turtles of the same age.

This is where the full grown sea turtles are put into.

This is inside the aquarium of Tortuganja. These are infant sea turtles.

After hanging around the area for about an hour, we took off to the Mayan post. On our way, we encountered the island made of PAT plastic bottles. I remember seeing the island on a Korean TV show called “Around the World” some 10 years ago.

When we arrived at the east end of the island at which the Mayan post is located, we were impressed other than the ocean view.

There was a light house of which we decided to go on top. The view was amazing as shown in the pictures below.

On our way back to the hotel for a late lunch, we passed by a few beaches at the east end. The view of the beaches made us in dire need of our bathing suits ever more.

While having lunch, we decided that we need to go to a major Mayan ruin, Chichen Itza, and the hotel hooked us up with a tour bus deal for $70 per person. We had to wake up at 5AM in the morning to make it to Cancun by 8am from which the tourist bus leaves. We were told that it would take about 3 hours to get to Chichen Itza from Cancun.