Cancun and its surrounding area of the Riviera Maya are Mexico’s top destination for international travelers, drawing more than 3.5 million visitors a year. The beach was the lure for the first visit my wife and I took six years ago. But since then, we’ve returned to explore the Northern Hemisphere’s largest barrier reef, natural springs pocking the Yucatan, mangrove swamps, salt marshes and thick jungle.
Much of the Yucatan is a flat limestone slab, topped with low jungle and scrub. There are no real rivers; the heavy seasonal rain seeps into sinkholes, known locally as cenotes, that have eroded over the millennia into the porous stone. The fresh water travels underground and percolates into the sea from natural springs.
The woods, cenotes and waters off the coast host a riot of colorful animals. Great blue herons, anteaters, the Yucatan rust rump tarantula, giant iguanas, ocelots, manatees and other animals make their home in the region.
Families or other travelers who want to heed the call of the wild can check out the eco-parks of Xcaret and Xel-Ha. They are just a short ride away from the resorts at Cancun, Playa del Carmen and the rest of the Riviera Maya.
Xcaret is the more developed of the two. It’s a bit like a U.S. water park — but with a walk-through butterfly pavilion. You can also follow a narrow river from a spring out to the Caribbean and swim with dolphins and manatee (a practice that quite a few biologists frown upon as stressful for the animals).
Xel-Ha feels less engineered and is centered on a huge lagoon where fresh spring water mingles with the saltwater. The water teems with schools of electric-colored fish. There are bike trails and a spring-fed river to swim or float down in an innertube. Xel-Ha also offers chances to swim with dolphins.
More adventurous tourists stray a bit farther, to visit the gem of the Sian Ka’an Biosphere Refuge. The UNESCO World Heritage Site sprawls across about 1.3 million acres and includes such things as offshore coral reefs, as well as the beaches, lagoons, cenotes and low tropical forests.
