Thursday, January 25, 2007

Return to Xcaret park

Today Calvin and I went to swim with the dolphins. First, though, Baby, Calvin, and Coreen wanted to paint some pottery.

The artisan would make various objects from clay and draw patterns on them with a dark glaze.

You then paint between the lines with different coloured glazes.

When done, the artisan cleans up any lines that have been painted over and fires the piece.

Coreen couldn't finish hers before we had to set off for our dolphin swim.

I was supposed to signal our dolphin, Melissa, to dance. But another dolphin came over and started dancing too. You know, I have this affect on females.

Melissa gave me a kiss. Just trying to make that other dolphin jealous, I'll bet.

Calvin stroked Melissa.

This woman stroked Melissa, too, but not quite the same way.

The trainer told her she could touch Melissa's belly button. The woman was a bit confused by dolphin anatomy, apparently, as she touched something else instead. "No, no," said the trainer, "those are her woman parts. But thank you."


Calvin got a foot push from a couple of dolphins. Look at him go! Air time!

I introduced myself to the dolphins...


... and they gave me a foot push, too. But after this they were exhausted and needed a long nap.

That was definitely fun, but at a hundred bucks a pop I don't think I'll need to do it again any time soon.

Coreen had to get back to finish painting her pottery, but Calvin and I went and checked out some more of the park.

This is the San Franciso de Asis Chapel, that cool church we saw from the tower a couple of days before.

Inside the church. You can't really tell from this photo, but the view behind the altar overlooks the ocean.

I took Calvin through the cemetery.

A bronze sea serpent statue. I don't know why it's here.

A waterfall in the butterfly pavilion.

Actors in costume standing around. I didn't know what they were preparing for but they looked cool.

It turns out they were performing a ceremony at the underground Mayan village.

After watching a bit of the ceremony we went through the underground caverns to get back to the resort. It wasn't as difficult this time, and after a bit of exploring it was clear that all the caverns loop back to the main cavern in such a way as to pretty much ensure you're always headed in the same direction.

We passed some folk musicians and dancers on our way out.

It was a nice way to end our visit to the park.

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