We saw the first Whale Sharks of this year’s season yesterday June 5th, 2010. Our flight left Cozumel airport at 7:20 am and landed on Holbox at around 8:00 am.  This is a panoramic flight with great aerial views of the Caribbean Ocean and Yucatan Peninsula. It was fun for all of us and one of the passengers was even given the chance to fly the plane for a couple of minutes.

 Something I found magical happened during the flight;

Mexico has more bird species than the USA including Hawaii and it has double the amount of bird species found in Canada. The Yucatan Peninsula is one of the best Bird Watching spots in Mexico. It has 548 different species including 11 endemic varieties; in the wintertime one finds even more species as migratory birds visit the warm region. The Yucatan offers great Bird Watching year round due to its subtropical position. Renowned birding sites near the Riviera Maya are:

•    Sian Kaan Reserve
•    Cozumel Island
•    Rio Lagartos Biosphere Reserve
•    Botanical Garden Dr. Alfredo Barrera Marin
•    Coba Ruins
•    Punta Laguna

All these bird watching sites can be visited on one day tours from the Riviera Maya. The Riviera Maya is an excellent birder destination as it allows the visitor to enjoy its tourist infrastructure and comfortable hotels while going out on day trips to specialized birding sites. One can also choose to stay in rural areas with less comfort but many more birds!

This is a short introduction to these 6 Bird Watching Destinations that can be visited from the Mayan Riviera: 

Pacaya National Park is the protected area around a volcano with the same name situated about 50 km south of Guatemala City in the Guatemalan Department of Esquintla. The cone of the volcano has a height of 2552 meters above sea level and around 65.000 visitors visit the National Park annually.

The volcano first erupted and came to exist over 20.000 years ago. Pacaya is part of the Central American Volcanic Arc, a chain of volcanoes stretching along the Pacific coast of Central America. The Guatemalan Institute for Tourism (INGUAT) has published a bulletin stating the National Park will be closed to visitors until further notice. The volcano has been active for over 50 years and lightly increased its activity since March this year, together with volcanoes Fuego and Santiago nearby. In April a fatal accident occurred when tourists went beyond the allowed paths and were surprised by a sudden eruption and rock avalanche. In May part of the National Park was temporarily closed due to increased activity on one side of the volcano.

The whale shark (Rhincodon typus) is the world's largest fish, it has a history of 60 million years in which it has traveled the oceans of this world. Furthermore, the shark is unique because not only is it the only existing species of its genus but also of its family.
Nevertheless, we generally know little about this species which is cataloged vulnerable on the IUCN list. The first whale shark measuring 4.6 meters was identified, speared and captured on the shores of Table Bay, South Africa in 1828. This shark was sold for six pounds, and its holotype is shown at the Museum of Natural History in Paris. One year after this great discovery the first scientific paper on the species was written, and in 1849 the first detailed description of the whale shark was published. It was assigned the name whale shark due to the physiology of the fish; a shark with the appearance and size more typical of a whale. 

The whale shark is the biggest fish in the world. It has a massive body that can reach up to 18 meter (60 feet). Its coloration is gray or dark blue on its back, with circular spots and light colored white or yellowish horizontal and vertical lines and a white belly. In Mexico these patterns give the whale shark its local name: "domino."

Named after the shark’s nickname Domino: The Mexican Atlantic Whale Shark Project was created in Mexico in 2003. The project was established for whale shark conservation and allows whale shark tour operations to run Whale Shark excursions for visitors that would like to swim with the animals. 

The steep walls of the Sumidero Canyon in Chiapas, Mexico are still sacred spaces where humans meet ancestors and deities much in the same manner as they did 2000 years ago before European influences came to this continent. This practice is maintained up to date by the so called “traditioners” (costumbreros). According to archaeologist Enrique Mendez Torres from the Mexican School of Anthropology and History (ENAH), surrounding Tuxtla, Chiapas and mainly on the Capoya Plateau, the Mountain Range and the Sumidero Canyon –whose walls rise to 1200 meters (4000 feet)- caves, rocky shelters and gullies are found that have been used for ritual means since pre-Hispanic times. 

Tulum has been voted second by TripAdvisor’s 2010 Travelers Choice Beach & Sun Destinations of the World. Tulum Mayan ruins is the site of a Pre-Columbian Maya city.  The ruins are located on cliffs, along the east coast of the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico. One of the best-preserved coastal Maya sites, Tulum is today a popular site for tourists.
The Mayan ruins of Tulum are easily accessible on Tulum tours out of Cancun, Playa del Carmen or the Riviera Maya or when staying in Tulum you can simply take a walk or a taxi to these beautiful ruins that are situated on the Caribbean beach.

Ecologists emphasize that the Laguna del Tigre National Park, in the Petén department of Guatemala, contains 70 to 80 percent of forest, a great biodiversity and important freshwater reservoirs, which makes it a strategic area to be preserved. Conservationist feel the need to emphasize the ecological importance of the National Park as institutions interested to exploit the area for petroleum have led to believe there is nothing to protect.

Slash and burn consists of cutting and burning of forests to create fields for agriculture or pasture for livestock. Today the term is mainly associated with tropical rain forests where the technique is said to be doing mayor damage as it exhausts the soil rapidly. It is important however to clarify that slash and burn can be a sustainable method when practiced well and at a much smaller scale. In former days, nomad tribes using this method would slash and burn only small patches within large parts of jungle. This is a fantastic method when population is low, nature is in ecologic balance and the people move about, like nomads do.

A new and modern archaeological conservation center is to be constructed at Tikal National Park, Guatemala. The project is being managed by the Guatemalan Ministry of Culture and would be founded by a six million dollar grant from the Japanese government, a spokesman said to Acan-Efe.