Nov 30
Flores, Guatemala - November 30, 2017
We woke up late and had to head down to breakfast right away. It was very good and I enjoyed my poached eggs as a nice change from the scrambled and omelettes.
At 10am we did the lagoon cruise and made our first of two stops. Oscar fed the 6 adult and 1 baby Spider Monkey carrots. Margarita joined us on the boat to eat her carrots. She is the Omega female and always gets picked on, so she comes to the boat for safety. While I was trying to feed another monkey, Oscar was trying to prolong the experience which led to the monkey taking matters into her own hands and jumping on to the boat. Let me tell you, that was a bit of a shit show. The 2 females were freaking out in front of us in very small quarters and the Alfa male was dangling from a branch beside the boat throwing a bit of a fit. Thankfully after a short period of time, everyone was contentedly eating carrots again. Once we finished feeding everyone breakfast, we continued on our journey around the lagoon.
The resort is on over 400 acres and this is one of several lagoons, but this is the largest. This lagoon is 4km long and has a depth of 22m at the deepest part.
The rest of our tour was quite leisurely. I snapped a few bird photos and Bill chilled out. After we cruised by the guest houses and main lodge we stopped beside the 2 inhabited (monkey) island. This island is home to 11 Spider Monkeys & 2 Howler Monkeys. The Alpha male greeted us and put on a great acrobatic show. He is not chill at all, so we were not able to see the other monkeys.
After the cruise we spend the greater part of the day by the pool. It was very overcast, so it was not a good tanning day, but it was still nice to relax and enjoy being outside in the warm weather.
Around 3pm we took a walk toward the nature reserve and got a close look of the rescued male and female ocelot cats, 3 tapirs and a beautiful male jaguar. The male was purring and rubbing his head against the fence like our girls do when they want to be petted. I really wanted to pet him, but Bill did not think it was a good idea; honestly neither did I, but he looked so lonely in that cage!
Our walk back was uneventful and we did not see (or notice) any birds along the way to and from the reserve.
We spend the rest of the afternoon in the covered room at the end of the dock by the cabins having our happy hour beverages and corn snacks.
After enjoying the jacuzzi in our room, we asked to tour the museum at the hotel. The Mayan pieces that were on display were from different periods and from all over the country and were part of the resort owner’s private collection. The artifacts and how they were displayed was incredible. There were some amazing pieces of jewelry, masks, statues, pottery and jade. Bill really enjoyed the big stone masks, some were human faces, some were animals or birds, and a couple looked like skulls. My favourite pieces were the stone jewelry with small skulls and a female statue with a opening in the stomach that had a tiny figure inside. Some of the pottery were shaped like animals, there was a couple of armadillo shaped bowls and the plates had red painted people, birds and animals on them.
We had a lovely dinner in the main lodge and ordered two more dishes from the Guatemalan section of the menu. We had requested some more traditional food, so the staff obliged us by making tortillas and guacamole. It was fantastic!