meme... seemed like a fun one

[richenza]

Rules: Post five things you've done that you believe nobody else on your F-list has done.

1. Grown catcus from bat shit
2. Swam with dolphin
3. Discovered and named a new cave
4. Seen the night-blooming Cereus in bloom
5. Had a total stranger offer to let me piss in his mouth (ewwww!)

Comments

[richenza]

It was one of the high points of the trip to Mexico. There is a water park called Xel-Ha there which is all set up for "eco-tourism". It's set in a series of natural lagoons which abut the ocean and are fed by seawater. They keep dolphins in one of the lagoons. It's like Sea World, only with actual seawater.

The whole experience was costly and heavily supervised, but what else would you expect? I know a few of the women in our group were inexplicably squeamish about fish and seaweed. (I'll never understand why they'd want to play with a 300 pound aquatic mammal if the ocean bothers them.)

Anyway, we got to feed the dolphins and do tricks with the dolphins (though I remain convinced that the dolphins were doing more to "train" us than the reverse).

The coolest part was when they had us each try lying stomach-down in the water on end of the lagoon, with our arms outstretched and our toes pointed down. Two dolphins would then come behind you and plant their noses in the soles of your feet and swim like the devil was behind them. I went up in the air like a water-skier, and I has fears of crashing into the other end of the lagoon, when both dolphins abruptly pushed hard and dived down. The trick ended in a somewhat graceless belly-flop on my part, which I am sure amused the dolphins to no end, as this appeared to be the standard finish.

There was also swim-in-circles-and-be-petted time, which I gather the dolphin found boring. He was much more enthusiastic about splash-the-tourists time and required much less fish as incentive.

Well worth the $110 bucks to do it, and the $100 more they charged me for the video and pictures. It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience.