Isla Mujeres is less than 10 km long and less than 1 km wide, but there are roads, taxis, and a bus or two. Most locals commute on scooters, the whole family on one scooter, it's insane. Darin and I rented a scooter one day and a golf cart, the preferred means of transportation for tourists, on another day. With wheels we were able to explore more of the island. Our hotel was on the north end, near the "downtown" part with all the restaurants and shops, but we ventured to the south end where the residential area is, as well as the Turtle farm and Dolphin Discovery. The homes on Isla Mujeres are basically shacks, I'd say no more than 500 square foot rooms, all in a row. We took a peak into one as we drove by and it looks like they are just one room with the kitchen and living space, and for sleeping they hook up hammocks, very different than our multi-roomed houses where each room has one purpose!

The turtle farm would be a neat place to visit when the turtles come on to the beach to lay their eggs. The farm is now a protected park, preventing people from taking the eggs and harming the turtles. They do have some captive turtles to view, and some of the suckers are huge, a few hundred pounds! Although the turtles were neat to see, we got more of a kick out of watching the pelicans dive for food. The birds basically dive beak first at full speed into the water, looks like a suicide dive, and collect fish that they then swallow. The sea gulls hand around too, as when the pelican comes up from a dive there are fish hanging out of it's beak that the gull tries to steal - loads of fun to watch!

When I had hear that you could swim with the dolphins and it wasn't an insane amount of money, I had to sign up for the experience. I had done research about he company to ensure that money raised from tourists did go back into research to help wild dolphins, and that the 20 captive dolphins they had were well taken care of. Basically you are in a group no larger than 8, we had 6, and usually there are 2 dolphins that play with you, we were lucky to have 4. Play time is in the dolphin pin which is a large netted area of the ocean, so even though the dolphins are captive, they live in their natural habitat. The experience was incredible! You start by hugging and kissing the dolphins, then you swim out into the pen and lay on your stomach (everyone wears a lifejacket) with your knees locked. Two dolphins then swim up and in perfect synchronicity push your feet so you move forward and almost stand up, it's incredible. Everyone also gets to hold a pole for the dolphins to jump over and you get to do a dolphin pull where 2 dolphins swim beside you and let you hold their dorsal fins as they pull you along. The session ends with free time where the dolphins swim around you and let you pet them, it was so awesome - I want to go back and do it again! They have people taking still photos and a video of the session which they show you afterwards and sell, it's pretty cool to see the video of you swimming with these amazing animals. Luckily Darin was watching and taking pictures.