Akumal Observations

At Laguna Legartos Little purple fish fistily defending its territory A succer-type fish I seem to recall from my aquarium Cattle egrets roosting in shrubbery and trees. A brooding colony? Several little blue herons (did not seem that little to me) mixed in with the cattle egrets, for contrast, say Two cormorans, very close A turtle, swimming under water Everywhere: great-tailed grackles A grackle-like bird with a beautiful iridescent blue plumage A type of oriole Several kingbirds At the beach Frigatbirds Brown pelicans, remind me of Sanderlings Green herons?

Akumal--Laguna Legartos

This was fun, meant to get started jogging in hot weather and explore the area a little bit.


View Akumal--Laguna Legartos Survey in a larger map
Laguna Legartos was one of my main goals and I found it! Needed a little help from the friendly folks at the Centro Ecologico Akumal. They pointed out the general location of the trail head (near the police post), not without warning me of the apparently omnipresent crocodiles. I had a sense that they did not want me back there, more because they wanted it to be quiet and peaceful for the animals. There was no trail behind the police post, so I started checking out each one of the little trail starts from the beach road. Most were just short spurs used by the locals to dispose of yard waste. I am sure that some of the passer-bys thought "What is this weirdo doing there." My persistence paid off: I found a trail that kept going, well defined by stones lining the sides. After a few hundert meteres I got to a trail that branched off and lo, there was the Laguna, spread out below me. It is surrounded by limestone walls (cliff or bluff would be too much, hey are not much higher than 2-3 meters). By now it was almost dark and I returned to the main road, fully intending to build this into my morning jog.