Jen & I just returned from a road trip south of Cancun. Among our stops was a visit to Xcaret (which was fun but, we, felt, vastly overpriced compared to the other theme parks in the area).
The first thing we did was the "guided jungle tour," a 1 hour tour through a few dozen metres of jungle, culminating in stops at a chicle tree (where we chewed real chicle) and a large orchid greenhouse & edible fungus farm.
At one point, I looked down & noticed a funny looking grey insect at my hand & asked the guide what it was. "Ant," she said. Then I asked her if there were any dangerous ants, like fire or bullet ants, in the area. No, she said.
Hahahaha. Jen & I have both received pretty painful bites from ants here &/or in Belize so I
didn't believe her for a second...
 |
| A not-so-cuddly fire ant |
Sure enough, when I got home & googled fire+ants+cancun, I found hundreds of pages, with titles like "ha ha ha ha. fire ants attack jenny!" and "fireants en mis pantalones..."
When you're surrounded by multimillion dollar developments, it's easy to forget that those developments are in turn surrounded by millions of acres of tropical forest & that tropical forests do not obey human desires.
Anyway, no one was bitten by ants at Xcaret, but a small part of me was disappointed. I would love to have posted a youtube video of our guide saying: "No, of course there are no fire ants he-ee-ee-oo-oo-ooowwwww!!!!"
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