A Walk on the Wild Side

This weekend I walked among dozens of crocodiles. Alive crocodiles. No fences, no guardrails, nothing separating their jaws of steel and humongous teeth from my defenseless human body except the clothes on my back (and maybe my purse, it was kind of heavy). Oh yeah, I also brought the kids along on this walk of danger and they loved it.

For Jackson's belated birthday we decided to visit Crococun Ecological Zoo, which is a totally interactive wildlife preserve with animals indiginous to Mexico. We had an awesome guide who also took some great photos for us (with my camera, no charge) and we saw, fed and held lots of cool animals. Besides all sizes of crocodiles, Crococun had spider monkeys, snakes, iguanas, parrots, turtles and deer.

To start the photo tour we will begin with the parrots. We all got a kiss from the parrot. See in the photo below the sneaky monkey in the background? He saw our food bags we had purchased to feed the animals with and was ready to eat. Our guide said that you need to hide the food because the monkeys like to steal!

After we all got kisses and fed the parrot it was time to feed the monkey! They got bananas. Isn't it cute that I got Jackson AND the monkey to smile at the camera at the same time? Yeah, I'm just that good.

Kaley's turn to feed the monkey. I should note that you were not allowed to touch the monkey, just hold the food out in your hand.

Next was on to the baby crocodile tank. We all got a chance to hold the crocodile. None of my kids were scared. Not sure if that is a good or bad thing. Did you know crocodiles live about 80 years?

Kriky! It's Patrick the crocodile hunter. Our guide took this special photo. He got the croc to open wide and stay that way. 

The crocodile felt squishy and was a very cool temperature. It was kind of heavy too. See how I am expertly squeezing it's neck so the croc cannot turn and bite my head off?

Next up is the snakes! This snake was slithering it's way back behind Kaley's arm.

After meeting some snakes and iguanas and a snapping turtle, our guide led us to a metal door marked NO PASAR. That means do not enter for you Spanishly-challenged. Anyway, what were we doing going into a door marked do not enter? Going into the crocodile lair of course. As we stepped in and onto the path there was nothing between all the lounging crocodiles and us. It was a little nerve-wracking. And by nerve-wracking I mean grab your kid by the collar and uncomfortably walk thisclose to him/her so they do not stray into the teeth of a waiting crocodile. Even though none of them moved a muscle while we were in there it was a little scary knowing none of those crocs were restrained. Here are a couple cool shots our guide took of us and a croc. We are not as close as it looks, but still WE WERE RIGHT BEHIND A REAL LIVE CROCODILE.

Some of the sleeping crocodiles.

Last on the tour was the much tamer deer. We fed them leaves and then the rest of the food we bought (bananas, peanuts, sunflower seeds and grapes) Jackson got himself a buck.

Wait now he's got two bucks. Don't fight fellas there's enough to go around!

Ella chose to stick with Bambi.

It was a great day and really cool to learn something about some of the local wildlife. Maybe we'll go again in the future, but even if we don't I can always say I walked among dozens of crocodiles, can you?