Isle Mujeres
Local legend says that Isle Mujeres (or Island of Women) was inhabited solely by women. When described to us, I pictured an Amazon Woman from an old B-movie. The story goes that men were only allowed on the island once a year for "breeding purposes". If at sunrise the next morning a man was still on the island he was killed or sacrificed by the women. Children born male were tossed back into the ocean. A great story but luckily for us, untrue.
We took a ferry from the mainland to the northern end of the island at Playa Norte. The island is about 4 and a half miles long and half a mile wide. So, we rented bikes and ended up riding over ten miles in all. Using the map, we rode from Playa Norte, past the Aeropista, and then way down to Tortugranja. Here we found the Tortugranja Turtle Farm; a center for the protection and breeding of sea turtles. They had a number of different sea turtles with wildly different patterns and a bunch of sliders too. Soup would've liked to meet the really big yellow-eared sliders that were in a pool outside. They had turtles that ranged in age from a few weeks to two years. There was an aquarium too that had sea horses, stingrays, sea anemones, and a couple of albino turtles. As we were getting ready to leave the rescue center, we spotted this rather large iguana hanging out by the bricks.
From Tortugranja we rode further south and stopped to eat near Playa Lancheros at an open grill set-up by the beach. There we had our first frozen daiquiris of the trip and it was very relaxing. We sat at a covered table right at the beach. We met a couple from Pennsylvania who gave us some tips on where to get the best conch shells so after lunch we rode around to Carretera Panoramica on the southeast side of the island. This is the highest point on Isle Mujeres. In the distance you can see where we found the huge conch shells we brought home.
We were feeling pretty tired at this point and decided to start heading back into town. By the time we got the bikes back to the shop owner, we'd had them for over 5 hours and it only cost us $12 for two bikes.