Cuyutlan Turtle Sanctuary at Manzanillo

[rlse9]

I visited el tortugario earlier this week. It was definitely a worthwhile experience. The turtle sanctuary has several pools with various types of turtles in them. Each pool only has a few turtles in it, opposed to the turtle farm in Grand Cayman which has tons of turtles which isn't as good for them from what it said at the turtle sanctuary. You can't touch the turtles in the pools. There is also an area with iguanas and an area with a crocodile. The complex isn't very big and doesn't have all that much to see. However, it has 2 things that make it very worthwhile.

 

The first is a boat ride that goes through the lagoon and mangrove forest behind the turtle sanctuary. It lasts a little over half an hour and is very interesting. There are many types of large birds which make their homes around the lagoon and they have carved a trail through the mangrove forest. It's really cool.

 

The second thing, of course, is releasing baby sea turtles. The turtle sanctuary is obviously doing very well, the day we visited they released thousands and thousands of baby sea turtles. Everyone who was there got to release a sea turtle, there were more than enough to go around.

 

The beach in front of the turtle sanctuary is great, we went and laid down there while we were waiting for it to be time to release the sea turtles. There literally wasn't another person for miles. The beach is made of fine black sand and there were tons of shells to be collected. The waves are really strong, however, so it's not good for swimming.

 

A taxi from Manzanillo will cost about 300 pesos ($25) each way. We had plenty of extra time so we took the bus instead because it was cheaper. Renting a car would cost around 500 pesos ($40) plus gas. Entrance to the turtle sanctuary costs 25 pesos ($2) and the boat ride costs 40 pesos ($3).

 

They started releasing turtles around 2:30 pm. There weren't any cruise ships in Manzanillo the day we went there but I'm sure they schedule the release of turtles around the hours the cruise ship is in. I believe they only release turtles from June to December since that's the time of year that the turtle eggs hatch.

[gargoyle999]

I hope they save some for when we are there on Dec 2nd! :)

[kgarroutte]

I visited el tortugario earlier this week. It was definitely a worthwhile experience. The turtle sanctuary has several pools with various types of turtles in them. Each pool only has a few turtles in it, opposed to the turtle farm in Grand Cayman which has tons of turtles which isn't as good for them from what it said at the turtle sanctuary. You can't touch the turtles in the pools. There is also an area with iguanas and an area with a crocodile. The complex isn't very big and doesn't have all that much to see. However, it has 2 things that make it very worthwhile.

 

The first is a boat ride that goes through the lagoon and mangrove forest behind the turtle sanctuary. It lasts a little over half an hour and is very interesting. There are many types of large birds which make their homes around the lagoon and they have carved a trail through the mangrove forest. It's really cool.

 

The second thing, of course, is releasing baby sea turtles. The turtle sanctuary is obviously doing very well, the day we visited they released thousands and thousands of baby sea turtles. Everyone who was there got to release a sea turtle, there were more than enough to go around.

 

The beach in front of the turtle sanctuary is great, we went and laid down there while we were waiting for it to be time to release the sea turtles. There literally wasn't another person for miles. The beach is made of fine black sand and there were tons of shells to be collected. The waves are really strong, however, so it's not good for swimming.

 

A taxi from Manzanillo will cost about 300 pesos ($25) each way. We had plenty of extra time so we took the bus instead because it was cheaper. Renting a car would cost around 500 pesos ($40) plus gas. Entrance to the turtle sanctuary costs 25 pesos ($2) and the boat ride costs 40 pesos ($3).

 

They started releasing turtles around 2:30 pm. There weren't any cruise ships in Manzanillo the day we went there but I'm sure they schedule the release of turtles around the hours the cruise ship is in. I believe they only release turtles from June to December since that's the time of year that the turtle eggs hatch.

 

We just returned from our crusie an used Chimal Tours. Paco was not our tour guide, Victor was. He spoke good english. The above descirption of the Turtle Sanctuary is very acurate. The advantage to using Chimal over the cruise line is that it is smaller. The advantage to using the cruise line and/or chimal over doing it on your own, is that they only release turtles with the public on Saturdays, and the staff only speaks spanish. My daughter loved this trip. It wasn't the best excursion I've ever been on, but Victor drove us to shopping and lunch after and a little around Manzanillo after as well.

 

My husband went with Paco on an atv excursion and paco overbooked his atv's so my husbannd's group didn't get enough riding time. pretty dissappointed about this one. however, he did get the same time 1.5 hrs as the cruiseline atv excursion, and he got zipline, and lunch for less than half the price, so all in all, not bad.

 

caught the flu on our trip, or i'd leave more details, but i'm still sick in bed.