We took a kayak tour of the Sian Ka’an Biosphere Reserve with this bird enthusiast named Rene who has a seemingly one-man business called Green Bird Tours.

Map of the Sian Ka’an Biosphere Reserve. We only saw a small portion.

Rene told us that the biosphere has three main functions which work in symbiosis: conservation, research, and ecotourism. On the map, he pointed out that there specific regions on the terrain that are designated for one of the respective functions. He also said that Tulum today is very similar to Cancún in the 80s, right at the start of their tourism boom before it really got out of hand. So it was nice to see and support a well-preserved wildlife area. Rene had been involved with Sian Ka’an for several years (maybe a couple of decades – I don’t quite remember). The name “Sian Ka’an” in Mayan has two interpretations: “where the sky is born” and “gift from the sky”.

Rene picked us up from our hotel and took us to the beach shack where I think he lives. I stopped in to use the bathroom to ensure that I didn’t have to pee in the biosphere or the kayak during our 3-4 hour tour. The shack had no running water, so he offered me a bucket of water to pour down the toilet in order to flush it. The setting was absolutely stunning though – the beach here was possibly the most pristine I have ever seen. Also, he showed us some laminated cards that showed the wildlife around the area.

Rene suggested I take this cheesy postcard snapshot from a hole in his wall.

View from outside Rene’s shack

We walked about 70 meters to a dock, where Rene told us he recently saw a jaguar. He had heard of some sitings but hadn’t seen one until a few days before our tour when his neighbor’s dog came running toward him, fleeing said jaguar. We pulled out a tandem sit-on-top kayak for us to take and a single one for Rene. He asked what sort of things we were interested in seeing. I said fish, so he pointed out a puffer fish that was swimming around the dock. I hadn’t seen one of those in the wild before, so that was exciting. Rene loaded his kayak with a cooler full of snacks and wine, and we paddled out.

Rene paddling with a cooler full of snacks and wine

We kayaked around several islands densely packed with mangrove trees. A yellow stripe all around marked where the high tide hit the branches. Rene was hoping to find a crocodile in one of these islands, but a couple of motor boat tours came through, and Rene said they ruined any chance we had at spotting a crocodile.

We cruised around slowly looking for bird nests. Rene keeps a map up to date with locations for all the nests he has spotted. We saw a couple of great blue herons around their nests. We found one nest that Rene didn’t know about and was quite excited to find. It seemed he got at least as much enjoyment out of the tour as we did.

Great blue heron

Rene impressed us with his ability to recognize birds by their calls and by sight from a far distance by their flight patterns. Also, we came quite close to a yellow warbler who was, as Rene put it, putting on a show for me while I photographed him.

Yellow warbler

Rene handed us a snack of cut fruit midway through the tour. Near the end, he took us to a deserted island which had some remains of dead mangrove trees and an abandoned osprey nest. He told us about how osprey will collect any sort of string-like man-made debris and add it to their nests. We got to see that up close with this one.

Abandoned osprey nest

We parked here and watched the sunset, accompanied by wine and cheese. We even spilled some wine in the kayak for the fish to enjoy.

Rene was off on the island trying to repair a leak in his kayak. It had a bit of the feel of a Flight of the Conchords song with a random guy hanging around during a contrived romantic moment*.

* Okay, it really wasn’t nearly that awkward, but I just really wanted to include a Flight of the Conchords reference somewhere.