PHOTO SAFARI

Protours Mexico Photo Safari is designed to give amateurs or professional photographers the opportunity to capture magical moments of the majestic wildlife of one of the most beautiful biosphere reserves in the Yucatan Peninsula. You will be accompanied by an expert wildlife photographer who will help you to take the best shots of this extraordinary location.

Visit the wetlands home of white tailed deers, crocodiles, jaguars and spider monkeys. Climb the panoramic tower and get the best scenery shots of this nature reserve. Take a break to savor delicious seafood in a local restaurant. Continue on board a small boat and explore mangroves and get as close as possible to an amazing site of great flocks of pink American flamingos that have chosen this area to feed and reproduce.

Briefing and presentation

This exciting journey starts at the moment of pick up where you will be given a presentation of the photo expedition and a briefing about the great photographic opportunities that await you.

Wetland and jungle exploration

Start this safari walking through pristine wetlands, marsh and tropical forest habitat of a wide diversity of endemic and endangered. Take the opportunity to do macro photo shootings of diverse plant and insect species. Finish this jungle hike in a beautiful water spring surrounded by nature and a panoramic tower from where you can take world class bird’s-eye shots of this stunning landscape.

Lunch with a view

Enjoy the beautiful coastal spectacle while you delight with an appetizing fresh seafood lunch in a quaint local restaurant. Tasty food, friendly atmosphere and pink flamingos that can appear anywhere!

Estuary expedition

Venture aboard a small boat through canals of mangroves and take pictures of great diversity of wildlife species such as white and brown pelicans, herons, ibises, wood stork, morelet's crocodiles, cormorants and of course the breathtaking spectacle of flocks of flamingos painting the blue sky a shadow of pink. The landscape of pink lakes and biodiversity provides a once in a life time photo moments. You will be amazed with the outcome of your shoots!

BIRDING YUCATAN

Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula is considered one of the worlds best bird watching sites. The area is characterized by such diverse eco-systems as pristine white beaches, shallow mangrove lined water estuaries, and tropical rain forests all of which are home to a great variety of birds. The Yucatan bird list contains over half of all of Mexico’s bird species plus a surprisingly high percentage of endemic birds. Our guided tour itineraries represent the best birding sites that the area has to offer:

Coastal Explorer

This field trip takes you to the coastal wetlands of the Yucatan Gulf coast. We board a small shaded boat that will take us to the more remote parts of the estuaries including Isla Pajaros, a protected wildlife sanctuary. Of the 520 bird species known to exist in the Yucatan at least 155 feed, nest or rest here some time during the year. Exploring the coastal mangroves we are likely to find frigate birds, white ibis, snowy egrets, double crested cormorants, reddish egrets, roseate spoonbills, white pelicans, gray pelicans, boat billed herons, the occasional wood stork, and of course flamingos.

Jungle Explorer

After a short ride by multi-terrain vehicle and a brief walk through the rain forest we enter the protected area of Yum Balam. Here we change into kayaks to enter the floating jungle and to listen to the sounds of the jungle. This area is a bird watchers paradise as it is home to many exotic species, such as Ocellated Turkey, Crested Caracara, Laughing Falcon, White-fronted Parrot, Olive-throated Parakeet, Squirrel Cuckoo, Pygmy-owl, Violaceous Trogon, Golden-olive Woodpecker, Great Kiskadee, Masked Tityra, Yucatan Jay and many more.

See some video of this fantastic adventure:

CANDID CAMERA

The floating jungle area represents a very special eco-system in Mexico: it is the only floating corch jungle in the country, the most Northern in the world, and also habitat to a variety of exotic animals.

To find out more about which animals live here we installed heat sensitive digital night cameras. Every week we enjoy great surprises, but just this past week we were elated: photo evidence of a magnificent and healthy Mexican Puma!

One of the rarest animals in the rain forest. Pumas as well as jaguars and ocelots roam the forest during this time looking for food and water. As part of our ongoing observation and conversation we monitor wild life regularly.

GOING DUTCH

We at PROTOURS MEXICO are very happy to “go Dutch” – welcoming our newest guide from the land of the tulips. Her name is Floor, she speaks four languages, and wants to show off our fantastic wild life to people from all over the world. “It’s a dream come true for me to work with PROTOURS in México’s nature. Our safaris are second to none, and I love being out in the rain forest with guests showing them our wild life” says Floor.

PROTOURS safaris are guided by professionally trained experts who speak the native language of our guests. All excursions are private tours of the highest quality to locations which are away from the common touristy sites.

“My favorite safari is the Floating Jungle, because we see so much. There you experience three types of jungle vegetation, I don’t know of any other location where that is possible. Last week we even had a family of spider monkeys visiting, what a rush that was” says Floor.

And we say “Welkom in Mexico” to Floor.