2022 February Vacation: Part V - Cabo San Lucas

Our final port of call was Cabo San Lucas in Baja California. Oscar took a nice time lapse video of our ship arriving in Cabo. We certainly made use of our free ocean view upgrade.

We had to wake up around 6:30am because we had an early departure for our excursion to Wild Canyon Adventure. We had a great time, but I don't recommend it for a cruise excursion. It was a long drive in and out the canyon, which ate up quite of bit of our already limited time (had to be back by 1:00pm). Even if your ship stays longer than ours did, you can't do some of their bigger adventures, like bunjee jumping and zip lining, because the cruise line won't cover the insurance. I'd love to come back some other time when we're not on a cruise and don't have limited time.

The first thing we did was see some animals. This dog-like duck was there to greet us. I wish we'd gotten a video because it was totally panting like a dog and loving every moment of affection we gave it.

Next we went in to feed the bunnies and the birds. 

Usually if you feed birds at a zoo or aquarium, they give you a small amount of feed for a few dollars. Here they gave us endless amounts of sunflower seeds already included in the cost of our day pass. The birds have to work hard to get the seed out of the shell, so they stay on you for quite some time hammering away with their beaks.

The kids loved it. I made them take baths and wash their hair when we got back to the ship since the birds were landing on their heads (that was another aspect of our free upgrade. Our room had a small bathtub).

They landed on my head too, but I had a hat on. 

Those birds' claws were sharp. I loved holding them, but there were a few times I had to ask Oscar or the trainer to summon them away because their claws were digging into me. The big ones had the longest, sharpest claws.

Miguel, our animal guide, was really informative and took photos for us so we could fully enjoy the birds.

We also rode camels, got a kiss from a camel, rode ATV's, and I even drove our family in a big UTV across this suspension bridge. We also could have done horseback riding and a kids' water park but we ran out of time. Unfortunately we weren't allowed to have our phones on us, like the dolphin adventure, so we don't have any pictures. I would have been willing to pay for them, but we didn't have time to buy a package before the shuttle was required to take us back. I looked them up online, and the photos cost $70 more if you buy them after the excursion, and I wasn't allowed to see them before paying. I would just have to pay and hope they gave me all the right photos. That wasn't something I was willing to do, and we do want to come back here sometime, so we decided we'll plan another trip when we can stay longer, prepay for a photo package, and do all of their various activities. 

We still had a little time, so we fed the birds again, and this time were able to feed the big macaws. These big birds were surprisingly gentle when eating the sunflower seeds. Miguel let us put a sunflower seed between our lips and the macaw would "kiss" it out. There's no way we could have done that with the other smaller birds. They would have thrashed and pecked at us trying to break open the shell. Here's Tyler getting a kiss from Sophia the scarlet macaw and holding her on his arm. Sophia was the most easy going and trainable of the macaws. Miguel told us all of their birds were rescues and have very different personality traits. One even has to live in with some iguanas in another area because he doesn't get along with the other macaws. 

Here's Allison getting her kiss from Sophia and holding the bird on her arm while she opened her wings.

A blue and yellow macaw was also pretty easy going. The kids got to cradle it.

Here's Oscar getting his macaw kiss

And me getting a macaw kiss and holding a bird on each one of my arms. I hadn't realized how big and yet how gentle and sweet macaws are. You don't realize how large they are from seeing them at the zoo or in a show. You have to be right in front of them or have one on your arm.

Oscar wanted to learn the hand signals for telling Sophia how to do tricks. She kissed him, opened her wings, and played dead. The signal for playing dead was pretending you were shooting a gun and saying "bang"

Tyler also got to feed the monkey. The monkey would use its little hands to grab berries or a piece of lettuce from Tyler through the holes of the cage.

And on our way back to the shuttle (where they fed us yummy quesadillas on the drive), a wild lizard ran across the awning we were under.