Mexico Program - Sample Itinerary

Puerto Morelos, Mexico

1-Week Program: Saturday - Saturday

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Saturday

• Group arrives
• Amizade program orientation
• Dinner

Sunday

• Day Field Trip: Leave at 9:30 Picnic lunch at Boca del Puma cenote, Central Vallarta.
• Guided bicycle tour, learn about local history, trees, and wildlife. Snorkel in the cenote,
• View jungle from observation tower. After lunch, visit a typical Mayan family ranch.
• Evening Activity: Free Time

Monday

• Service: Project Orientation: Casa De Cultura de Puerto Morelos - 9 am
• Afternoon Cultural Activity: Visit Artisan’s Collective, meet Mayan artisans.
• Evening Activity: Attend Spanish and Flamenco Dance class at the Casa de Cultura 6 -7 p.m. Optional 7 -8 pm Pilates Exercise Class

Tuesday

• Service: Prepare and plant garden for Casa de Cultura 9 AM - 2:30 PM
• Afternoon Activity: Free time
• Evening Activity: 5 pm – 8 pm. Attend 2-day official Reef Guide Course conducted by Daniella Guevarra from the Commission Nacional de Areas Naturales Protegidas. Optional: Amizade volunteers can pay the $ 20 course fee, and upon completion of course receive a certificate allowing them to be an official reef guide.

Wednesday

• Service: Prepare and plant garden for Casa de Cultura 9 AM - 2:30 PM
• Afternoon Activity: Free time
• Evening Activity: 5 pm – 8 pm. Day 2 of official Reef Guide Course conducted by Daniella Guevarra from the Commission Nacional de Areas Naturales Protegidas.

Thursday

• Service: Prepare and plant garden for Casa de Cultura 9 AM - 2:30 PM
• Afternoon Activity: Free time or Snorkel tour of reef
• Evening Activity: Emila Menendez demonstrates and discusses pre-Hispanic dances and rituals of the Concheros.

Friday

• Service: Finish project for Casa de Cultura 9 AM - 2:30 PM
• Afternoon Cultural Activity: Visit fishing collective and
  Reef National Park headquarters on the main dock in town.
• Farewell Celebration Dinner

Saturday

• Saturday Monster Brunch with Ana Luisa 8 am – 9 am
• Recreational Activity: Visit Crococun Reptile Zoo 10 am – noon.
• Lunch. Evaluations. Free time for last minute shopping.
• Leave for airport at 4:30 pm
• Group departs

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Itinerary Notes- Highlights:

Casa de Cultura Garden and Building Project for the Guardians of the Reef.
9 am – 12:30
Lunch break on site.
1:00 – 2:30 pm

This 5-day service project includes creating a garden and building a simple wood structure and roof in a shaded area of the property. The simple pole construction building will be used to host a children’s project called Guardianes del Arrecife.

Volunteers will participate in the following activities under the supervision of the director of the Casa de Cultura and a local builder.

Gardening: Cleaning and preparing a garden area that borders on the mangrove swamp. Planting the garden with native plants.

Building: Digging holes for posts using shovels and picks. Helping to roof the wood structure with roofing material similar to tarpaper that is attached with hammers and screws. Will be on ladders, using electric drills, post diggers, pick and other simple tools. Will be working with a local builder learning the basics of tropical pole construction.

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Boca del Puma Cenote which means Puma’s Mouth or the puma`s watering hole. The jungle around this cenote is rich in wildlife including pumas (sometimes one can see their tracks near the cenote), spider and howler monkeys, toucans, parrots, and other species.

This field trip will include a bicycle tour with a history of Central Vallarta, a former chick let gum production center, more history and viewing of the original train used to transport the ¨chickle” to the port of Puerto Morelos, a climb up the observation tower, a nature walk and explanation of local trees, their commercial and medicinal uses, and snorkeling in a cave cenote once a sacred site for ancient Mayan ceremonies.

Host and owner, Jesus “Chucho” Sanchez will be the guide. Born and raised in Central Vallarta, Mr. Sanchez is the owner and sole developer of this natural sanctuary in the jungle. He is also a Certified Public Accountant who has given up the hectic life in Cancun to devote full time to this project.

After lunch, visit a typical Mayan homestead or ranch and learn about life on a jungle farm!

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Puerto Morelos National Reef Park Official Tour Guide Course.
Sponsor Mexican Government: Commission Nacional de Areas Naturales Protegidas.

This is an introductory course which covers the ecology of the reef, National park regulations and tour guide procedures among other topics. This is a required course for everyone who wishes to work in any capacity as a tour guide for the Reef National Park. The fee for the course is 200 pesos or approximately US $ 20. Amizade volunteers are invited to attend as listeners rather than full participants. If anyone wishes to pay the $20 fee, he-she will receive an official tour guide certificate, and maybe a hat and tee shirt if they are available!

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Emilia Menendez is a local “conchera” or traditional dancer of pre-
Hispanic dances. Every spring these dancers congregate in the village of Puerto Morelos, having made a pilgrimage from many parts of Mexico.

They rely on donations of food and lodging for their stay in Puerto Morelos where they dance their sacred dances in the Plaza. Often on Good Friday, they form a procession through the village streets to bless the area. Dancers range in age from 18 to 70 years or more and often spend hours in the plaza dancing their ancient blessings. They wear ancient Aztec ceremonial dress decorated with feathers, deer foot rattles, and metal cone rattles much the same as indigenous dancers farther north. The male dress is often more flamboyant consisting of loincloths and fabulous feather headdresses. Women dress more modestly in often heavily embroidered white shifts. The “concheros”
receive their name from the large conch shell used as a horn in the dance ceremonies.

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Crococun Reptile Zoo. A guided tour where you can feed, touch, or shriek at reptiles and other species representative of local wildlife. On site you can bye food for animals, colorful tee-shirts and other items in the gift shop.