All Terrain Xrails

[malakie]

Has anyone done the Xrails with cozumel-tours.com? They look like a lot of fun. Also, what experiences has anyone had with this company? Any information will be greatly appreciated.

[flsunnymommy]

I just did this tour on Wed Nov 5. It is run by Wild Tours and it is the same price to book directly through them. This tour was amazing!!! My son and I (10 years old) shared an Xrail. Only one other couple went with us. We had two tour guides in one Xrail and someone followed on an ATV. The staff was awesome. They took us to a cenotate (a spring inside a cave) to swim and pointed out the bats. They then took us to another cave that was used as a hurricane shelter for the Mayans. They explained everything for us and were really great when my son did not want to swim. They pointed out turtles, iguanas and plants to him as another guide went with the swimmers. The water in the spring is fresh spring water. The tour on the ATVs was through some jungle and some mud. It was very bumpy, but lots of fun. They provided bottled water and life jackets at the spring. There is an outside shower to rinse off when you are done. Wear sunblock and bug spray. Do not take anything on the Xrails as you will have to hold it. They do provide lockers free of charge. Do wear clothes you do not mind getting VERY muddy and your swim suit underneath. We had so much fun that we are booking with them again for our next trip.

 

FYI, Wild Tours will pick you up outside Carlos and Charlies. They do not have a booth, but a guide wearing a Wild Tour shirt with a clipboard will meet you there. Also please note (because I did not) that the scheduled time to meet is on Cozumel time, not ship time.

[malakie]

Thanks for all of this information, it sounds great. I will book with Wild Tours also. We booked an ATV tour with them about 2 years ago and you are right the guides are great.

[jaredcoreymama]

This looks awesome! This is exactly what I am looking for -- about how long is this tour. We arrive in Cozumel at 10 and depart at 7. Will we have any problems making it back in time?

[jaredcoreymama]

Did you bring a camera with you? Did you wear clothes with a swim suit underneath?

[jaredcoreymama]

Anyone else do this tour? It looks awesome!

[lbd-ct]

We did this tour via or cruise to Cozumel on Norwegian Pearl. My 2 sons (21 & 15) were in one Xrail and My daughter & I (she is 18) were in a second xrail. We were picked up at the Cruise pier and went to a second pier to get folks on a Princess Cruise.

 

As described above, the ride was a blast. Lots of dust. Then it rained a little and our dust coating turned to mud. The ride is very bumpy and bouncy. The buggies can be a little difficult to steer as you bounce over big rocks and logs. We laughed and hooted the whole time. The only excusion that I can rate higher in all of my cruises was the Sunrise bicycle trip down Haleakela volcano on Maui.

 

The cave was a nice cool stop, but then getting back in to the buggies for the ride back, re-covered us in mud. Carlos, our tour guide was great. Very professional and very knowledgeable.

 

On another note, at the end of the excursion, my daughter fell and badly sprained her ankle. This was not due to anything on the excursion, she simply mis-stepped and fell and rolled her ankle. The tour company was very attentive in offering her first aid and helping stabilize her ankle. They offered to take her to the local hospital and pay any fees. We declined, got her back to the cruise ship (another whole ...now funny... story) and had her treated by the Ship's physician.

 

I would highly recommend this tour to anyone who wants a lot of fun and doesn't mind being bounced around. This is definately not a tour for people with back or neck issues.

[momandherson]

Ibd-ct,

 

Thanks for this information--it sounds like a blast! Did you book it through the ship? I recently booked this through NCL for our upcoming cruise on the Spirit, and they had me "reserve" only one person--but said it was no problem for both of us to go and share the Xrail. Is that the way you did it? I'm suspicious because doing it that way was less expensive than booking directly with the cozumel-tours dot com site. (and as we know, that's not usually the case with ship tours!)

 

Thanks!

[lbd-ct]

Ibd-ct,

 

Thanks for this information--it sounds like a blast! Did you book it through the ship? I recently booked this through NCL for our upcoming cruise on the Spirit, and they had me "reserve" only one person--but said it was no problem for both of us to go and share the Xrail. Is that the way you did it? I'm suspicious because doing it that way was less expensive than booking directly with the cozumel-tours dot com site. (and as we know, that's not usually the case with ship tours!)

 

Thanks!

We did book through the ship. When you disembark the ship in Cozumel, you walk to the end of the pier and check in with the guides just outside of the duty free shopping building. Very easy to hook up and get checked in with the tour. We were issued 1 ticket for 2 people. The cost was per buggie, not per person (I just went & verified that with my DW, just to verify). So we had 2 tickets delivered to our rooms and 4 people went on the tour. Here are a couple of links to our tour photos. Pic-1 and Pic2

 

Enjoy the Xrails!

[jaredcoreymama]

Did you buy these photos or did you take them with your camera?

[lbd-ct]

We did book through the ship. When you disembark the ship in Cozumel, you walk to the end of the pier and check in with the guides just outside of the duty free shopping building. Very easy to hook up and get checked in with the tour. We were issued 1 ticket for 2 people. The cost was per buggie, not per person (I just went & verified that with my DW, just to verify). So we had 2 tickets delivered to our rooms and 4 people went on the tour. Here are a couple of links to our tour photos. Pic-1 and Pic2

 

Enjoy the Xrails!

 

Here are a couple more pics: Pic 3 Pic 4

[/url]Pic 5

[lbd-ct]

Did you bring a camera with you? Did you wear clothes with a swim suit underneath?

We wore bathing suits (my daughter wore hers under shorts/tee. We brought a backpack along with towels and cameras packed in it. The passenger of the xrail rode with the backpack between their feet.

[lbd-ct]

Did you buy these photos or did you take them with your camera?

We bought pics one and two. I think they were 2 for $30. I don't usually buy that stuff, but we had such a good time and the pics showed it that I thought it was worth it.

 

They show you the pics at the end of the tour, but there was little pressure to purchase them. Very low key.

 

We also enjoyed the tour enough that I tipped the guide $20 per buggie. He earned it.

Edited January 26, 2009 by lbd-ct

[momandherson]

Ibd-ct,

 

Thanks for the info and pictures!

I'm really looking forward to this excursion!

[senojtterb]

I have been on 24 cruises and have done many side-trips/excursions. We have done zip-lining tours where you are pretty much entirely on your own to hook up and release your harnesses and you don’t see a tour guide going from tree to tree except for maybe every 20 minutes just to make sure you’re still ok. They had the same exact approach on this tour, but instead of them leaving you to have fun on your own, this tour literally just left us behind. The “tour” began with a nice guy to lead you to your taxi and ours was a regular van with 7 open seats. We climbed into the van and hit the road. We drove for approximately ten minutes to the destination and all got out of the van (so good so far). It was all good until the “Wild Tours” staff took over. They sat us down on benches to explain what they had planned for us for the day. The lady (who seems to be the manager) comes out and starts selling her soul along with about 6 different (as they described) “must haves” to be able to drive what is essential a dune-buggy. She told the terrors of not having these “must-haves”, such as bandanas, leather gloves, locker keys, things that looked like the Croc’s brand of shoes but had a name that looked like greek letters mixed with some random letters from the English alphabet. Now, mind you, behind her the staff stand off to the side and make this one Macaw bird fly back and forth during the introduction and pretend like it’s some sort of wild bird just exploring the property. After this, the introduction wrapped up and the pictures began. You may want to take one of your own pictures with a camera you brought, but no-no-no. They had 2 Macaws at the beginning for us to hold and they did strange tricks with it like holding it like a baby. Besides the fact that the only time in a Macaws life that they are on their backs is when they’re dead, they brought out a Golden Eagle and it looked like they had “trimmed” his tail feathers with a chainsaw. They were all chopped up and a few of them were still barely hanging on because the workers hadn’t managed to cut them totally and were hanging on by a thread. Once the hundreds of “photo-ops” were done, they proceeded to drag the bird to its “perch”, which is essentially a stick sticking out of the ground. The bird fought the worker the entire way there, as his way of probably saying, “Please let me go, I’m begging you to let me get out of this place”. This is when they took a literal chain and chained the eagle to the perch. In the intro the manager lady talks all about “conserving” the wildlife and tries to get you to buy pictures of you mistreating the birds yourself and doing the unnatural tricks that the employees do with the birds. However, on the property they have approximately four enclosures and three of them had nothing in them, which, after seeing how they treated the birds, these other animals probably committed suicide or ran away. They gave us a small safety briefing and then took us to the vehicles. Looking at them, they didn’t look too bad so we climbed in, but in the “workshop” they had about 20 of them parked and there was one mechanic banging on them (I sincerely doubt he was a legit mechanic). There were about 15 X-Rails and within minutes we were off. We got about 1/8th of a mile and the caravan of X-Rails came to a halt. In the safety briefing they promised that if anyone had ANY issues that they would personally bring you out a perfectly operating X-Rail so we could continue. We saw them get a couple out of their X-Rail and they moved the machine so that we could get past to continue the tour. We got another 300 yards and another one in front of us broke down. After this they had a young crocodile that they flung around and gave to each passenger in the X-Rail to take, once again, another photo. They moved the buggy to the side and had all of us pass these people. So far, we are about ¼ mile and two of the X-Rails had already completely died. We continued to drive and ours got to the point where it was sputtering and dying so bad that to even get it to go forward after we had stopped for other people who kept breaking down, we had to rock our bodies back and forth to get some momentum to get the vehicle to start moving forward. Not even a joke, the X-Rails breaking down continued on. By the time we had made it to the “cavern”, my fiancée and I were one out of three who hadn’t had a breakdown. We walked down some steps to the “cavern” and on the way, the tour guide tells us that the cavern is actually just a sinkhole, and the water in it looked like a pond filled with plant fertilizer. It smelled and looked like garbage, and the tour guide said that it was only sulfur we were smelling and not to be concerned. I went for a swim while my fiancé stayed on the dock and I looked up to see thousands of bats literally pooping and peeing in the water we were all swimming in. I’m not a disease expert but I’m pretty sure that’s how people can get multiple diseases, by swimming in water filled, quite literally, with bat bathroom material. I got out of the water as fast as I could. On the way up I mentioned to one of the guides that my X-Rail kept stalling out and how we couldn’t get it to move forward without jostling our bodies to get it going, and in his words, it was “ok” and that “if it breaks down we will fix it”. I told him it already was broken and he ignored me and walked away. So we climb in and this time I let my fiancé drive and we made it about 100 yards and our vehicle completely dies. There was supposed to be a guide behind us, but he had zoomed by moments before on his ATV and we, as well as the 6 X-Rails behind us, waited almost five minutes before anyone even realized we were missing. He came back and starts stripping wires on our engine and hooking them back together and hitting the engine to try to get it to work. Not surprisingly, the engine just sputtered and wouldn’t start. He then told us to get in this “new” X-Rail they had at the back of the group. We climb in and the guy in the one in front of us turns around and says, “We were just driving that one and it broke down and only had one working wheel to power the vehicle”. All they had done was that when one would break, they were just trading them out with the other ones in the group that had just broken minutes before. My fiancé starts going and immediately the vehicle goes straight to the right and into a tree. Thankfully we weren’t hurt but the guide had already left so I had to get out and move it on my own. I put it back on the road and she hits the gas, and boom, it goes immediately right again into the bushes. I thought it was just her so I switched back seats. I had driven the other one out there so I figured it would be a piece of cake. I hit the gas and the same exact thing happened again. The guide finally shows up and I tell him and he magically forgot how to speak English and completely ignored me. The guy and the mechanic start banging on the engine like that was the problem, when clearly it was the wheels. After a few minutes the guide learned English again and told me that it was fixed. I had no idea how that would be possible but I took his word for it. Long story short, the vehicle only wanted to go right and it was like an arm-wrestling match with the steering wheel the keep the vehicle going semi-straight. Whenever we hit a puddle the wheel would automatically jerk to the right and I had to keep using everything I had to try and avoid crashing into another tree. This went on for over 30 minutes. We finally got to the end of the “crash-course” and the guide had me pull it into their “maintenance area” with about 25 other X-Rails that were also completely broken. The employees then had us all follow them to where the “Mexican showers” were (I was kind of worried about exactly what that meant). We walk to the area and they say that they are trying to conserve water by using those “Mexican showers”, but they let the water run nonstop even when no one was using them and they were running the entire time until we left. We walked to where they said they had “complimentary chips and salsa”, and I arrived to see what was the equivalent of around 15 tortilla chips and movie theater nacho cheese that had expired a year ago and they had left it out in the sun. Seeing this my fiancée and I decide that since we weren’t interested in getting food poisoning from the old cheese, we walked over to where a nice family of 5 were standing, who were also not interested in getting sick. They were the same people we had ridden over to this X-Rail graveyard with us from the ship in a 7 person van (and in my book that’s a van full to capacity). We swapped stories about what went wrong on their tour and both of our groups recanted all the breakdowns, getting left behind, the sad state of their animals, and simply how this business didn’t get completely shut down for the hundreds of safety issues. The family and us both decided we wanted to just leave to get back to the ship without having to deal with more of this disaster. Then, one of the employees approaches us to tell us we “have to fill out these comment cards before you leave”. Hearing this, I looked at the employee and said, “honestly man, you definitely don’t want my opinion on that comment card”. He explains again that we have to and are entirely obligated to do so. My fiancée, just wanting to get this all over with finally says she will fill one out and she gave them all poor reviews and that the only semi-nice thing was the staff. Hoping this would expedite the process, the other family filled one out as well and we then requested if we could ride back to the ship since we had the taxis maximum number of occupants. The guy said that we have to wait, and the husband of the other group tells him how we just want to leave and that they had driven us here like this, so why do we need to wait for the rest of the group when they aren’t even in our taxi. The employee walks off and you’ll never guess who comes out now. The manager lady who tried to get us to buy all of their “must-have” merchandise, and told us about how they’re all about “conservation”, when they are the ones bulldozing through the jungle and keeping their last, living, animals in deplorable conditions. She tells us that we have no choice but to wait and that we can just sit there until every single person from our ship is ready to leave, even though they came in a separate taxi. The husband of the family basically end up telling the lady that they can’t just keep us there and that we want to leave and go back to the ship. She starts to get mouthy with the guy and finally storms over to one of the taxis and I thought she had asked him to take us back to the ship. He opens the doors and we all pile in, thankful to have this nightmare over, and as soon as we have all piled in, the taxi driver steps out of the driver’s seat, walks to the front of the taxi where his fellow taxi drivers were gathered, and proceeds to light up a cigarette. Everyone in our taxi couldn’t believe what we were seeing and at this point, we were so fed up with all of the craziness, just started laughing about it because it was so unbelievable. After five minutes he decides to come open the door to our taxi and I couldn’t figure out why. I couldn’t believe what was next. We see five people walking toward our taxi and the taxi driver motioning for them to “climb on in”. They dad of the family who was approaching looks in the door and says, “Uhh, this taxi is already full…” The taxi driver assures them and us that there is more than enough space, and he sandwiches us all in. We had a seven person van, and he literally crammed twelve of us in to the point where we couldn’t move whatsoever. We got back to the ship and later that night my fiancée and I put together a bullet-point checklist of everything on the tour that had gone wrong, and we filled up both sides of a sheet of paper and had actually run out of space so we even wrote around the edges. We gave it to the Captain’s Club staff which is when you must have gone on at least ten Royal Caribbean/Celebrity cruises, and we have been on 24 now, so they definitely take your word for it when you place a complaint. Never before had we ever placed a complaint on any side-trip ever, so this was a first. They took one look at the sheet and listened to our specific details. She asked if she could keep the list to present to the Shore Excursion manager on board and give them all the details. The next morning at around noon we received a call from the manager and she was as nice as could be about it. Apologizing and simply listening to the full story. At the end of the conversation she explained how much she appreciated all of the information and for documenting it all so that they can do an “investigation” because they do not want to be backing a company like that who has such a high risk of injury and lack of management. She refunded my money (which blew me away because the tickets specifically say “non-refundable”) and continued to thank us for being so proactive about it. Both, the Head of the Captain’s Club and Shore Excursions Manager, impressed us for truly taking what had happened to us and everyone else on the tour seriously. We couldn’t thank them enough, and honestly, never ever ever consider this tour, go to one of the beaches or snorkeling side-trips so you don’t have to repeat our mistake.

[xdsmx]

I was in the process of booking this excursion when I read your review. Everything else I've seen has been extremely positive but most are old. Ahhh now what

[senojtterb]

If you go on Trip Advisor for their reviews the ones from the past month or two are exactly like mine. If you click on the reviews on there that are for "terrible" they are all the realistic ones. All we have ever cruised is Royal Caribbean/Celebrity and have been Diamond/Captains Club members for a while now. The side trip was the most outrageously bad side trip you could ever go on, it was just plain crazy. Check out the other reviews here ---> http://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowUserReviews-g150809-d256077-r191093179-Wild_Tours-Cozumel_Yucatan_Peninsula.html#REVIEWS and seriously trust me, do another sidetrip. If you do this one I guarantee you'll regret it.

[happybooker1]

Like in the loonnnngggg review by Senojttrb. We went just last Nov. 2013! That's when my son (16) & I went on it and had a GREAT time. Course we're more ummmm, laid back about things I guess.

 

We WERE in a van with other people but not 'crammed in" past capacity. The owner lady DID make a spiel about conservation & did show the eagles & parrots but heck! I used to have a parrot we trained to lay on his back so it's certainly not "cruel" or in humane to have a macaw do that. I also didn't have a bit of a problem respecting "their" rules about not taking pictures. Did not see the birds, etc. Being mistreated in any way & I used to work at a zoo so have a fairly good idea of what "mistreatment" looks like.

 

We were in a tour with 8 other Xrails and ours did break down and have to be replaced. However my son drove right through the biggest water "puddle" he could find & got water in the carburetor. If you've EVER done ANY mudding before you know the machines can take a lickin' but they will EVENTUALLY need to be tuned up. And I don't know a mechanic around that won't bang and hit on a motor occasionally -- it's called "percussive maintainence" LOL! Our guides were nothing but helpful, kind, courteous, and spoke passable and understandable English. Once our Xrail was replaced there were no more problems except those caused by the PEOPLE driving into trees & getting hung up on rocks.

 

The Cenote IS spring-fed water-- if you knew a little bit of the geography of the country you would know that. And neither I nor my son were much worried at all about the possibility of germs from the bats. Fish poop and pee in all the lakes I've ever swam in and they have WHALES in the oceans. We were much too enthralled looking at the bats, stalactites and beauty of the jungle to be paranoid about GERMS.

 

Our trip back was uneventful and you get about 1hour each way on the Xrails so it's a good little jaunt. The showers are primitive but served their function well, and everyone in our group were happy to be able to clean ourselves up to look somewhat presentable!

 

Now the chips & dips I WILL agree were skimpy and just canned cheese, but again, we weren't expecting a MEAL & we' re not picky. Overall, we had a great experience & my son at least would do it again! I probably wouldn't just because I'm older & my back was sore for a couple of days afterwards. But that COULD be because I let my son drive......

 

We weren't at any time pushed to buy the goggles, bandanas, bug spray, shoes, or other things they RENTED us for the tour. As far as I could tell, no one in our group was pushed into buying anything. Oh, they pushed their pictures and videos they took pretty heavily, but once I told them I wasn't interested they didn't mention it again. And that's the same for any tour I've been on.

 

Frankly I found that long review ..... Well I just bet those folks are loads of fun at a party. We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves and the entire experience. It was well worth the money IMO.

Edited January 28, 2014 by happybooker1

[CaroleSS]

I do usually put on my "suspicious" hat when I see someone post something awful and note that this is the only posting they have.

 

I do not discount that senojtterb had issues and certainly did not enjoy the tour, but if it was THAT bad, all the cruise lines would cease to offer the tour immediately!

 

These tour operators make their living this way. It is in their best interest to keep it fun and keep it safe. If enough bad reviews crop up, they either have to fix things or go out of business. I doubt they would like the latter.

[senojtterb]

Trust me when I gave that review. Im 25 years old so you would think that I would have enjoyed it if it was actually any good. I've been on 24 cruises and I've never had anything but the best times on all of the sidetrips until this one. And Celebrity actually is sending out a representative to evaluate the trip because of it. It was the worst sidetrip you could imagine, but for those of you that didnt have similar experiences, you're extremely lucky and I'm genuinely happy that you didn't have to deal with the mess that we got stuck with.

[JimHam4]

Followed this thread right up to leaving on our trip so I thought I would post about our experience. We were on the Celebrity Constellation in Cozumel Feb 11. This is a part of the review I wrote up for that trip, there was a person from the shore excursions desk on our trip with us, do not know if he was sent to check on any problems or if he was sent to get some experience about the excursions he is selling.

 

I’m excited for this excursion, but a little nervous as the latest reviews I’ve read say this excursion has steadily slid downhill in quality over the last year or so. My wife and I find the Celebrity Canopies easily at the end of the dock and locate the sign for our excursion; a Celebrity representative is there to greet us and tells us it will be about 15 minutes still before they start checking people in (it’s just a little after 9) When check-in starts we are asked to sign a waiver and given a wristband to identify which excursion we are on. After everyone is checked in we are led through the shops by the representative to our taxis. Here is my first beef with the day, the guide is very nice but she insists on leading us in a cheer to show how excited we are to be going on this trip and have fun. Not a big deal but I just wanted to drive our buggies, not waste time here for a pep rally. There’s about 16 of us and we load up into two vans to head to the south side of the island about 20 minutes away. For those who don’t know the X-rail tour is an off road trip in vehicles similar to sand rails and can go over 60mph. If you’re curious they look like this http://motormaxintl.com/XrailWhiplash.html We will be driving two to a buggy out into the jungle to a cenote where we will have a little swim before driving the buggies back to our starting point. This trip can be booked independently of the ship through a group called Wild Tours. But the costs are close to the same and with the chance of mechanical breakdown I liked the peace of mind booking through Celebrity.

 

We are greeted at Wild Tours by a different guide, but she's in the same cheer leading mode as the last one. She explains to us that we need closed toed shoes (we had them but nobody told us this before hand) and that if we don't have them we can rent them. They also rent lockers, goggles, gloves, and sell bandanas. The lockers are $2 (necessary) but I didn't check the other prices as we didn't need them. We had brought our own bandanas which were helpful this trip but not necessary, in a drier time of year I would think you HAVE to have them. Eyewear should be a requirement, but sunglasses suffice you don't new goggles. Gloves I leave up to you; I didn't need them but at least one of the drivers came away with some blisters. The locker is necessary; anything in your buggy is going to get soaked and muddy so stash some extra clothes and towels in the locker. The locker is a good size and fits our tote easily, could probably fit two, if you're with friends just get one locker. You will need extra clothes, whatever you're wearing will get ruined and probably just thrown away. Put everything in the locker you won't need anything on the ride.

 

After basic instruction on the buggy we are led through a little animal encounter where we are not allowed to take pictures since they want us to buy them later to support their "rescue" efforts. It's kind of a neat encounter, you can hold a macaw, eagle and snake, but I don't buy the "we're saving the animals" line. Time wise it's not really an inconvenience as people are still using the rest room and putting things away. We are led to our buggies where we get helmets and strap ourselves in. We will have two guides that are on ATVs, one leading the group, the other riding chase. During the ride we are allowed to take pictures and video and here's where my GoPro comes in really handy.

 

We head out slowly to get everyone in line but right off the bat one of the buggies has a problem coming out of the water and they can't get it restarted. Before the ride I read several reviews disappointed in the reliability of the buggies and the knowledge of the guides. Watching them in action I will say they do a good job. I've ridden motorcycles and have desert riding experience and with the abuse we put on those buggies I think they performed remarkably well and the guides worked quickly to either fix or replace any problems. Lucky for us the guides have to switch this buggy out and that means me and the two buggies with us are left free to catch up to the rest of the group that had gone ahead. For me, and the other two, this means a balls out, hit every puddle you can, run for the next five minutes or so. Now THIS is what I paid for! We catch up the rest of the group soaking wet and covered in mud and we still probably have a half hour ride ahead of us. The rest of the ride there are no breakdowns and we hit a variety of terrain on the way to the cenote.

 

At the cenote we are given water bottles to drink and life vests to put on if we wish to go in the water. Some of us climb to the top of the cenote's overhang about 15 over the water and take the plunge, others use the steps from the little dock into the water. I leave all my clothes on and use the plunge to give myself a quick rinse cycle,some others do the same and some take of the outer clothes just wearing the bathing suits into the water. We're the only ones there and the water is cool and refreshing. Fruit bats live on one side of the cenote and we see them flying around as we swim around for a few minutes. Refreshed it's time to get back in the buggies and head back.

My wife and I had planned to switch so she could drive back but after watching the work it takes to control the buggy she decides she likes just being a passenger and let's me have all the fun (I hate being a passenger unless its on a ship with a drink in my hand). We start out at a pretty good pace but are soon brought to a stop by one of the guides. He tells us to wait as he heads to the back of the pack. He soon returns and leads the group off again. What we didn't know was that the buggy at the back had run themselves up against a tree and been turned on their side(minor scratches were bandaged and the buggy replaced). As we're heading back the girls in front of us decide to switch drivers back the setup they had on the way out. This delay works out great as it creates a great amount of space between us and the lead group and the two of us are able to drive like bats out of hell again until we return to what passes for civilization.

 

Back at camp the guides take a picture of our group and lead us to the "Mexican" showers (basic spigots strung up on PVC about six feet high). We're able to get some of the mud off and luckily one of the ladies in the group brought wet wipes to help the mud off. They sit us at a table and offer some stale chips and canned nacho cheese while we wait to see our group's pictures and video. Sodas are available for $1 and I buy a pretty nice T-shirt for only $12. The wait for our photos becomes way to long as the group ahead of us decides to watch their video again. I ask the ladies how much are the pictures anyway and am told $80 for everything, I don't bother to ask individual prices which is to bad since we might have bought a picture of us with the animals. Tiring of the wait or group starts to walk toward the taxis to leave. The woman in charge gets a little rude and tells us she is in charge of the taxis and loading us in. We tell her were leaving, she doesn't argue with us, and most of us pile in for the ride back to the pier.

 

It's a pretty easy walk back to the boat from the taxi and we do it covered in mud. Back on the boat it is time for a necessary shower as mud comes out of every imaginable nook and cranny and my clothes go in the trash. Refreshed and semi-clean it's time to head topside and watch people running down the pier trying not to miss the boat.

 

This tour has its problems with the little extras they try to insert into the experience, but I still highly recommend it. The driving guides were professional and very friendly and the driving experience itself was incredible. We're already thinking of doing it again next year and one of the guys on our tour this time had done it before.