One of the fun things about staying in Mexican resorts in the Yucatan peninsula is the opportunity to spot and photograph some of the local resident iguanas. (Side note… Melissa once had a pet iguana named Simon.) Last year at a Riu resort close to Cancun we had no luck at all in this department. This year we discovered a ‘resident iguana’ within a couple of days, as he liked to hang out around a restaurant’s outdoor deck area near the pool.
Here’s a portrait of him against a backdrop of some local greenery, the beach, and the Caribbean Sea. I had to approach him pretty slowly to keep him from scooting away, but he didn’t mind me getting low and close with my camera and 40mm lens for a few shots. I’d say he’s about two feet long from nose to end of tail.
He probably gets a few free restaurant scraps from time to time, and seems to live a pretty happy and (mostly) carefree life here.
We also saw *lots* of large iguanas roaming the ancient Mayan site of Tulum further down the coast, and in a nearby fishing village… but those are other lizard tales for a bit later.
