Mexico!

Mexico! If you don't want to know about my trip, stop reading now! It was wonderful, too short, a week certainly wasn't long enough but the animals were brilliant. We stayed in an Eco hotel called the Sandos Caracol Eco Resort, you can look it up on Trip Advisor, my review is on there (I am HappyGinny). Where to start? The hotel has huge grounds and is set within the rainforest. We stayed in the quieter, adults only section and our room was very close to the perimeter wall. Most days we saw Spider monkeys, I say saw, you always heard them first as they came crashing through the trees. On one occasion we actually saw a tiny baby clinging to her mother, tears rolled down my face as I watched them. I couldn't help thinking of all the times I have watched the monkeys through the caging at Monkey World in Dorset. I love the place, they do a fantastic job in caring for rescued primates but these monkeys were so close to me and they were totally free. It was a magical moment and it was hilarious when one of the younger members of the monkey troop came down to the pool one day and walked off with someone's shorts. We had just sat down to lunch so I thought she would want our food but she just looked at me and carried on walking past my shoulder along the restaurant balustrade.

Although seeing the wild monkeys was a never to be forgotten event, the true highlight of my holiday was finding a fantastic, bright green snake! The weather wasn't great, I think the clue was in the name 'rain'forest. My poor hubby was dragged on many, many eco walks when it was raining or looked like it was just about to. The hotel had absolutely loads of cenotes (natural springs) I would class them as lakes, ponds and muddy puddles of various sizes. I will come back to the mosquitoes! My snake turned out to be a harmless Mexican Parrot snake but at the time I thought it was probably venomous because it was so magnificent. I very nearly walked into it as he/she was motionless in a bush that was directly in front of me. I was so excited that I couldn't get the words out, my hubby couldn't figure out what was happening. Even when I calmed a little and pointed the snake out, he couldn't see it. The camouflage was amazing, although mainly green it did have some white and beige stripes. We took lots of photos before it slithered off.

We also saw racoons (aka Mexican bandits - they look like they are wearing a mask and raid the bins at night), coatimundis (I want one, so cute! Teddi (our dog) would love it), agoutis and lots of various lizards, more butterflies than I have ever seen in my life (even when I worked at the London butterfly house), the biggest hawkmoth ever, spiders but sadly no tarantulas and so many other creatures. I took loads of photos but haven't had time to sort them out yet. My hubby is off this weekend so I hope we can get together and sort through the pictures. I really wanted to put some on here but I still have no idea how so I will have to wait for his help. Back to the mosquitoes, no living creatures were harmed in this resort, not even mosquitoes. There were no fly zappers to be seen anywhere and even though I took my vitamin B1 tablets (I'm sure it deters them from biting) and rubbed on Jungle Formula I still got plenty of bites but my hubby was covered in bites, his were far worse (he didn't take B1). The trouble was that we didn't realise we needed to apply mosquito repellent at all times of the day. We were only putting it on in the evenings at first, we soon learnt!

Although you are not encouraged to feed the animals (ok - it's banned!) I could not resist the coatimundis and racoons and at least I was feeding them fruit rather than burger and chips (as others were doing). They put out their little hands and I just loved it. One early morning (we never got into the Mexico time, we went to bed early and got up at dawn) I saw a coatimundi outside our room and went to feed him with some grapes (wasn't it nice of the hotel to put a welcome fruit basket in our room!) He was so gentle and I could see he had a huge tick on his side. I tried to figure out a way to take it off him but after seeing his mouthful of sharp teeth I had to abandon the idea. Morning walks were great, 'normal' people were asleep so the complex was deserted and really tranquil.

Then back on that plane (for 10 HOURS) and back to reality. Our daughter had done her best but we really couldn't have gone for longer than a week. It was absolutely typical that the weather was boiling here, with no rain at all. All the bugs were fine but of course they needed feeding and cleaning which took a solid two days and then there were the emails to tackle (oh why couldn't I have won that lottery while we were away?). I am now more or less back on track but I am helping look after my nephews three kids for some days in the school holidays so I won't be able to devote so much time to the bug business until the schools go back.

Probably the worst thing about my work is that it cannot run without me. I suggested to my husband this week that I teach him how to feed the tarantulas 'just in case'. His reaction was "sorry, they would have to die, I can't do it". I was going to suggest the same to my daughter but having her rush downstairs a couple of days ago, shouting "come quick there's a huge spider in my room" and exclaiming that I would need a much larger pot to put it in than the one I had taken up with me, only to discover it was no more than a dot with long legs, I didn't even bother to ask! I don't know how other people manage to go away and leave their bug collections? I was talking to a guy who does a similar thing to me but on a larger scale and he was saying how he went to Mexico with his wife for three weeks last year. I'd have nothing left alive if I disappeared for that long.

We did have a serious chat on holiday and I do think I need to cut down on the amount of animals that I have at any one time. It is crazy how long they take to look after, compared to how much money I make. I do take on too much, I find it difficult to say no but I must be more sensible. I have been offered lots of new stock this week but I am trying to be realistic about what my customers want and not what I like. I have a large Exo Terre tank full of Horse-head grasshoppers and I just can't sell them. I reduced them before my holiday to only 99p each and still I sold only a handful. This is clearly something that I love (I think they are fascinating, their faces are adorable) but there is no market for them and they take a considerable time to feed. They clearly need to go, they are getting bigger and bigger, some are now adults. Does anyone live near enough to call and collect and would like to make me an offer for the lot? I can't post them out in bulk as I can no longer obtain plastic sweet jars. I don't know a single sweet shop that uses them now and they are too expensive to buy as new, plus I have nowhere to store them. My business is certainly leaning towards arachnids, cockroaches, millipedes, beetles and away from the high maintenance leaf eating stick insects, grasshoppers, bush crickets. It's a shame but perhaps I'm not the only one who doesn't want to be constantly collecting food for them?

Lastly, I have added to number 3 (Sizes) on my 'terms and conditions'. The biggest, the only real complaint that I ever get is about the sizing of tarantula spiders. Hopefully I have put across the case for 'asking me to measure, before placing an order', that way there can be no misunderstanding. I had written a little more but hubby said it was too stroppy (me stroppy, never) so I took it off. I just want to avoid the constant emails like this example received recently "to be honest i just expected slightly bigger ones for the price i paid". I can only send the size that I have and I do my very best to describe them accurately, only time can make them bigger.

Hope everyone has a good weekend, still sunny here but it is set to change.

Oh my goodness, I have just Googled coatimundis because the spell checker picked it out so I needed to see if it was correct. You can buy them in the UK as pets - No stop me now!