It’s easy to arrange a do-it-yourself ecotourism trip. All it takes is a little research and finding the right guides.

Ecotourism is about awareness and respect. It’s an ethical way to travel that benefits all — the tourist, the local community, and the environment.

The Yucatán Peninsula is a prime place for nature-based travel where education and adventure combine for new experiences that don’t compromise the natural environs.

The first step is to think beyond Cancún and Playa del Carmen. Leave those places for fun in the sun and sipping grown-up drinks through a straw. Get out of the pre-packaged tourist mentality and get ready to explore. You’ll return home with a new appreciation for Mexico.

The Yucatán Peninsula is full of places worth exploring further than Chichén Itzá and Tulum. In Punta Laguna a Mayan guide will take you through dense jungle full of exotic plants, with howler and spider monkeys swinging in the trees. A vast variety of birds embellish the canopy, and an occasional toucan might appear. Less likely to make an appearance is the population of jaguars that were recently found.

After an interpretive walk through the jungle, we arrived at Punta Laguna, a small lake where we paddled a canoe over to the opposite shore while watching for crocodiles. Once there, I slipped into a harness before hiking to higher ground in order to fly across the lagoon on a zip-line.

The rudimentary stick that I was given to use as a brake robbed me of any confidence I had, but I swallowed my fear and ran off the platform, screaming as I flew over the water. After that, the thought of crocodiles trying to eat me on my return canoe trip seemed trivial.

Public transportation to Punta Laguna is non-existent. That’s where Alberto Morales comes in. Morales is a federally licensed tour guide who speaks impeccable English. He can arrange anything from a few hours spent driving around in his comfortable car, to a spontaneous group tour in a van, or a dive trip to Cozumel, where he used to work as a dive master and videographer. He knows the Maya world and the stories he told while guiding us through ruins and eco-reserves helped us appreciate what we were seeing.

My husband and I spent a day with him in Ria Lagartos. It is a a protected Biosphere Reserve (one of 529 sites in 105 countries) on the east coast of Yucatán with the world’s largest nesting ground for pink flamingos. This 150,000 acre reserve has a mangrove-lined estuary with over 350 different species of birds, crocodiles, jaguars, and endangered marine turtles. Because of its location, it hasn’t developed the tourism trade that the Riviera Maya has, leaving the small fishing villages of Rio Lagartos and San Felipe authentic and quiet.

As it turns out, Rio Lagartos is a misnomer. It was named by Spanish explorers who didn’t know what they were looking at. Morales explained that “they thought were seeing alligators (lagartos) on a river (rio), when they were really seeing crocodiles in an estuary (ria).”

Morales arranged for us to be taken into the estuary by boat with Diego Nuñez, an English-speaking nature guide who is certified for the Ria Lagartos Biosphere Reserve. Within minutes we were watching the elegant flamingos in their natural habitat. His knowledge of, and respect for, the local flora and fauna is impressive. He knows where the crocodiles like to sunbathe and where the pink spoon-billed herons perch on bare branches. He described the importance of everything in the local environment, from termites to humans, telling what happened historically and how things are changing from lessons learned.

The flamingo population more than doubled, from 26,000 in 1999 to 54,000 in 2006, thanks to the protected status of the reserve and a local environmental group, Niños & Crias (Kids and Critters). At one time the pink flamingos were threatened by extinction. Even now their nesting sites are tentative, subject to hurricanes and flooding, crocodiles and jaguars, and the threat of commercial development.

The Nuñez family owns the Restaurante Isla Contoy on the waterfront, where they serve a fabulous seafood lunch after the boat ride. Diego grew up in Rio Lagartos so he is emotionally committed to protecting the environment. Besides being a guide for birding in the estuary, he is also an avid fisherman and takes people fly fishing for tarpon and snook. He spends his leisure time taking beautiful photographs of the abundant wildlife.

About seven miles west of Rio Lagartos, San Felipe is a tiny town with a huge heart. This tidy village is worth a visit, for the fishing and bird-watching, and most certainly to see their Cementario Municipal. Morales described it as “the happiest cemetery in the world.”

Behind a pink stucco wall and baby-blue gate lies a whimsically decorated graveyard, exemplifying the healthy attitude about death as celebrated with Dia de los Muertos. Had Morales not been there to clarify things, I would have thought that the half-empty bottle of beer on a grave was disrespectful. Instead, he told us that it’s a memorial to a person who used to like beer.

These are life’s simple lessons. But without someone describing what you’re seeing, you are likely to misunderstand.

Part of traveling is learning, and part of learning is understanding. When we truly comprehend what we see when we travel, we gain respect for where we are.

If you go:

Alberto Morales, e-mail: peninsulatours1@yahoo.com.mx
Diego Nuñez, e-mail: diego2909@yahoo.com