puerto vallarta vacation - wildlife

there were many friendly creatures living among us at casa velas.

we saw quite a few of these guys. i think he's a baby iguana.

turtles.

peacocks.

the female peacocks were interesting - much more colorful than the females i've seen at the denver zoo which are entirely brown.

this duck and his friend sat around the koi ponds then flew away, landed and sat in the tops of the palm trees. do ducks in the states hang out in trees??

we nicknamed this little bird bernardo. jeremy fed him bits of toast each morning at breakfast. sweet bernardo seemed quite old, never flying away from the patio to find his own meals, only living off table scraps. or maybe he wasn't old, maybe he was just very smart.

my favorite animal to observe were the iguanas. the iguanas moseyed down the trees mid-morning to chill in the koi ponds then climbed back up in the afternoon to bask in the sun. they typically walked slowly across the grounds, unless i was walking toward them with my camera to take a picture. the little buggers were camera shy.

there were gorgeous plants too. i only snapped pictures of a couple.

casa velas has it's own botanic garden which provides much of the fresh produce (most of it organic) for their restaurants.