I came to the Gran Acuario Mazatlán to take a walk on the wild side. I played with the Humboldt Penguins. I stroked the silken wings of swimming Manta Rays. I laughed when a California Sea Lion cozied up to me and kissed me on the cheek. I watched in trepidation as my friend snorkeled, surrounded by giant groupers, colourful fish and several species of sharks. Sharks! The young man who looks after the sharks’ well-being, climbed out of the water and carefully placed a tiny gift in my palm: a pearly white shark’s baby tooth which, apparently, they shed as they grow. How very sweet of him.
This magnificent Aquarium, Latin America’s largest and most important, spanning over 26,000 square meters and including a massive 2.8-million-liter oceanic habitat, opened to great acclaim in May of 2023. Interactive exhibits and educational programs bring out families with children. The building has been designed by Tatiana Bilbao whose works often merge geometry with nature. “It is a place,” she says, “where the sea and terrestrial nature meet architecture and the human world.”
Is it because my horoscope sign is Aquarius that I am absolutely mesmerized by what is happening behind the 42-foot-tall viewing windows. I find joy communing with 107 species of fish swimming and cavorting among the coral and jellyfish.
Groups of children scream with delight as they stare in awe and disbelief at the seahorses, jelly fish, manta rays and exotic fish species. They cannot tear themselves away from admiring the giant octopus hiding under a live coral reef. Because of today’s experience, I believe some of these children will grow up to make a lifetime career of an aspect of marine biology.
As if all the fish in the sea are not enough, there is also Casa Guacamaya, an enclave that houses Parakeets, Toucans, Parrots and Lovebirds. They welcome us as if we are old friends. They seem to know that we come bearing gifts of food. They eat from our hands while they perch on our shoulders and on our heads. And what I thought was a dull, flat rock begins to move and is in fact a giant hundred-year-old turtle.
Walking under the glass-encased swirling waters of a 360-degree oceanic tunnel is a thrill. And we are transfixed by the schools of eerie translucent jellyfish afloat in their own environment. Taking time, allowing the gentle marine life-filled waters to virtually wash over us, is a cleansing, calming experience that erases the cacophony of daily stress we experience in our home cities.
To bring us down to earth, we stroll through the Botanical Gardens, where iguanas, migratory birds and huge indigenous plants of Blue Agave stand like sentinels on guard.
On leaving the Gran Acuario, I have a new appreciation of marine life and our oceans. I feel refreshed and smiling, with a lightness in my step. Since opening in the spring of 2023, there have been more than one million visitors. Let’s make that more than one million and one.
