Day Eleven

I have 20 minutes before we leave for dinner. Today we went out to the old Club Med to see some of the cactus they have planted there - lots of them which I cannot spell. We then went to a lookout where we could see where some famous movies were made, among them Zorro.

Then it was off to the Pearl Farm. It is close to the University of Monterrey extension facility, and they did the initial research. Three guys bought out the technology and are now successfully cultivating two species of oysters for pearl creation - the black lipped and the rainbow lipped. They have a really cool way of putting nylon netting in nylon mesh bags down near where the oysters are created so they can then crawl onto the netting and start to grow. It mimics the sea fan coral which they typically grow on. Then they pull up those and transfer them to little oyster condominimums of a little bit bigger netting arranged sort of like those fruit wire baskets. Then they graduate to being teenagers and get put into even larger condos. At maturity, they are collected and implanted with either a mabe shape at the lip, or have a "minor" surgical procedure that places a bead of Mississippi river oyster in a sack sort of like our appendix, along with a small portion of oyster mantle. In 2 years they harvest the pearls. Mabes have a much higher success rate, practically 100%, and the round pearls are reaching 20%. They only have three people right now that do the delicate surgery.

After the pearls was lunch at a great shrimp place. 18 styles of shrimp. Then back to the hotel. Having lived in Oxnard near the coast for more than 20 years, I am used to wind at the beach. But it has been very windy here, and the sand is blowing on the beach. We are now off to the El Bronco restaurant for steaks. Tomorrow is a nature cruise and horseback riding along the coast.
Buenos Noches for now.