The world’s greatest theme park – Xcaret?

Imagine a rip-roaring Indiana Jones’ day-out. Swimming along a subterranean river, walking rope bridges high in a steamy jungle of touchwood trees, swimming with sharks and perilously hanging onto a rope across the ocean. Slammin’ down Tequila shots if you choose. If you’ve taken the chaotic horn-blaring road south from Cancun for 35 miles, you will have already realised that Mexico doesn’t have a health and safety culture – and Xcaret is all the better for it.

Theme park? The term just doesn’t do justice to Xcaret. Esh-ka-ret, that’s how you deal with a Mexican “X”, is the real deal. Forget Disney’s plastic and micro-chip controlled rides timed to the nano-second. With the jungle creeper and waterfalls over-flowing onto the rock-paths, anghingas pecking at your shins, iguanas sunning themselves by your side and vultures eyeing you optimistically the scene is pure Attenborough. To be blunt after Xcaret any other theme park…