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Published: October 6th 2011
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Cenotes ahead!
What's with the pig in the middle...? We rent bikes to journey about 7km (4.3mi) west of Valladolid to two well-known cenotes. All I know about these things is that these are limestone sinkholes filled with fresh water and they’re well worth jumping in. The Yucatan peninsula is scattered with these formations, around 2,000 actually and they’re what kept many Mayan villages alive. Today, several of the more touristy cenotes are owned, run, and maintained by Mayan collectives (ejidos).
Our bike ride takes us along a highway and then at a worn wooden sign marking the cenotes, we bear left. The forest hems in on us along our barely paved bike patch and I’m starting to flag due to the humidity. Heat I can stand, humidity wipes me out. Sweat drops, rolls, pools all over my body. But I keep pushing and finally we start to see some buildings and we’re at Cenote Dznitnup. There are the ubiquitous vendors set up outside but we buy our tickets and with the single-minded focus of the overheated, seek the underground water. The entrance is a glorified craggy hole in the ground with rock-hewn steps, lit by an orange glow. As soon as our heads go below surface, the cenote
Cenote entrance
This is the man-fashioned one spreads before us.
It is beautiful. A cavern with a single 3m wide hole in the earth casting a beam of day to spotlight the water. The entrance curved around to the side but that hole must have been how this cenote was first discovered. Someone walking along who saw a large black mouth opening into the earth who dropped down a stone and heard it hit water. Theirs is a wide above-water space off to the side that makes for perfect quasi-bleacher seating. Tourists from all over (I often eavesdrop to hear what language they are speaking) are moving in and out of the water. An older Mayan lady sits quietly by and watches everyone, making sure no one gets too rowdy.
But the other people are a distraction, making this place too much of a pool and less of…well, frankly, a sacred spot. This place feels hallowed. There’s something about this hidden water, the intimacy of the earth curving around it, the tree roots that reach for a drink, and that one beam of light casting into the darkness. Stalactites drip down, fibrous roots from álamo trees dangle toward water, dark fish swim about, and bats
Cenote Dznitup
The strands hanging down are roots (FYI). The guiding ropes are those faint lighter lines in the water. and swallows dart in and out of the roof-hole. There are ropes that fan out from the stone platform where we stand and I realize that’s an ingenious idea. You can just float and loosely hang onto those ropes and soak in the feel of the place. The water feels silkily cool and has a slightly musty taste to it but that may just be the texture of the cavern air. You can see how truly fresh this water is and how clean where the light hits it. The dark satin of the water, hit occasionally by the artificial orange lighting (thankfully minimal around the cenote’s edges), turns into shafts of bright turquoise and aqua. There are no discernible algae, presumably because of the dearth of light. Kurt and I rope-walk and back-float to all sides of the cenote, stroking the smoothness of the stalactites, feeling the rough but delicate texture of the roots, but we both seem to gravitate back to the light. We emerge reverent and refreshed.
The other cenote (the other side of the street) is located next to a very posh, graceful, and completely empty maze of buildings that look like they would be used
for exhibitions. And a playground. Confusing…but beside the point. Cenote Samulá has a wider opening up top so more light pours through to capture the brilliancy of the clean water. This one is taller and we descend wooden staircases to reach the water. A massive old álamo tree reaches down around the rim of the hole and once you near the tree, you can see that the top has been removed. There are ropes here too and I alternate between floating on my back (I can see the ceiling formations better that way and more importantly, I don’t hear the other people) and rope-walking.
After a while, the quiet beauty of the place fractures with too much splashing and pool-side behavior. So we rise up to the surface and emerge to four simultaneous vendor calls about coconuts. HOW can all of these vendors make any sort of living if they are all selling the same thing to the same folks within a small radius? I wonder about that often when traveling. Later that night, we end up at a food-court type place (two doors down from the 5-star restaurant/hotel) where the same phenomenon happens but with restaurant food. We
Teehee
Look at the translation look at six different menus only to realize that the menu items and prices are almost identical. The only difference is how well the restaurant’s PR person can yell to get your attention.
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