Cenotes: Hidden Worlds

Cenotes are natural freshwater pools with underground caves and caverns, formed because of the porous limestone ground that makes up the Yucatan. I'm told that they are found in only a few areas in the world and that the world's capital is the Yucatan Peninsula.  I don't know if that's true or not.  I can say that there were alot of them.  It was hard to choose where to go.  I read somewhere that the Yucatán Peninsula has about 10,000 cenotes, many of them unexplored or Mayan cultural and archaeological sites.

The "Cenote Route" as it is called is situated just west of Puerto Morelos so it was a no-brainer for us.  We simply had to explore these wonders. We only had time for a couple, but man was it worth the short drive.
 

The first one was called Cenote Verde Lucero about 18 km off the Cenote Route on the left coming from Puerto Morelos.  It has one really deep cenote which seemed kind of basic.  The waters weren't very clear so snorkeling wasn't optimal.  Although we did see some fish.  The cool thing is that this cenote has a zipline which dumps you into the cenote.  I must confesss, I didn't take part in the zipline.  It's not the zipline itself....I've been ziplining in Costa Rica and LOVED IT.  It was the snap at the end that scared me.  Remember my little fall off the bike last year which gave me a fractured elbow.  Well, I remember this all too well and decided I didn't need another broken bone, especially in Mexico.  Chris and Lisa did, however, enjoy the zipline--with no broken bones as souvenirs!



Courtesy of Blue Picture Blog


The second cenote was spectatular, Cenote Siete Bocas--about 15 km off the Cenote Route on the right coming from Puerto Morelos.  This is what I had envisioned when hearing about cenotes.  Its blue/turquoise color reminded me of the Blue Grotto in Capri but thankfully I didn't get up close and personal with the pointy edges of the rock like I did in the Blue Grotto (ie, no scar on my bum for 2 + years). 

I think there were 4 cenotes open, the other 3 may have dried up.  These cenotes connected through small passages through caves which were shaped by rock formations from millions of years ago.  Unfortunately, we didn't have water cameras so we missed out on the BEST photo ops.  (I borrowed  one from another source so that you could have a glimpse into the underwater world we saw.)  M was a little fish in both of the cenotes but I think this one was her favorite.  She loved the cave!  I think she was facsitnated by the stalactites.