Swimming Underground

Shannyn about to dive in
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Merida has a reputation for arts and culture, we spent a couple of days here enjoying it and soaking up the atmosphere. As well as the many dance and musical performances in the zocalo (the main square) we visited some impressive art galleries and even went to one of Meridas fine theatres for a traditional Mexican dance show.

The food was also great. Not only the usual Mexican fare but the Coconut Sorbets and Nutella Frappes kept Shannyn busy for quite a while. One restaurant also stood out and was worth a mention. It's a little place called Cangrejito, tucked away on one of the side streets. As with many restaurants we've been to in Mexico there is no menu, it's a straight forward set up where you choose from their freshly prepared and superb seafood on display. Two minutes later and you've got the tastiest fish tacos around, so good even the Pope frequented this establishment in the eighties. His picture decorates the walls of the restaurant to this day.

The intense blue water in these Cenotes was incredible, so clear you could see all the way down to the bottom

Wedding dresses of Merida
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From Merida we took a day trip to see some of the Yucutans famed natural land formations - the Cenotes. Otherwise known as sinkholes these are deep pools, some of which being underground, that people can swim or scuba dive in.

The Yucutan Peninsula is essentially a porous limestone mass with thousands of miles of underground water-filled caves interconnected by tiny rivers. These caves are exposed when part of the roof collapses in. The fresh water pools revealed beneath are ideal for swimming in and exploring. One theory is that these caves are the result of the huge meteorite just north of Merida that is widely accepted as being the cause for the extinction of dinosaurs 65 million years ago.

Palacio de Gobierno murals
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Anyway back to the story. We visited the cenotes in Cuzama where you are taken on a horse drawn cart over a network of rail lines, these were used by the local haciendas to transport henequin plants from the fields 200 years ago. The henequin fibres were important for making rope back then, nowadays though it is tourism that is the main source of income and there are many carts laden with tourists roaming the rails. It is an abandoned looking area, overgrown with bushes and many Agave plants (used to make Tequila).

The first Cenote
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Of the three Cenotes that we visited the first two were semi-underground giving them enough light to reflect on the water below to make them look stunning. The third one was a darker experience as it was fully underground, only accessible by a 10 meter ladder through a narrow hole in the ground above.

The intense blue water in these Cenotes was incredible, so clear you could see all the way down to the bottom. It was suprisingly warm enough for us to swim in too. The water reached depths of up to 40 meters, quite a long way as one member of our group found out to their cost when they dropped their underwater camera in. It sank to the bottom, too deep to reach without scuba equipment - oops. Gary