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Swimming in Cenotes
By mcdog | May 2, 2007
We were introduced to the gentle art of cenote swimming at Cenote Azul, near Bacalar. We caught a taxi from Bacalar to the cenote. There is a well-ventilated restaurant, the biggest we had seen at that point on our trip, at the side of the cenote where swimmers can refresh themselves after a leisurely back-stroke or crippling crawl. However, it’s the cenote itself that is important in this hot and dusty country. A quick dip into the cool waters is very refreshing and allows you to exchange beads of sweat for beads of water. Cenote Azul is basically a large round pool about 600 feet across and about 200 deep surrounded by a dense wall of trees. There’s a rope from one side to the other, but I was happy with a few minutes splashing about in the cool and very dark water.
The next day, at the end of a very satisfying and educational trip across the lake and into the ‘canal de las piratas’ with Jim, a biologist now living in Bacalar, we sailed over a cenote at the edge of the lake. The switch from water about 3-4 feet deep to a depth of hundreds of feet was quite dramatic. He told us that there was a young crocodile living on/in this cenote that was as reluctant to meet swimmers as they were to meet it. Jim had collected us from the jetty at the ungodly hour of 0800. We were unaware that Mexico had a different summer time from Belize and were a little shocked/upset/distraught to be awoken at what to us was 0700hrs but the boat trip amongst the mangroves and ’sand’ banks was worth the early start. The ’sand’ is calcium carbonate deposited from the lime saturated water and covers large parts of the bottom of the lake and forms huge exposed banks when the water level drops. We crossed the lake and entered the ‘canals’ near someone’s abandoned attempt to build a bar in the shape of a ship, and saw several types of fish and various birds.
A few days later we arrived in the inland town of Valladolid, the proud host of not one, but three cenotes and after only a few hours we were swimming in the clear waters of Cenote Zaci. This was just a short walk from our hotel, six blocks. We paid our 15 pesos each and set off down the steps into what is a big hole in the ground with trees and plants growing beside the steps. There were only about half-a-dozen people down in the bottom of the pit. About half the roof of the cenote still hangs over the pool and stalactites and tree roots hang from the limestone towards the leaf strewn water. There is a walled path which goes right around the pool at about thirty feet above the water.
By this time we were getting hooked on cenote swimming and were looking forward to visiting Cenotes de Dzitnup, a few miles out of town, the next day.
The taxi dropped us outside Xkeken, the more popular of the two cenotes at Dzitnup, but as there were a couple of tourist buses in the car park we decided to walk the few hundred yards to Sakamu’ul-ja for a quieter swim. We paid the man in the little wooden hut and climbed down the steep and wet steps in a small cave until we emerged in a large cavern. This cenote is beautiful, a mass of roots hang from the small opening in the roof down to a small ‘island’ just breaking the surface of the crystal clear and still water. Red, blue, green, black and off-white stalactites hang from the roof and walls of the chamber and we could see black catfish swimming in the pool. This was definitely a new experience, swimming with catfish in a cave pool lit by just a shaft of sunlight. We swam for a while and then just sat there marvelling at the beauty of the place and watching the swallows fly about the chamber.
Cenote Xkenen is much bigger, with many roots hanging from the roof. The buses had gone by the time we arrived and there were only a couple of families there. Though they did seem to have about fifteen kids between them, splashing happily about in the shallow water and occasionally swimming out to where the sunlight hit the pool in the deeper water. There were also other caves leading off the main chamber. We swam here amongst the kids, ropes and catfish until what looked to be the arrival of another bus party, when we climbed into one of the side caves to get changed into ’street gear’.
There are hundreds of cenotes, we have swum in four and sailed over another, it’s a start.
For more information on Cenotes…
Topics: mexico02 | 2 Comments »
August 25th, 2007 at 2:38 pm
[...] Following is an excerpt from an email forwarded to me by a friend that I met at CasitaCarolina when we used the hotel as a base for our visit to the famous Cenote Azul. [...]
August 25th, 2007 at 5:59 pm
[...] We were introduced to the gentle art of cenote swimming at Cenote Azul, near Bacalar. We caught a taxi from Bacalar to the cenote. There is a well-ventilated restaurant, the biggest we had seen at that point on our trip, at the side of the cenote where swimmers can refresh themselves after a leisurely back-stroke or crippling crawl. However, it’s the cenote itself that is important in this hot and dusty country. A quick dip into the cool waters is very refreshing and allows you to exchange beads of sweat for beads of water. Cenote Azul is basically a large round pool about 600 feet across and about 200 deep surrounded by a dense wall of trees. There’s a rope from one side to the other, but I was happy with a few minutes splashing about in the cool and very dark water. Read more [...]