My second day in Mérida with my boyfriend was all about adventure. We decided to go to the cenotes in Cuzama, 1 hour away from the center of Mérida. Cenotes are sweet water pits, created by the collapsing of the stone ceiling, which gives entrance to these beautiful underground pools.
To get to the cenotes on this route you have to pay (400 pesos per person) to ride a carriage pulled by a horse along some rails. The whole tour is about 3 hours long with stops on the three cenotes. You are allowed to stay 30 minutes in each of them, before going to the next one.
The ride in the carriage is an experience itself. Although you are rattling around it´s fun. We had a new horse that was still getting accustomed to its job pulling the carriage, so sometimes it went out of the way or stopped when he saw other horses, thinking it was time to rest. We are not pretty sure about the horses, I don´t think they are treated as they should, many of them look skinny. It´s important to mention that this place is in the middle of nowhere, google maps will direct you to it but it is in the middle of nature. What is good about this is, that there are not many tourists, so you can enjoy the cenotes without masses of people around you. On the downside being so isolated is probably one of the reasons the people there don´t have a lot of money to care for the horses and themselves the right way.
Never the less we enjoyed the cenotes. The guide will bring you to he second cenote on the road first, then the third and lastly, on the way back, you will stop at the first one. The first cenote we stopped at was amazing. We descended a ladder that took us to a platform on the height of the water, from where we jumped into the cenote. The water was clear as glass and opposite to what you would expect, the temperature of the was pleasant, not to cold but also not to warm. You could stay in there without freezing. Through a hole in the ceiling the sunrays shone into the water and created a lightwaterfall. It was one of the most beautiful things I´ve ever seen.
The second cenote we went to, had a very narrow and vertical entrance, also with a ladder going down. This cenote had a pile of rocks in the middle, fallen from the ceiling, and it´s the only spot in the water where you can stand. I forgot to mention that the cenotes are very deep, sometimes you can see the ground under you and sometimes not. In some cenotes, like the first one, you can hold on to the stonewalls and sometimes also sit there. But in others, like the second one, you can´t stand. This cenote had a part that was cast in darkness and where there were no people, probably because they don´t like not seeing the ground. I enjoyed this side of the cenote the most because I could float on my own and watch the ceiling with its stalactites.
Lastly, we returned to the first cenote on the road. It was the tiniest one of the three, but what made it special is, that it was completely underground. No ceiling had collapsed, which means that without the artificial light in there, you wouldn´ t be able to see a thing. We descended some stone steps to the water. From were you stood at the last step it looked like a river that disappeared behind the next curve. The water in this one was colder than the others, but enjoyable still. When we arrived, we were alone, so we had time to explore the cave by ourselves.
We got back to the parking lot and ate something there. They have food stalls with quesadillas, panuchos and other typical dishes of Yucatán. I recommend going to these cenotes not only because they are beautiful, but also because they are nor very touristy, which lets you enjoy them more.
