Cool those cenotes | The Family Without Borders

The Family Without Borders

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Cool those cenotes

Cenote in Coba, Mexico (Yucatan Penisuela)

Cenote in Coba, Mexico (Yucatan Penisuela)

So how many degrees do you have in Europe right now? Don’t you also feel like jumping to the blue eye of underwater cenote?

Cenotes are a natural sinkholes in the limestone, characteristic for all the Yucatan Peninsula. Lovely places of a fresh, blue water, sometimes totally under the ground, sometimes partly open. Cenote water is often very clear, as the water comes from rain water infiltrating slowly through the ground. Perfect place for a fast refreshment in between ruins and monkeys.

Yucatan has 2400 registered cenotes but it’s said there could be even 6000. Cosy cave with a water, just 4 of us, stalactites and stalagmites, a bit of sunbeams from up. Beautiful!

No questions that cenotes played an important role in Maya rites (as gates to the afterlife). And additionally they were the only real source of quality water, since Yucatan Peninsula has almost no rivers and only a few lakes. Main Maya cities required access to water supplies, and therefore cities, including the famous Chichén Itzá, were built around these natural wells. Yucatecans were getting water from this nice sources and nowadays visitors use them in different way: to swim, snorkel and really dive.

We visited only two of them, choosing not very popular ones: near Coba. First one was lovely, second one was dirty. It’s a real pity because water in such a cenote is usually very slowly changing and the environment is really fragile. Next to many of cenotes there are showers that people can take away the sunblock or mosquitoes repellent right before entering the cenote.

On the way back we still met a lake with crocodiles. But as a protest against an owner of a restaurant nearby, who is feeding the crocodiles to get them closer and get more clients, we decided not to say hello to them. Hanna just waved from far away.


Our first book is out!

We have published our first book (for now just in Polish:) about our Central America Trip.
See, read and order here »

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