Mérida, México: Cenotes at Cuzamá

First and foremost, the stories I share and the pictures I post will NEVER do justice to what I experienced today! At 7:30 this morning we loaded up for our last mandatory group excursion to Cuzamá, a town about an hour away that is famous for its cenotes. These caves or caverns with fresh water pools are beyond gorgeous - and one of the most amazing things I have ever seen. I kept looking around, being amazed by God's complete creativity and beauty through this creation. When you arrive at Cuzamá you jump on horse drawn carts, or "truks" (attempt at spelling truck, I'm not sure). This city is an example of an hacienda transformed by the rise of tourism. The base of these carts used to be used for transporting the henequin plants across the hacienda, but now they're buggies for the visitors eager to swim in their rich natural resources that they've so conveniently settled upon. Now if you have a big problem with animal rights, you may have had trouble riding these carts, pulled by horses who were awfully skinny and small, but let's hope for the best! We drove on these tracks that resemble railroad tracks, that again are the same that were used on the hacienda. A rickety little ride, but so interesting! We rode to the furthest of the three cenotes first, which was a 45 minute ride, give or take. I had no idea what to really expect. I wasn't sure how to even enter these things - until the path led to this small hole in the earth. You will see in the third picture, Jessica climbing into the cenote. This trip was not for claustrophobics, people scared of heights, poor swimmers, and was tricky for people with no body strength. Because while they're beautiful to look at, they're incredible to experience, swim in, climb, etc. So we shimmied our way down, and that's when the squeals started (and didn't stop until we were back on the bus). Water like you have NEVER seen it. Literally thought they had dumped blue dye into it - and never have I seen such clear water. Unreal. Took a quick leap off the first platform that was high above the water, and submerged into the most refreshing pool of fresh water. Then it was time to explore this insane thing - as a few bats flew above us, fish swam below us, and the sun was shining through the few small but powerful holes in the "ceiling" which was actually the earth's ground. I worked my muscles (or rather exhausted them) by pulling myself up to higher levels, using the roots hanging down to hoist me up. Uffda - hard work. We spent about 45 minutes at each of the cenotes. Between each of them we hopped back in our horse carts and traveled to the next cave! The second cave had more to climb, but not as high of an initial jump off the platform. We climbed up really high on the rocks/roots around the edge to take the plunge. Please note: I'm providing details about what the excursion was now that it's over... Didn't want to worry Mom and Grandmas beforehand! Now you can all know I'm safe and sound, exercised precaution, was smart, and everyone came back conscious with all four limbs! The final cenote was massive, but not a lot of places to jump from. But went back so deep into the cave. So today was probably Val's biggest nightmare, making sure we were all safe, but it's safe to say it was the favorite excursion by all of us! We all became kids as we were fascinated by everything, swam our little hearts out, and did a whole lot of shrieking! An unbelievable day - I LOVED IT! Highly recommend if you ever visit a country where you can see cenotes, you do it!

Of course after exhausting so much energy, we all crashed upon arriving back to Mérida. I took a one-hour siesta, and that was by far the shortest one out of the group! Later this evening I went downtown with Katelynn - we just walked, shopped, chatted, really nice! I ran into all of the Canadians so that was really fun! Once I returned home, I talked with Eileen and Marilyn for a while!

Many of the following pictures, in the water, are not mine. I had a disposable underwater camera with me, but of course have not had them developed yet! For now I'll share some from my friends here that have digital waterproof cameras!