There are a lot of cenotes in the Yucatan peninsula, and after our first experience we knew we wanted to visit more, but we were not so interested in sharing cenotes with bus loads of cruise ship people.  We decided to visit the lesser known, but still touristy, Three Cenotes of Cuzama.

We overnighted in the parking lot of the cenotes in order to be able to be among the first tourists of the morning. The cenotes are unique in that you ride in a horse drawn cart along narrow gauge rail tracks through the forest to visit three different cenotes.

The horse was hooked up and the ride began.  Pancha was doing a great job, and although he was small he was easily able to pull us along.  At times there would be a slight down hill grade, and the cart would get rolling along pretty fast.  Pancha would then almost be in a full gallop, his head turned towards the tracks with one eye on the cart clickety clacking at his heels.

The ride to the first cenote lasted about 30 or 40 minutes.  Along the way we saw a bird like this, and several iguanas.

 

Then, back we went into the cart to be taken to the second cenote.  Our guide pointed us to the entrance and as we were walking there we saw a group of people walking from the other direction.  They looked a bit like a boy scout troop and leaders.  When we got to the entrance to the cenote, my stomach tightened a bit.  The entrance was a round hole in the ground about the size of a whiskey barrel in diameter with a wooden ladder sticking out of it.  We approached the hole and looked down to see nothing but darkness.  The ladder was surround by rock as far as light would let us see down the hole.  I turned to the others who had now gathered and asked if it was any light inside the cenote.  No one seemed to know, but one man produced a flash light, that he shined on the wooden ladder, but the light was quickly absorbed by the darkness below.

“Derek, I think you should go first”, I said, in what is becoming my response any time we encounter dark tunnels on this trip (and there have been a few so far!).

Being the brave man that he is, Derek was quickly climbing down the ladder, and within seconds I heard him say, “Oh, wow!”  So down I went.

After we got through the layer of surface rock that surrounds the ladder, the cenote opened up and holes in the ceiling above the water provided enough light to see, once your eyes adjusted.  And it was stunning.   Stalactites hung from the ceiling.  The water was aqua marine, and a stream of light that came in through the ceiling hit the water, refracted, then danced on the floor of the cenote.  The reflection of this was then displayed on the walls of the cenote.

 

Some of the boy scout crew came down the ladder to take a look (none of them swam), but many of them stayed above ground.  We swam in the cool water for 20 minutes of so, the last 5 or 10 by ourselves, then made our way back up the ladder to continue on to our last cenote.

The final cenote was actually an underground river, and our guide came into it with us to show us some formations and to talk about some of the geology of the cenote.  There were several other people here and Derek and I took a quick swim before the ride back to our truck.

We finished up our trip about noon, and headed for our next stop, Chichen Itza.