I got to swim in a cenote! Cynthia took the photos – that’s me treading water and me floating on my back trying to take a picture with my malfunctioning underwater camera. Ahhh, it was fantastic despite the camera hassle. The water is circulating from an underground reserve, not salty like the sea, not sulfuric like a hot spring, more like cool, fresh, and crazy-refreshing well water.
This cenote, as are many in Yucatan, is part of a cave. Others are open to the sky. I’d do it again in a heartbeat.
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We got to the cenote by taking a tour of the sisal operation at the Hacienda Sotuta de Peón. I enjoyed the tour and thought that we learned a lot about a not-so-long-ago time and of a huge once-essential industry now gone. The guide said many times “thank you for being here, we keep äll this alive for you, our tourists.”
How it works.
The House. So much information!
We got to the cenote on these donkey-drawn carts on the tracts previously used to move the raw materials, agave leaves, into the processing areas, and then took the finished products to trains bound for the coast and then out to the world. The mules rigging is made from the sisal processed here. They also sell bits and bobs, toys, washing pads, fans, decorative hangings, etc.
Our most dramatic guide who with great flourish told us the story in Spanish and English. Thanks for the photo Cynthia.
After the tour we ate there at the Hacienda, a four course meal of local foods served banquet style that was really quite tasty and the venue was exceptionally comfortable.
We got back just as it was getting dark, in time to pack up in readiness to leave in the morning for our 1,000+ mile Road Trip to Cholula.
(self-portrait)