While walking around Merida the night before we found a tour company and booked a cenote tour for the next day, much to Alejandro's dismay. Alejandro was the constantly smoking manager at our hostel. He told us we could find our own way out to the cenotes for a lot less money than a tour (he was fairly adamant about it) . We decided we wanted a break from finding our own way and booked a tour through someone else. Our guide Jose picked us up and drove us to Cuzama. We asked him questions about everything from Mexican politics to the cost of rent to what the houses were like on the inside. You could only see walls with old doors in the city with no indication of what was behind them. When we arrived in Cuzama we hired a man and a horse to take us on a cart up a funny rail left over from the hacienda days. The first cenote was blue and fairly large. 8-10 motmots flew out as we walked up. Tons of blue damselflies were everywhere and let you get pretty close to them. Unfortunately we couldn't get either camera to really focus on them, so we only go one picture. We had the cenote to ourselves. There were some bats and swallows. The 3rd cenote had a narrow long shaft to descend. It was mostly enclosed with a few shafts of light. After a few minutes we were overrun with Puerto Rican youth. The 2nd cenote we didn't get in the water, it was fairly cool that day. A rainstorm started just as we got there. We watched the rain pour in through the roof. After a few minutes sediment came pouring into the crystal clear water creating a cloud. Aaron and I began eating some 2 day old pastries - one of which had meat and cheese in it. We decided to eat it anyway, but were displeased to find that one end was black with mold after each taking 3 bites. Thankfully neither of us got sick.
Jose took us to a Yucatecan restaurant where we ordered drinks and they brought out 6-8 different dish samples. Civeche, venison, Lebanese fried chickpea pockets, pumpkin seed dip, chips, sausages. Yummy. About $10 for 3 drinks and more food than the three of us could eat. After the lunch snack we were stuffed. We went back to the hostel and crashed for a bit.
We heard about a Mayan dance going on 6-8 blocks away. We were very tired, but decided to check it out since the dance the night before was so good. It was actually a local dance rather than a performance. We watched for a bit then went home to bed.
Note- Jose took us to a cemetery at my request (a perk to being the only ones on the tour) there were many shrines and we learned that 2 years after the bones are buried, they are dug up and placed in a box. The family plot is then reused.
Our driver putting our cart back on the track.
Me going down the rabbit hole!
The horse runs along side the track...I wouldn't be surprised if this is one of the few systems in the world like this, especially that is still being used.
Torrential downpour, it was nice to have a cave to get out of the rain in.
The cemetery
Remains
Back in Merida
I could have done without the powerlines, but there was no avoiding them
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