Inframundo xibalba

Cancún Airport is the arrival point for the Riviera Maya, which stretches along the Caribbean coast on the eastern side of the Yucatán Peninsula. It encompasses the area from Puerto Morelos to the Sian Ka'an Biosphere Reserve. What were once fishing villages have today transformed into a tourist corridor with luxury hotels and resorts, hostels, apartments and vacation rentals, restaurants, and a vibrant nightlife for all tastes and budgets. This stretch of coast is, without a doubt, one of the best vacation destinations in the world. It offers some of Mexico's most beautiful and extensive beaches, famous for their fine white sand, bathed by the characteristic turquoise color of the Caribbean water.

Diving

For many of us Hispanics, diving in places other than the sea is something special. Thanks to our climate, access to the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean is very easy all year round. Basically, you can dive wherever there is water, be it a pool, a lake, a lagoon, or, as in this case, a cenote. Cenotes are simply sinkholes filled with fresh or cold water, without strong currents or waves. They are like a natural swimming pool in the middle of the Yucatán jungle.

Cenote Diving (from the Mayan word "dzonoot": "hole with water")

Cenotes are found all over the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico. Between Cancún and Playa del Carmen there is a small route with deep cenotes such as Seven Bocas, Holbox, Kin Ha, and Zapote in Puerto Morelos. Most of the cenote systems are located between Playa del Carmen and Tulum, many of which (some, but not all) are connected to each other underwater through caves. The rest of the tourist cenotes accessible to divers and snorkelers in open water are found between Playa del Carmen and Tulum. The best known and most accessible are:

NAME	CLASSIFICATION	LEVEL	CHARACTERISTIC
Chacmool	Normal Cenote	OWD	Light + and formation
Cristalino	Normal Cenote	Snorkel	No divers
Azul	Normal Cenote	Snorkel	No divers
Chikinha	Normal Cenote	OWD	Wide cavern
Jardín del Eden	Normal Cenote	OWD	Light and formations
Tajma ha	Intermediate Cenote	Adv	Light ++ and formation
Dos ojos	Normal Cenote	OWD	Formation ++, Fossil
Nicte ha	Normal Cenote	Adv	Light ++ formation + underwater garden
Pit	Special Cenote	Adv	Deep, light, cloud, bones, ceramics.
Pet cemetery	Special Cenote	Snorkel	Not enabled for divers.
Dream gates	Intermediate Cenote	Adv	Very decorated, fragile
Casa cenote	Normal Cenote	DSD, OWD	Open - Mangrove
Calavera	Intermediate Cenote	Adv	Fossil – halocline ++
Gran cenote	Intermediate Cenote	Cavern	Formation – Light
Carwash	Normal Cenote	OWD	Formation – Light ++
Angelita	Special Cenote	Adv	Cloud ++ Mysterious

Puerto Morelos

NAME	CLASSIFICATION	LEVEL	CHARACTERISTIC
7 bocas	Special Cenote	Adv	Deep – Cloud+++
Holbox	Normal Cenote	Adv	Deep
Kin ha	Normal Cenote	Adv	Deep – cloud
Zapote	Special Cenote	Adv	Deep – special formation++cloud+

We travel overland. In the morning we pick up the equipment and the diving tanks (7:00 to 7:45 AM) and the divers (no later than between 8:00 and 10:00 AM, to make the most of the light in the cenote). We then drive (30-45 minutes) to the ideal cenote for the respective diving experience, depending on skill, buoyancy, certification, and safety in the water. Depending on experience, there are standard, advanced, and specialized cenotes.

Upon arrival, payment of the entrance fee, and registration of the divers with their guides, we receive a brief introduction so that visitors can familiarize themselves with the area. We show them parking lots, toilets, and changing rooms (if available). Then we introduce the cenote. Some are accessible via stone or wooden stairs, others via narrow jungle paths with rocks and uneven terrain. Caution is advised, especially when carrying heavy equipment.

Depending on the time of year, there may be more or fewer mosquitoes, humidity, spiders, and other typical jungle features. And this is exactly where the beauty of the experience begins: birdsong, sightings of lizards and iguanas; in some cenotes even peacocks, turtles, colorful flowers, coatis, monkeys, and other animals live.

On this tour, visitors will know their route from the car to the cenote once they have received their equipment. Each diver puts on and assembles their scuba gear and walks with it to the water accesses, where the guide leads the underwater tour (varying according to the cavern line between 30 min and 50 min maximum per immersion) and the immersion through stalactites, stalagmites, thousands-of-years-old fossils, and underwater light landscapes, archaeological remains, clouds of tannic acid and sulfur, haloclines, and all the wonders that are unique and specific to each cenote.

Depending on the time of year, there may be more or fewer mosquitoes, humidity, spiders, and other typical jungle features. And this is exactly where the beauty of the experience begins: birdsong, sightings of lizards and iguanas; in some cenotes even peacocks, turtles, colorful flowers, coatis, monkeys, and other animals live. On this tour, visitors know their path from the car to the cenote once they have received their equipment. Each diver puts on their diving equipment and heads to the water entrances, where the guide leads the underwater tour (maximum of 30 to 50 minutes per immersion, depending on the cenote). The immersion will take you through stalactites, stalagmites, millenary fossils, fascinating underwater light landscapes, archaeological remains, clouds of tannic acid and sulfur, haloclines, and all the wonders that make each cenote unique.

There are no cenotes that are more beautiful or less beautiful; each one has its own merits—be it regarding access, training possibilities, underwater accommodations, difficulty level, filigree decoration, or unique landscape. Therefore, each cenote is a special, unique, and unforgettable experience. Cenote diving is difficult to compare with other types of diving. Is it difficult to compare cenotes with each other? It is completely different from the sea, lakes, or lagoons! They are natural wonders that unfortunately "do not have much time left" due to pollution, lack of protection, the overexploitation of the area for tourism (large-scale hotel complexes), and overpopulation—not to mention non-sustainable, environmentally harmful tourism projects. If you have the opportunity to dive for two or three days, you will get a good impression of the cenotes in the region. Whoever only dives for one day will have nice memories, but will miss unique dives on this planet that perhaps in a few years will no longer exist or be accessible due to prices, pollution, and diver overcrowding.

There are countless additional cenotes that do not offer access to the cave for recreational divers. Many are accessible only to cave divers with the appropriate training, equipment, and certification, whether for backmount, sidemount, or CCR (rebreather) diving.

These cenotes also require advanced technical knowledge in gas diving (deco), cave decompression, and other related techniques. Let's move on now to the remaining cenotes on the peninsula.

These cenotes also require advanced technical knowledge in gas diving (deco), cave decompression, and other related techniques. Let's move on now to the remaining cenotes on the peninsula. While there are around 15 cave cenotes open to tourism, satellite images of some 8,000 cenotes in Yucatán suggest that some are inaccessible due to lack of roads or their remote location.

These require special expeditions and certifications in cave diving (including advanced), vertical techniques (rope techniques for ascent and descent), survival techniques, planning, logistics, and special permits for the visit and the dives. Furthermore, the owner's consent is required, as all cenotes are private property. Entering someone else's property can lead to unpleasant situations. Always hire a cave guide who knows where to go, who to contact, and how to get there; that way you will avoid problems.

Near Merida we have another group of cenotes. These are mostly deep, with difficult but possible access for the tourist (adv – rescue, descent and ascent by ropes). However, they are much more pristine and their Maya culture is more intact. The locations and hamlets are more rural, where mostly only Maya is spoken, so it is a different, less commercial and more rustic experience, requiring more local interaction and you must allow more time. You need at least 3 days to be and sleep in the area, move around; diving is a total immersion in the Maya world and waters, an experience that depends exclusively on the group, planning, and handling of advance payments.

* A STALACTITE is a speleothem that forms as a result of the continuous mineral deposits transported by water that normally filters into a cave, although not always, especially calcium bicarbonate which precipitates into calcium carbonate and deposits forming the stalactite.

* A STALAGMITE is a type of speleothem, a mineral deposit that forms by chemical precipitation and forms on the floor of a limestone cave due to the decantation of solutions and the deposition of calcium carbonate. The corresponding formation on the ceiling of a cave is known as a stalactite. If these formations grow enough to meet, the result is called a column or pillar.

* HALOCLINE In the cenotes of Yucatán, it is common for seawater to penetrate the underground river systems, producing a halocline (change in water salinity, and therefore visibility between fresh and saltwater) that can appear between 10 and 60 m deep, depending on the distance to the coast and the topography of the karst system itself.