On Wednesday, we all woke up early to go on our grand cenote snorkeling adventure - our Christmas present from Molly & Ryan! I wasn't completely sure what to expect, having never snorkeled before and having seen my very first cenote only the day earlier, and having never really done a package tour on a vacation. We were picked up a few blocks away from our place, bright and early, and taken to the tour office by our driver (who we all were in love with by the end of the day). After a short visit there, meeting our guide and talking to the owner of the tour company, we were off! Our guide was the perfect mix of knowledgable and easy to talk to - and he lived in New York for a few years! Small world.
So we arrived at the entrance to the cenotes and set out in a little ATV-thing. Based on the tour description we'd printed out from the website, I thought we were headed to Dos Ojos, one of the more popular sets of cenotes in the area, which was right off of a main road. When we started down the bumpy dirt path through the jungle, I figured we were just taking the exciting back way to spice things up a little bit. Then we arrived at the cenote, still on the dirt path, still in the middle of the trees, with nobody else around, and after asking our guide we realized that we weren't going to Dos Ojos, but two semi-private cenotes. When our guide asked us whether Gran Cenote had been crowded yesterday, we all thought it hadn't been too bad. Then we went into our first cenote with only the five of us and we realized how different it was than the day before! Since none of us had ever been snorkeling before, it was nice that our first cenote was open to the sky, not very big, and not very deep. I had a few moments of "My face is in water, but I'm breathing??" panic but overall, it didn't take too long to get used to! Oh, and one of the best things? Our guide had a waterproof camera to document everything!
Our first successful snorkel completed, we walked a few minutes down the path to another cenote - and from the path, the only thing you could see of this one was a dark hole with steps descending into it. Which sounds about as foreboding as calling it a "sinkhole", but it really wasn't. And once we got to the bottom of the stairs, we were all in awe! We'd all been in caves before, on school trips (or in West Virginia with our mom!), and this one was just as beautiful as the caves we'd seen before - but it was filled with water, and we could swim in it! We had the whole cenote to ourselves again, and this time we each got waterproof flashlights to use. Even though scuba diving kind of terrifies me - the idea of swimming into a place that I couldn't escape from if something went wrong - this snorkel experience made me understand the appeal! With our flashlights, we could see into all the nooks and crannies under the surface, and there were big areas of blackness that were simultaneously kind of scary and exciting. Who knows where you could go if you dove down there!
After snorkeling all around the cave, we said our goodbyes to it and hopped back in the ATV. We went back on the dirt path, this time stopping at a pavilion where lunch had been prepared for us and a few other people on another tour. It was so delicious. Yucatan food, again, we had tacos - cochinita pibil (marinated pork, slow-cooked in a pit in the ground) and chicken. Since our guide said that the traditional toppings were pickled red onions and habanero peppers, I went for it, and it was perfect! I'd never really had habanero peppers before, but I really loved the pickled kind that we were served at most restaurants. They're pretty spicy and have such a good flavor! After our delicious tacos, veggies, and beer, we headed for Akumal Bay.
Akumal Bay is well known for the reason that we were there - sea turtles!! When we hopped out of the van, we were on a completely different beach than the beach we went to in Tulum. It was packed full of tourists, without very much space between beach towels. We dropped our stuff in a pile and walked into the ocean. The water was actually colder than the water in the cenotes - I guess even in Mexico, winter is winter. We walked out for so long before it started getting too deep, and then we just followed our guide in a search for turtles! We were told to observe from a distance and to definitely not touch them (which hadn't crossed my mind, but if they say it, it must mean people have tried it in the past!). After only a few minutes, we saw our first turtle! And then we saw a bunch more after that...it was so cool. Even though there were silly humans splashing around all over the surface, they were just munching on plants on the bottom and coming up for air every few minutes, completely ignoring us. They were huge! I think it's so special to be allowed into the world of other animals - like when Matt & I came upon the huge elk in the rainforest in Olympia NP. It kind of makes me feel unimportant in a good way, like looking at the stars, and more connected to the world. I think from time to time it's good to remember that the planet isn't just for us and we're just one of millions who are trying to survive! After we'd seen so many turtles, we came back to the beach, were promptly picked up by the van (our driver had impeccable timing) and were off to our last destination - Yal Ku lagoon. The lagoon is filled with a mixture of fresh water from a cenote and salt water from the ocean, so it was kind of crazy to snorkel in it because everything kind of looked like it was shimmering in a haze. But the fish! There were brightly colored fish everywhere! Huge ones, rainbow colored ones. It was almost like being in an aquarium tank!
Then it was suddenly time to head back to Tulum. It was such a fun adventure! I got to snorkel for the first time (great), visit two cenotes in a tiny group (amazing) and go on my first guided tour (I understand why they're so popular!). I was glad that Molly & Ryan picked the tour company they did, everyone we met was so nice (seriously, our driver was the nicest person in the world - even though we spoke hardly any Spanish and he hardly any English, it didn't matter!). And being a small company, they're concerned about protecting and not exploiting the area, so they're careful with the turtles and the cenotes and serve up Mayan food and hire local people. Our guide told us that if we're ever in the area again to give him a call and he'd just ride around wherever we wanted to go all day and give us a personalized tour. Okay!
Oh - and as an added bonus? When I asked our him about his favorite restaurant, he gave us the name of the place we ate for our last meal in Mexico - and it was probably our favorite of all of them. I'll post photos of it and you'll understand why!
Beautiful!
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