Cave and Cenote Diving - ??? and X-Batun
Merida, Yucatan, Mexico
The second day of trip took as back through Abalá and on to the village of Mucuyché where we met up with Dionisio, who would help us with access to the cenote.
The local shop in Abalá where we stop to get a few things for breakfast before moving on to the cenote in the nearby town of Mucuyché.
Mucuyché is a pretty typical small mayan village. The small houses are very sparsely furnished and have hammocks strung up inside. The roofs are high allowing hot air to rise which keeps the inside cool. The kitchen and eating area are at the back of this building and are usually constructed from woven sticks.
The cenote we were to dive is obscured by the very green depression on the extreme right hand side of this picture. The house behind the car in this picture was the venue for a party, as we were setting up the villagers at the party brought us drinks. We were then invited to lunch at another villagers house after our dive. Mucuyché is a very friendly village!
A long time ago this cenote provided water to the village. The platform that we would rappel from once used for hauling buckets though has been invaded by the jungle. Tony here is thinking about how we can get down.
20 minutes with machetes and the village has a platform back to haul water if they ever have the desire! The crossbar we would rappel from though definitely looked like it should be retired
We take turns to don climbing harnesses and rappel into the water below where we wait for our scuba equipment to be lowered to us
Juan (right) swears to buy spring heels for after breaking a strap and losing a fin to the murk below. I had serious issues with my Halcyon HID primary light which refused to ignite. Spare fins and a spare light , this time a nice reliable Dive Rite halogen, had to be lowered down to us! The delay in total was probably about 40 minutes that we spent bobbing around.
Dive over. We follow our new villager friend back to her house where a lunch of turkey stew and tortillas awaits. We are attended to by her family and meet her son. It turns out the party we saw while setting up gear was his birthday party.
Cenote ??? was certainly not looking at its best. The water would normally have been crystal clear and not this muddy color. A recent rainfall had caused the top layers of water to be discolored by runoff. There is no easy way to access the water surface without rappelling.
Nobody had been near the cenote for a while, the track was OK for four leg drive, but not for our truck, but with a bit of hacking with a machete and some pushing and shoving we eventually made it to what is considered by some to be the prettiest cenote in Yucatan State.
The vertical drop is about 12m. Looking closely at this picture (click to enlarge) you can see daniel and myself in the water below which gives a good idea of the scale.
Anybody who has dived this kind of cenote understands the very enjoyable peace while bobbing around listening to the sounds of the forest, watching the damsel flies skit over the surface like mini helicopters and looking up the vines. If someone speaks the peace shatters, so you tend to whisper! Very special!
After lunch we still have some daylight and so push on to get in a last dive. This cenote is called X-Batun (pronounced Ish Batoon). My pictures from X-Batun are pretty bad, and so day 2 ends here.
