Day 13 23.07.15
Wow wow wow wow wow! That is all I can say. Wow. I had such an amazing day! The best :)
So we had breakfast in the hotel, just something small, and headed off on our bus to the Cenotes – Sink holes. These are holes in the ground, formed probably from meteorite landings that have caused little caves to form that are filled with clear azur blue water. Incredible!
Let me stay chronological. The first highlight of the day was that after about 20 minutes we pulled from the free way and ended up having our bus break down. This was great fun, as someone from our tour is a technical engineer. We joked about, had something to drink at the nearby restaurant, but in the end a new bus came to pick us up. So on we went.
We arrived at a parking space where we were told that we would be taken to the sinkholes by horse carriage. But wait. Not what you would think this is, but little waggons on rails pulled mainly by horses. I have never been transported in such a way. You really had to put your trust in these rails and look onwards as the horses sometimes would break into gallop.
We then changed the method of transport and went on a tuc tuc; a motorcycle with the front leaving room for passengers. Very bumpy but still an experience! At the end of this ride another set of rails, carriages / waggons and horses awaited us. Where were we heading??? When we stopped we were in the middle of nowhere. It was basically saying stop here, go into the bushes and walk on for forever. But then we quickly came across the “hole in the ground”. A slightly dodgy ladder / walkway helped us get down to the actually water. And this my friends, was a pure jewel!
Blue waters, some lianas were hanging down from the ceiling, there were several ledges from which you could jump into the 30 metres deep water. How grand! We really enjoyed ourselves there taking many photos, films and just swimming about. At one point there were people abseiling from the ceiling, it was just a whole lot of fun! We were sad to leave but were promised another sinkhole.
And so we hopped on to the waggon express :) and arrived at the next sinkhole.
This time it was a pure ladder, which was a lot steeper than the first. It was a real traffic jam getting two groups out and in at the same time. Inside the cave again we found the clear blue waters and experienced a very serene feel. That changed as we started jumping in again and snorkelling about.
We were surprised as to how many people were down there that actually couldn’t swim. We all suggested one needed to be quite an experienced swimmer when coming down to the sinkhole without a lifejacket – and trust me, some did. One girl even grabbed on to a fellow travellers neck while trying to get to the safety of the ledge. There are ropes inside the sinkholes stretched from one side to the other to give you a break while swimming in the middle every once in a while. But still, if you really want to enjoy it and not make yourself a danger to others – only go there if you properly know how to swim!
Onwards we went because we were promised another sinkhole. We drove back on carriage and on the tuc tuc (this time to save space I rode on the back of the motorcycle with the guy driving it…) and hopped back onto our truck to the next sinkhole. This sinkhole was an open sinkhole and reminded me of some sort of scene from Jurassic Park. You had bats flying around the walls covered in stalactites and in the centre of the sinkhole was a big piece of land with plants on. On the side you could go for your swim in the clear blue waters, but this sinkhole was a lot more “dangerous”… One of my travel companions was severely attacked by some bat poo coming from above. :) No, just kidding nothing happened, hes fine!
We then got back on the bus, drove to a place for linner (lunch + dinner – similar to the word brunch), which was the exact same place we had gone to when we were stranded waiting for the replacement bus. It was some good food, I had some grilled “steak” while the others enjoyed Cochinita Pibil – always a good choice.
We drove back afterwards to the hotel and went out for a couple of drinks at the bar La Negrita, where we had been the day before too.
What a great choice! It was bustling there when we arrived and live music was playing. As soon as we had found a seat however, the singer announced that that had been the last song of the evening. Suddenly a table of older men started shouting “otra, otra, otra” / “another one, another one”, and the singer looked also at our table and here I was begging him to play another. He agreed under the condition that we would dance to his next salsa song. Suddenly there was a hand next to me offering me to dance a bit of salsa.
Oh it was so great dancing again after all this time! Unfortunately that was his last song and after that the bar went quieter and started to get emptier and emptier. We drank up our drinks, which came in two sizes, one normal glass size and one that came in a jar. It’s such a lovely place there! I can recommend it to anyone who is travelling through Merida. The only bad part about it is that they close at 10:00…
