Grand Cenote

After visiting Coba the next stop on our adventure was to Grand Cenote.  There are hundreds of cenotes around here.  Cenotes are deep natural wells of water-- freshwater.  In part the Mayan civilization was built around these life preserving sink holes. They come in all sorts of shapes and sizes.  Some are completely underground and accessed only through caves, others are open air.  Most are a combination of both.  The water is refreshing and crystal clear.

Here's the next clue for the kids: "There are sacred caves to explore with depths so deep.  Swing on a jungle vine for a thrill, don’t let the bats give you a cold-blooded chill!"

We stopped at a roadside souvenir shop.  I picked up a fabulous beach blanket and Darin, Rose, and Ginger talked their Dad into getting a family of iguanas.  Nathan fell asleep in the car. 

The girls were so cute making up stories with their lizards.

They put Nathan's in his lap to give him a scare when he woke up!

It costs 120 pesos (about $9 US) per adult (or 12 years +) to swim at this cenote.  Kids are free.  The only underhanded experience we had our entire road trip happened here.  The men at the gate kept trying to insist on having us pay for the girls but I had done research before and knew that they should be free.  Then they tried to make us pay for one girl.  Actually all ruins and cenotes are free for those under 12. And on Sundays they are free for Mexican Nationals.  Between Ken arguing back in Spanish and me arguing in English they ended up waiving us through (not very happily) without paying for the girls.  We were pretty low on pesos because everything from the hotel to gas in Tulum had to be paid for in pesos.

All of that was forgotten when we laid our eyes on this beautiful cenote!  It was gorgeous.  This cenote is quite developed with wooden stairs and a shack to rent snorkel equipment and life vests.

The first thing the girls were enamored with was the little turtles.  

Half of this cenote is exposed to the air, the other part is in caves.  

The water is so clear and it really does look this blue (or blue-er:)

I really do mean crystal clear.  Those rocks at the bottom are probably a good 15 feet down.

It's mighty chilly though the first time you hop in.

The caves were so cool, what amazing rock formations.

The kids commented on how this place looks exactly like what you would expect a jungle swimming hole to look like.  It was so pretty.

We swam through a cave to a connected cenote.  There was a sandy shelf, but that black part on the side is where it dropped off and got very deep.  This is a popular place with scuba divers.  There is another cenote on the property that we didn't go to, but from the looks of it, it looks like mostly only scuba divers go there.  We saw one scuba diver come up and the kids thought that was cool to see him treading water 10 feet below as he adjusted before coming up.

This cave was so cool.  Those black spots are bats hanging upside down.  It was pretty awesome, maybe 8-12 feet above the water

They flew around us some in the early afternoon, but later that night when we were leaving at 5pm they were super active.  It was awesome!  Especially because we were completely by ourselves.  Just us and bats flying a few feet above our head.  Every single kid remarked on how this was way better then our bat experience in Austin with Uncle Carl and Jason.  They want them to come visit Mexico with us next time!

More pictures of the cave.  Cenotes are formed when the limestone collapses.

We had so much fun swimming here.  We stayed all afternoon.  It's nice because they have buoys tied on a line leading off to two different cave areas.  It's nice to grab on the lines when I start to get freaked out in the caves:)

This was in the second cenote where it is sandy and very shallow.  Part of the reason I chose this cenote was because of this area.  I thought that it would be better for the girls to wade in and Ken and the boys could go off and explore.  But we really didn't spend the bulk of our time here.  Instead the girls wanted to be by the turtles and fishes in the 25+ feet deep water area.

We had their life vests though so they were safe.

And they really liked to snorkel.  Especially around the edges of the cave where it would drop off.

Darin wished that we had brought an underwater light so they could see more of what was down there.  Some parts were pretty scary.

Ken was the only one brave enough to get close to this dark pit.  But, even he didn't last too long.

More bats!

We were able to swing on a jungle vine.  Just not how I thought. In one cave roots like these grew all the way down to just above the water and we swung on those for a little bit.  But, I thought there would be a place for cliff jumping and there wasn't.  

 Chasing turtles around.

We did jump off the platform into the deep water a number of times.  Rose was the bravest and she went first.  She had the hugest smile when she got out.  Especially when me and Darin were chickens and totally scared to do it.  But I told her if she did it that we all would, it just so happened that she had to do it 15 times before we finally did!

Ken showed us how to first too.

I still can't believe how adventuresome she was one our trip.  She was not scared one bit and was up for anything!

We did it!  The water is probably 20 feet deep here.  It's super scary jumping from 5 feet above and never hitting bottom.

Ken and I took Darin snorkeling in the deep cave.  It was so awesome! There were unbelieveable formations of stalagmites and stalactites.  We tried to get pictures but they did not turn out at all.  Everything was lit very well from the opening out in the center.  We even saw a 3 foot long old turtle on the bottom.  The rocks and plants were amazing, like nothing we have ever experienced. 

There were tons of little minnow size fishes and a number of 4 inch long catfish looking fish.  We have this thing when we are on vacation where the kids always ask me how much I'll pay them to catch a crab or a fish or whatever.  They get super into it and I rarely ever have to pay up.  So I told them I would pay them 25 pesos if they caught a fish.

Nathan, our little naturalist, caught over 20 of those little minnow fish.  It was unbelievable, especially because he caught it barehanded and had to swim to me with it in his hand before he released it..  After he caught his first one he asked if I would pay him for every single one.  Thankfully, I said no, so he only got paid once.  The little stinker went and caught a fish for each one of siblings and handed it off to them so they could show me.  Sometimes multiple times because the girls would drop it in the water.  Honestly, I couldn't believe that they girls would hold those jumping little fishes in their hand for that long because I was often 20 feet away from them.

This was magical cenote and we all loved our time here!  We were so grateful to be touring on our own.  Lots of the tour companies will stop at a few cenotes on the way home from the ruins but they only give you 45 minutes or an hour to explore.  That's really hardly anytime to explore them.  I remember on one of our previous trips the 45 minutes barely gave us enough time to walk the hundreds of steps to the bottom and we were only in the water for 10 minutes before we had to go.  I was kind of worried because I heard this cenote was popular with tour companies and locals, but we never felt crowded and for most of it we were pretty much alone with just two other families.  It was such a wonderful day!