What it’s like to swim in a cenote

For some reason, I pictured cenotes to be kind of like sinkholes on the side of the road. I don’t know where I got this from, but I had this whole image of a highway worker picking up trash, seeing a cenote, stepping around it, and calling over his shoulder to the next guy, “Hey! Don’t step in that!”

Actually, cenotes — from what I’ve gathered anyway — are way too large for someone to accidentally dunk his foot. They’re natural, fresh-water pools, and some are in caves. The ones I visited on a hacienda outside Cuzama in the Yucatan were dark, serene, eerie, mystical things. Swimming in them was a brain trip. How does one swim in a cave? Aren’t caves for walking and peering at gnarly, witch-fingery rock formations?

We traveled to these cenotes by horse-drawn buggy, because there’s no other way to reach them unless you want to walk for 8 kilometers in the blistering sun. At the first cenote, we climbed down a set of rickety wooden stairs and found a calm, blue sheet of glass. It didn’t even look like water. I was kind of scared. Maybe Nessie at Loch Ness had a Yucatecan cousin?

Our guide was amused. “They’re completely safe,” he said.

So we started swimming, which is really the only way to see everything. Tree roots hung down from the ceiling like Rapunzel hair. It was amazingly quiet, as if the mouth of the cave had suddenly inhaled and was now waiting while we finished our frolicking. Before the loud American teenagers got there, the only sounds were of Joy and I pushing and pulling the water, and the occasional bat making a weird, high-pitched noise. (And then me saying, “Oh god, are there bats here?”)

The Yucatan has more than 5,000 cenotes, about 3,000 of which are “registered,” meaning the state knows generally where they are. Our guide laughed when I asked if they had healing powers.

I really can’t wait to swim in them again. It was among the weirdest, coolest experiences ever. Next time I’m bringing proper shoes and a towel though. My cute little Privo flats were pretty much ruined after this trip.