Cenote Dzitnup and Isla Mujeres

Cenote Dzitnup

while in valladolid, we went to the cenote dzitnup. cenotes are underground caves with water in them where you can swim- supposedly these specific formations exist only in the yucatan and nowhere else in the world. the yucatan has no above-ground rivers because of the rock and soil composition: we did see some swamp-like areas, but i guess otherwise the water goes underground.

to enter cenote dzitnup we had to practically crawl through the opening to get to a huge cavern, with a hole at the top and sunlight streaming in. we could see a few bats, and there were long tree roots hanging down to the water that you could swing on. the swimming was nice! we couldn´t fail to notice yet another humorous mistranslation: "careful rocks are slepering," so we were very quiet in order not to wake the slepering rocks.

Isla Mujeres

we´ve been in isla mujeres, a small island off cancun, since fri., and have been enjoying the laid-back lifestyle of the beach. we were able to rent an apartment for the time we´re here, so have been very comfortable and able to cook for ourselves.

the beach here is totally different from the beach in oaxaca: here there are almost no waves, the water is really shallow, there´s a lot of white sand and little variation in the water level from the tides. the water can be all different colors, from clear to turquoise to a darker blue. the light also seems brighter, but the main similarity is that it´s really hot! we´ve done a good job avoiding sunburn so far.

other than going to the beach, our only activity has been taking a snorkeling boat trip. we snorkeled in two spots, one next to a coral reef (although the coral didn´t look very alive). saw lots of fish: tiny irridescent minows, medium-sized yellow fish that would be right on top of each other in a school, purple fish and rainbow fish and barracudas. we fed some of the fish with tortillas. the trip ended with a delicious grilled mackerel meal in a restaurant.

one of the spots we snorkeled at was next to one of several ships blown/wrecked by hurricane wilma last year, there´s also pretty extensive damage on one side of the island. not surprisingly, the mexican government´s first priority in rebuilding from the hurricane was areas like cancun, we´ve heard that parts of chiapas were also extensively damaged and that there´s been basically no rebuilding aid for them.