After hiking through sun-dappled, green-lit jungle in my bathing suit, shorty wetsuit and sandals, I descended a winding stone staircase and a series of rough-hewn wooden ladders to a mossy platform above the clear waters of Cenote Dos Ojos, one of the most popular diving caves of the Mexican Riviera. Gleeful shouts of children jumping into the water and the splashing sounds of enthusiastic snorkelers echoed off the vaulted limestone ceiling as I donned my scuba gear.
Peering into the depths of the crystalline water, I saw boulders and sharp stalagmites thrusting up from the bottom of the vast pool and forming the entrance to this mysterious and intriguing aquatic chamber. Nicolas, my guide, turned to me and asked, “Estás lista?” I adjusted my mask, took a deep breath and smiled. “Sí, por supuesto.” It was time to explore the shadowy depths of the cenotes. Cenotes — natural wells — originated during the mass extinction event that occurred 65 million years ago. An asteroid the size of San Francisco, traveling at almost 18 miles per second, hurtled from deep space, smashing into the Yucatan Peninsula near the Gulf of Mexico. Molten rock, ash and other ejected debris were flung into the upper atmosphere, darkening our entire planet. It is now widely accepted that this collision, either on its own or in concert with other events, led to the demise of the dinosaurs. Luckily, many early mammals — among them human ancestors — survived the disaster.
The impact caused the thick limestone bedrock of the Yucatán to vaporize and release its stored carbon dioxide, resulting in uniquely fissured, porous rock. Over subsequent millennia a combination of natural phenomena — including rainwater corrosion, water table decline during the ice age and flooding — carved a vast network of subterranean aquatic caves in the stone and later exposed them to the world. The resulting labyrinth filled with fresh spring water to become a diver’s playground. Tough break for the dinosaurs but a fortunate happenstance for cave-diving enthusiasts.
I had learned about cenotes only recently. When planning my trip to Tulum, a coastal village about two hours south of Cancun, I envisioned morning jogs on white sand beaches and plunges into the foaming aquamarine waves that break for miles along the shore. I anticipated reading by the pool, admiring the daring exploits of kite surfers and diving the coral reefs just offshore from the bluffs that lift ancient Maya ruins toward the sky. Only when I’d I settled into my seat on the plane to Mexico did I begin leafing through the guidebook I had tucked into my backpack. Let’s see, what to do? About 40 minutes later I had my answer: Dive the cenotes.
Shortly after arrival, my family departed the lovely yet simple Ana y José hotel and set off along Boca Paila Road to find the MexiDivers kiosk in Tulum’s retail zone. By the time we passed the casual tourism police checkpoint at the end of the row of eco resorts, yoga retreats and open-air restaurants, I was eager to talk diving. At the kiosk, having verified our dive credentials, Nicolas described our options — exploring cenotes or diving offshore reefs. We chose both.
Our adventure began among shaggy roots of mangrove trees bordering the turquoise-green water of Cenote Manatee, an open-air lagoon. We wove our way through craggy ravines flooded with a confluence of fresh- and saltwater currents that created vision-obstructing haloclines. We hovered over a tangle of crabs feasting upon the shrunken remains of a turtle tucked beneath a rocky outcropping, then we floated with the lazy current, back the way we came.
In Cenote Dos Ojos we slithered among limestone columns in the darkness, led only by the dim glow of our flashlights and the golden guideline strung through the caves to prevent us from straying into the eerily beckoning peripheral caverns. We surfaced in dark caves filled with crystalline water only to be assaulted by the screeching of hundreds of bats darting and diving in the dim recesses above us. Quickly submerging, I thought it funny how swiftly perceptions can change — the usually alien underwater world was a welcoming and hospitable place in the face of a hoard of beating, leathery wings.
Winding through the many tunnels and chambers of Gran Cenote, we carefully maneuvered around delicate stalactites and stalagmites to avoid erasing decades of geological development with a single misplaced fin kick. We threaded our way among the submerged pilings of an old wooden structure. At one time it was scaffolding to provide access to the cave via the natural oculus in the domed ceiling; now the collapsed ladder stretched in vain toward the shaft of sunlight and roots dangling just beyond its reach. Hmm, who built you? With no time to pause, we moved on, skimming along the cave floor amid hundreds of tiny fish.
We emerged at last into the sparkling waters of a huge cavern, cracked wide open to the lushness of the sunny green jungle above. As we carefully ascended the slimy, wobbly steps of the ladder to our exit, I looked around to see the same awed and jubilant expression on the others’ faces. In that moment we felt lucky — lucky that out of the devastation of a cataclysmic event, were given the gift of the cenotes. Lucky to have found Tulum. Lucky to be divers.
Sacred Waters
The cenotes of the Yucatan were the lifeblood of the Maya Empire. Unlike many other ancient civilizations, which formed around the Ganges, the Euphrates or the Yangtze rivers, the fresh water on which the Maya depended was mostly beneath the surface. Today there is a dedicated cave-diving community that is immersed in exploration of the Yucatan’s underwater caves. During the 1997 Nohoch Nah Chich project, Mike Madden and his Cedam cave-diving team found that 36 cenotes were connected by more than 42 miles of underwater caves that plunged to depths of more than 230 feet.
Photographer Kurt Amsler visited on assignment in 2008 to document the presentation of a Rolex Award for Enterprise to Arturo Gonzalez, a Mexican biologist and underwater archaeologist. The Gonzalez team discovered human remains estimated to be 11,600 years old and ancient fireplaces 100 feet below the surface, certain evidence of dramatically different sea levels, perhaps 300 feet lower than today.
Beyond the obvious recreational attraction of the cenotes, they provide a wealth of information about the history of the region. According to Gonzalez, “As an inhabitant of the Americas, I’m interested in knowing who these people were, where they came from and when their first steps in the Americas occurred. In these sites we can find the archaeological contexts just about as they were left by the people of the Ice Age. It’s a great treasure.”
© Alert Diver — Q3 Summer 2011