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Our Year of Adventure
Breakfast came out our room fridge this morning, the jet lag was wearing off and we needed to be at the dive shop for 8:30am. William, with 17 years diving experience in the Yucatan was our driver and guide today. He was taking us to two cenotes, again just south of Playa and surprisingly close to the main highway.
At first glance Jardin del Eden (Eden Garden) Cenote just looked like a big swimming pool with beautiful green water. The pool was full of little turtles and fish, while on the shore big iguanas lazily paraded around and sunned themselves. Looking more closely, the pool dropped off dramatically in one spot near the edge - this was the entrance to a totally new experience for David.
The cavern system dropped below sea level meaning that there were two layers of water, salt on the bottom with fresh on the top and they don't mix (think back to Chemistry at school). When a diver passes through, they essentially shake and mix the two layers causing a hazy effect until the two layers separate again. Being the last diver in the group of four, David didn't actually need a torch, he could just follow the blurry shapes and lights of the other divers. There were also shafts of light coming down through holes in the roof. It was almost dreamlike and very surreal. When outside the layered water, the visibility is crystal clear giving perfect views of rock formations, sealife fossils and light coming down from above.
We drove a little further down the highway to Tajma Há Cenote. The drive from the highway to the actual cenote was quite a lot further into the jungle than the others and it makes you wonder how people actually find these things in the first place. The pool itself was very unremarkable and not much bigger than a backyard swimming pool. It was very deceptive though, with a quick decent at the back of the pool, we were taken into a cavern system with rooms as big as sports halls. Again, there was amazing rock formations and fossils being accentuated with natural lighting through shaft holes. All this natural beauty was only available to divers even though it was almost in touching distance for those on the surface.
During lunch, the resident dog suddenly gave up begging for a taste of bocadillo and bolted into a clearing at the edge of the jungle. A coati (an animal like a racoon), was waltzing past and the dog didn't like it. Luckily for the, either stupid or brave, dog it didn't actually catch up with the coati because they have claws that can rip open logs.
We spent the rest of the afternoon reading by the pool, trying to work out what we will do next week. We tried a fish restaurant by the beach for dinner. The location was fantastic but perhaps we arrived too close to closing because the food was bit dry.
At first glance Jardin del Eden (Eden Garden) Cenote just looked like a big swimming pool with beautiful green water. The pool was full of little turtles and fish, while on the shore big iguanas lazily paraded around and sunned themselves. Looking more closely, the pool dropped off dramatically in one spot near the edge - this was the entrance to a totally new experience for David.
The cavern system dropped below sea level meaning that there were two layers of water, salt on the bottom with fresh on the top and they don't mix (think back to Chemistry at school). When a diver passes through, they essentially shake and mix the two layers causing a hazy effect until the two layers separate again. Being the last diver in the group of four, David didn't actually need a torch, he could just follow the blurry shapes and lights of the other divers. There were also shafts of light coming down through holes in the roof. It was almost dreamlike and very surreal. When outside the layered water, the visibility is crystal clear giving perfect views of rock formations, sealife fossils and light coming down from above.
We drove a little further down the highway to Tajma Há Cenote. The drive from the highway to the actual cenote was quite a lot further into the jungle than the others and it makes you wonder how people actually find these things in the first place. The pool itself was very unremarkable and not much bigger than a backyard swimming pool. It was very deceptive though, with a quick decent at the back of the pool, we were taken into a cavern system with rooms as big as sports halls. Again, there was amazing rock formations and fossils being accentuated with natural lighting through shaft holes. All this natural beauty was only available to divers even though it was almost in touching distance for those on the surface.
During lunch, the resident dog suddenly gave up begging for a taste of bocadillo and bolted into a clearing at the edge of the jungle. A coati (an animal like a racoon), was waltzing past and the dog didn't like it. Luckily for the, either stupid or brave, dog it didn't actually catch up with the coati because they have claws that can rip open logs.
We spent the rest of the afternoon reading by the pool, trying to work out what we will do next week. We tried a fish restaurant by the beach for dinner. The location was fantastic but perhaps we arrived too close to closing because the food was bit dry.
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