Thursday May 2nd was our 10 year anniversary.
I let Sam pick the excursion. He picked one that was done by National Geographic. They limit tour size to less than 12 people and they only have 4 groups go a day and only 4 days a week.
National Geographic partnered with a few local Mayan villages. They wanted to save the cenotes, and keep the mayan people from being pushed out of their land by big resorts.
I guess Cancun didn't pop up until the 1970's before that it was just little villages and those little villages and the Mayan civilizations are being pushed out to make more resorts for tourists.
Side note because Cancun is based around the tourist industry their other resources are really lacking like a school system because tourists don't need a school.
We took a dirt road off the main highway for quite a while and then "hiked" a little bit to get into their village.
There were alters and stuff set up along the way.
We went down into a cenote that the village uses like a church.
The shaman blessed us. He prayed to their higher power thanking him for letting us come because we were helping his people be able to stay there and not have to go out of the village to find work.
He burned some amber sap off one of the trees and had us breath in the smoke to cleanse our insides and blew it over us to cleanse our outsides. There was a little alter in there where he had some stuff set up. It was really really cool. The Mayans believe that there is heaven, earth and the underworld. But the underworld isn't hell, and the cenotes are the gateway to the underworld.
Even though the shaman had cleansed us we still rinsed off considering we were going to be swimming through their drinking water.
Trail down into one of the cenotes.
This is Servando, he was our guide. He is getting his graduate degree in Mexican History with a focus on the Mayans. He is from Mexico city and had so much knowledge. He has been working with the Mayans in these villages for almost 5 years now. He explained the ice ages and how the caves were formed and then the Mayan folklore behind it.
The cenotes were like Timpanogus Cave only filled with water. It was amazing.
We swam through the first Cenote and then repelled into the next.
Next we ziplined to another area of the Jungle.
The climb straight up to the zip line
The view from the top
Cenote at the bottom.
Our guide was able to tell us random stuff like there is a tree with alligator looking bark and black sap that will give you third degree chemical burns if you touch it. But it always grows very close to another tree that if you boil it's leaves it's the sav for the burn. There is a bunch of Mayan folklore about Good and Bad brothers.
Another Zip line
And then another that landed in another Cenote.
The bottom of the zip line.
Then we snorkeled through another Cenote
The cave had bats and blind cave fish in it. They used to have blind cave fish at the zoo.
After all that we went and had lunch in the Mayan Village. I asked about if it contained wheat and our guide chuckled at me and said they don't grow wheat so it's not going to be in their food. Every thing was made by the village. They had made their own cheese, sour cream, empanadas, soups, chicken every thing was made, grown right there. It was very delicious. And did you know that each Mayan village makes their cheese slightly different so all taste slightly different.
After lunch we had ziplined/ swam so far into the Jungle that we had to take an old WW2 vehicle out. It was quite a 4 wheeling ride.
We had an opportunity to buy some local stuff that was made there in the village. This guy had made a bunch stuff out of clay. They had a kindof makeshift pottery wheel. It was really cool. We got a Jaguar call. They don't use them much any more because most of the jaguars have been killed but it sounds really cool. All the stuff you could buy had been blessed by the Shaman too.
After we got back from the Jungle it was late afternoon. So we went out to the beach and to the pool. While at the pool we took a scuba lesson.
During the scuba lesson it started to pour.
But cleared up quickly
This is Regonald our scuba instructor he was French.
After we finished our lesson it started to down pour again.
Us running back to our room across the resort
We cleaned up and went to a nice dinner. On Sam's tablet there is a pic of us in Sum-barrows at dinner because they knew it was our anniversary. But I don't know how to get the pics off there yet so it will just be something you have to picture in your head.
We talked alot at dinner but that will be another post.
