Mayan Adventure Tour with Aventuras Mayas

My main goal for our Cancun trip was to swim in a cenote. A cenote is a natural freshwater pool created when the limestone rock that makes up the soil of the Yucatan Peninsula collapses into the aquifer. There are thousands of cenotes near Cancun, but most of the cenote tours I found when I was researching were part of a day trip to Tulum or Chichen Itza. Then I read about the Mayan Adventure tour with Aventuras Mayas, which included snorkeling in three different ecosystems – a lagoon, an underground cenote, and an open-air cenote with a zipline into the water. It was exactly what I was looking for!

The tour company picked us up at Beach Palace at 7:40 for the ride to Playa del Carmen, where we made a brief stop to switch vans and join our guide Jose and rest of the tour group. Then we drove a little further south, past Puerto Aventuras where we turned off the highway and rode a few bumpy miles inland to our first snorkel site, the open cenote. After Jose set us up with lockers to store our beach bags, he led us to the zipline platform high above the beautiful blue-green water. Ron and I each got to zipline twice, and it was so much fun that I wished we had time to do it again. We also had a chance to jump off a 12-foot-high platform into the water, but we both chickened out on that. As we were ziplining, there were several photographers taking pictures that we could purchase later.

photo by Aventuras Mayas

photo by Aventuras Mayas

photo by Aventuras Mayas

photo by Aventuras Mayas

Next Jose handed out snorkel masks and we had 20 minutes or so to snorkel before moving on to the second cenote, Aktun Koh, which was only a 5-minute walk down the dirt road. We’d snorkeled in Aktun Koh before, on our Snorkel Xtreme tour with Aventuras Mayas back in 2014. I’d thought swimming in a cave was one of the coolest things we’d done, and I enjoyed it just as much the second time. In the dim light filtering in from the entrance, we could see 20-feet down through the crystal-clear water to the cavern floor. Jose had a small flashlight and pointed out the bats nestled among the stalactites on the ceiling and a blue crayfish that was the size of a small lobster. Tiny catfish swam under our feet. It was really a unique experience.

After we exited the cave, we ate lunch together – a buffet of chicken, rice and black beans, guacamole and salad. We paid for our pictures and then piled back into the van for the ride to the last site, Yal-Ku Lagoon.

Yal-Ku, which means “fish nest” in Mayan, is a freshwater cenote that feeds into a protected ocean bay. This mixing of freshwater and seawater made it the perfect environment for many different species of fish. As we swam through the mangroves and rock formations, we spotted parrot fish, wrasse, angel fish and even a barracuda. There was a huge school of blue tang that didn’t seem to mind me swimming along with them. At times, the water had a blurry look as the fresh and salt water tried to combine. Just as we were climbing out of the water, a large group of snorkelers arrived. I thanked Jose for timing all our stops so that we were never in a crowd of people.

The tour was the highlight of our trip. Each of the three snorkel sites was beautiful and different. I loved ziplining at the open cenote, the wonderment of swimming inside a cave, and the colorful fish at the lagoon. Now I can’t wait to get back to Mexico and explore more of its cenotes.

Travel tips: Bring a dry change of clothes for the ride back to your hotel and a rash guard to wear while snorkeling. Sunscreen is not allowed in the cenotes as it contaminates the water and damages the ecosystem. We purchased the full set of photos taken at the open cenote for $75. They only accepted cash, so I was glad we’d brought enough. We received an email the following day with a link to our pictures.