When visiting Yucatan, you will most likely not get around hearing or visiting and swimming cenotes, which are often found in between Campeche and Cancun. I will tell you everything you need to know about Cenotes in Yucatan and how to find a good one!
What are cenotes?
How much do you need to pay for the entrance?
It can depend, from a few pesos close to $1 up to $25 it is all possible, it depends a lot on where you book and what you find.
There is not this one price for visiting a cenote!
The price is depending on the cenote itself.
- Popular ones are more expensive
- When doing a tour you be charged more
- When speaking no Spanish it might be a bit more expensive
- Try to negotiate the price, or just come with a local, if you have someone with you
Generally speaking it is not as expensive per entrance of a cenote, if you are checking good.
How to find a good cenote?
This is actually a quite tricky part. There are of course the main cenotes, about which you are able to read online or find on flyers. But there are so many more places where you can go and most of the time even cheaper and without international tourists.
I was with a local, who was my Couchsurfing host. It was during my time in Merida.
He had a free day and wanted to show the surrounding and visiting cenotes was part of it.
We drove to a place, not that far from Merida in the Cenote Mani-Chan region, where it is possible to find many cenotes.
Once we arrived in the little town, everywhere were signs of cenotes and some tours were being offered as well.
In total we had to ask many people in order to get some proper information, of course in Spanish only. We went to four different ones. There were a few huge ones, these ones also had infrastructure around them, like a place to sit down and even a restaurant.
The bigger cenotes were also known from many and are able to be found online.
The special cenotes are the small ones, the ones for which you need to ask the locals and enter backyards.
So how to find a actually good cenote?
- Talking to locals in the regions of the cenotes!
- Try to avoid the touristy ones!
- When you can read about one cenote, it is not the hidden gem!
- Try out several in order to find the right one for you!
Small Cenotes are the special one!
While searching for the cenotes in Yucatan, you want to find the small and unique ones.
Of course you are not able to swim so much in them or explore not as much, but you are able to get some peace, without many people to ruin it.
We found one cenote, for which we had to go through the whole garden and found the hidden gem at the end of it. There was basically nobody once we arrived.
It was a little cenote, which looked really beautiful.
The water was at a decent temperature and very clean as well. In the end it is business for the locals.
Summary
Cenotes in Yucatan belong together with the trip itself.
They are special and can be really nice to see.
It is a sight you should add to your trip and even though it is very touristic, it is possible to find hidden gems.
Each cenote is different, some after overcrowding, others empty.
In the bigger ones you are able to explore more and the smaller ones are peaceful.
There is not one way of exploring them, but it is good to know that there are small undiscovered ones outside of the tourist mentioned ones.
Try it out for yourself and let me know about how it all went.
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