From this introduction, can you guess already what I did today? It's pretty obvious: of course I went diving in two of the cenotes close to Tulum. What I found out is that cavern diving is nothing less than spectacular. The preparation for the dive was pretty similar to any other dive: wet suit, BCD, regulator, tank, mask, fins. But then our guide had two tanks with him as a safety measure, and we all got a flashlight to be able to see inside the caverns. There were also a couple of new signals for communication. Since the regular hand signals can't be seen very well in the darkness, they get replaced by flashlight signals as much as possible - and by the advice to always point the flashlight to your signaling hand if you do have to use hand signals.
The first cenote, Calavera, was very unspectacular seen from the top: just a 5x5 meter hole filled with water. Underwater, however, it quickly became apparent that the measly hole was just the gateway to a whole new world. The coolest feature of this cavern was that it had both a halocline and a thermocline. A halocline is the area where sweet water meets salt water. Since they have different densities, they don't mix, and so you can see the plane where the two waters meet. When you pass trough the halocline, you inevitably create a bit of a mixture with your fins. If you swim directly behind another diver, the visible plane disappears and instead your vision becomes blurry and you can't see much at all due to the sweet-salt mixture. Fascinating! In Calavera, the halocline coincided with a thermocline: the salt water was about 5 degrees warmer than the sweet water. I loved changing back and forth between the two layers - and hovering with the eyes just at the location of the two clines :-)
The second cenote, called Gran Cenote, was a lot bigger than Calavera: it is an entry point to the second longest underground river system in the world, totaling more than 200km. The part we explored in our dive was also a lot more shallow than Calavera. With a maximum depth of 10 meters it was so shallow that I could take my camera with me.
The underground landscape, with stalagmites and stalactites everywhere, was just gorgeous. It was also very, very dark: without flashlights we wouldn't have seen much at all. The illumination in the next picture is what my flashlight was capable of; our guide had a more powerful one that made for comfortable diving light-wise.
Coming back towards the cenote's surface, the blue light streaming in created a wonderful view:
After the dives, I took a bus to Playa del Carmen, the next city on my list. On the way to my hostel there I suddenly remembered that I had left my towel and bikini on a clothesline in the Tulum hostel to dry. So I checked in and then hopped straight onto the next bus back to Tulum to pick up my stuff. Lucky for me that Playa del Carmen and Tulum are only about an hour from each other!
In the evening, I strolled through Playa del Carmen. At first, it seemed like a regular Mexican tourist city, just a little more crowded; but then I hit the 'strip' - Avenida 5. I was instantly disgusted. It was filled with European and American package tourists, and the restaurants, souvenir shops, massage parlors, jewelry shops, etc. catering to them. There wasn't a trace of real Mexico left in this street. I shudder to think what Cancun might look like; from what I've read it's even worse. Well, since nobody is forcing me to stay any longer than necessary, I definitely won't spend a lot of time here!
