No. 229 Swim in a Santa Rosa cenote

Located only 60 minutes away from Mérida, you can find Santa Rosa Cenotes, which offers a concept of calm, nature, and culture. In the tourist complex you can find a restaurant offering a wide variety of traditional dishes from the region and liquors tasting, a hammock resting area, a handcrafts area, among other services. There are two cenotes, an enclosed one, within a grotto, and an open one which offers a unique environment of crystalline waters.

Besides being surrounded by nature, you will find a lot of culture, as one of its main objectives is to preserve traditions as most as possible: garments, food, handcrafts, folk dance, and many more things from the Mayan ancestors.

Cenote Pueblo Fantasma is a mystical place that charms visitors for its beautiful, enclosed water spring, surrounded by huge stalactites. The entry is through wooden stairs and, due to the fact that it is an enclosed cave, some wheels were built inside, which offer a better illumination and visibility. You can see the marvelous water spring from the heights and dive jump into its crystalline waters, which are surrounded by big mineral formations. Besides this cenote, you can also visit a second cenote, in which you can only admire its beauty, as it is not enabled for water activities.

The place has a mysterious legend that tells that the village ran out of inhabitants, and ever since, you can hear sounds and voices. Dare to visit this intriguing place and enjoy the closeness to nature.

Xbatún Village, ancient cuisine, offers a distinct experience by cooking with cooks, descendants from the Mayas. The tour starts at the municipality’s market Donato Bates, doing the shopping for the cuisine workshop, then, you will go to Ix Cat Ik restaurant, where the cooking is outdoors, in the garden. The experience consists in the preparation of four kinds of dishes: three entrées without meat and a main course with pork, besides, a cocoa dessert is prepared. The food is prepared with fresh ingredients, focusing on the flavor and quality, following the ancient recipes of authentic dishes of the traditional Mayan cuisine. Ix Cat Ik is a unique place where food becomes an artwork and a paramount experience.

Optionally, and with an extra cost, the cuisine workshop can be done in a Mayan village or community, with a longer duration and complemented with other activities like visiting cenotes, pathways, nature, camping, among others.

It includes shopping in the municipal market Donato Bates, ground transportation to Ix Cat Ik restaurant, and ancient cuisine with Mayan cooks.

It is recommended to have interest for cuisine and discovering new flavors.

Enjoy the culinary wonders offered by the Yucatecan region in a gastronomic class at the charming Casa Lecanda. The mixture of culture, people, and their roots, create the experience you will talk about when you go back home. A local chef is in charge of making this possible by preparing the Mexican traditional and 100% Yucatecan dishes with local products and of unparalleled flavors. During the class, you can enjoy an exquisite and refreshing Margarita of Tamarindo, a traditional beverage of the house. The class consists of a brief explanation of the menu and the ingredients used to prepare the dishes. It is a simple and fun dynamic; you can learn, prepare, and taste at the same time.

Casa Lecanda is a hotel boutique designed for travelers looking for authentic experiences. You can enjoy a unique service, as well as customized experiences in an exclusive and calm environment, full of lush beauty and all the modern comfort of a contemporary hotel. This place preserves the original sense of an exceptional home with attention to the details, the architecture, the landscaping, and the comfort to provide their visitors with a perfect and cozy environment. Moreover, it has other services like spa, swimming pool, accommodation, yoga classes, and some other activities.

Let yourself be surrounded by this cozy place, the delicious flavor of this experience, and be astonished by the secrets in the construction of dishes offered in this place, it is undoubtedly, something you must experience.

Located in Itzimná, one of the most emblematic neighborhoods in the city, Lux Perpetua Art Centre (2015) has been a place looking to enhance the creative economy, focusing on the production and distribution of a visual artistic collection. The gallery hosts four individual or collective exhibitions in a year, from local and national artists. Among their outstanding artists are Miguel Castro Leñero, Luis Moro, Guillermo Olguín, Esmeralda Torres, Omar Said, Boris Viskin, Aidee de León, Gabriel Ramírez, Emilio Said, Amador Montes, Mauricio Cervantes, among others.

After finishing the tour around the gallery, few meters away, you can visit their atelier, Casa Lo’ol, which is focused on the production of traditional graphs, where our artists make residences and work in a collaborative way, doing co-editions through diverse chalcographic engraving techniques.

Aventura Bolontunil offers 69.1 acres to explore in the main park and 395.3 acres at the hacienda’s facilities for this activity with camping areas, you can also visit three ancient convents: Chumayel, Teabo, and Tekit, this last one going through dirt pathways. You can tour along thirty miles, visiting ancient haciendas, archeological vestiges, and virgin cenotes.

One of the most beautiful activities offered by Yaax Tekit is birdwatching, dare to live this outdoors experience immersed in nature and knowledge with the youngest of the family. Start the experience by touring a pathway of 0.4 miles where some safe and comfortable stops will be made to watch diverse endemic local and migratory birds, and you will learn about their feeding and environmental benefits. At the end of the pathway there is a plot of land where you will receive food under the shade of a palapa, then you will carry out some activities related to birds like drawing, jig-saw puzzles, lottery, and many more. This experience’s guides are certified in birdwatching and in guiding services for children. At the end, you will have the option of enjoying Yucatecan dishes in the community or continuing walking around it.

Imagine getting married in a cenote, inside its crystalline turquoise waters, in a mystical ceremony led by a Mayan priest, following the rhythm of pre-Hispanic musical instruments. You can do it at San Ignacio Cenote! It is one of the safest because it is shallow, and the vault is illuminated. The water is crystalline blue turquoise, gorgeous. It is not too big, but that makes it so special, it provides a complete safety sensation, besides, it is very cozy, as temperature keeps at 75.2 °F all the time.

Unparalleled activities of contact with nature and Mayan culture which go from healing physically, mentally, spiritually, as purification and reborn, with rituals; you can perform all these activities at Pueblo Fantasma Cenote look-out. So that you have an experience full of different activities you can manage all day long, they offer a holistic massage, which consists of a process of different techniques that will help you in reaching a deep relaxation state and an encounter with yourself, healing from the inside to harmonize physically and emotionally.

Another activity they offer is Ashtanga yoga, which is a unique way of physical yoga focusing on energy flow, breathing, body and soul to flourish the force of the internal core. It is a dynamic and energetic practice using breathing techniques to flow from one posture to another. Continuous practice cleans the body, eases the mind, and provides a great amount of energy and good physical condition.

The last activity is the temascal, a steam sauna of native tradition which helps to detox physically and emotionally, it consists of a ritual where the elements of fire, earth, air, and water are invoked and united to remind us of our origin and come along to healing.

Visit Santa Cruz Cenote, which means “The place of the cross”. With more than 196.8 ft of depth, you can see a hole on the vault that allows the sunlight to enter and reflect on the cenote’s freshwater and makes the light shine in the lower part of the water. The pathway has been enabled so that any vehicle may get there to admire and enjoy the beauty of this cenote. Something important to consider is to be prepared to capture the wonders of this place, inside the cenote everything is a matter of perception, sensations, and symbolisms, which will make you understand another aspect of the Mayan culture.

If you want to have the best experience possible when visiting this cenote, local guides, certified in nature and environmental and cultural interpretation must go with you, they will help you better understand all the overview and will tell you Mayan stories and legends about this place. Visit this site and experience a beautiful contact with nature while getting deep into the Mayan culture.

Visit and tour around the impressive Dzibilchaltún archeological site, one of the biggest settlements near the city. Its name in Mayan language means “the place where there is writing in stones”, thus, you could see numerous headstones or “steles” which are a reference to the name of the place. You will visit the main structures like the Temple of the Seven Dolls, and will see artworks inside the buildings, among which stonework outstands. This archeological site also has a museum called Museo del Pueblo Maya and a beautiful and crystalline cenote called Xlacah, from which several vestiges have been taken out.

Do not miss the opportunity to ride a horse around Sotuta de Peón Hacienda, an impressive construction surrounded by henequen fields and lush vegetation. It is the ideal place to enjoy and explore with friends and family. You can ride a horse to go along its pathways: the main manor of the Hacienda, discover its henequen fields, observe the cozy Mayan home and the underground Dzul Ha cenote. Visit the emblematic surroundings full of Yucatecan flora and fauna in a special place to disconnect from the city.