Missed the first three parts? Start here.
After 45 minutes of hiking we arrived at a clearing in the jungle. It was a short structure that had two four-by-fours coming out of the ground and one across the top of them. Then a thin yellow twine ladder that disappeared into a three-by-three-foot hole in the ground. The hole I didn’t even see upon arrival.
We were to connect our harnesses to a paracord and rappel down into the abyss. Um, no. I’m afraid of the dark so I made my groom go first. He happily hooked up and headed into the black hole beneath us. A few minutes later we heard a splash. This was where we were swimming. In the black hole in the ground. Whelp, if I’m gonna die, this is at least a good story. After I slid down the rope and hit water, the guide quickly followed. Once he did, he turned on a flashlight so we could see our new pool and hundreds of bats fluttered to life, swarming above our heads and eventually flying out of the hole. “That’s why we had to enter in the dark, so they wouldn’t be flying around when we were trying to pass,” our guide explained.
He pointed his flashlight to the ceiling, and all of the walls around us. We were in a sphere of limestone that was about a third of the way filled with water. Most of it had seeped through the rock so it was crystal clear. It was about 100 feet across and actually romantic once you got passed the bats above. That is until the guide directed us to look down to the floor of the pool.
“This is a cenote, which was used to bury the dead. If you let the water go still you can see 126 skeletons lined up across the bottom. Cool, eh?”
And we could in fact see all of the bodies in the pool we were swimming in. So that was it for me and I headed to the twine ladder to finish the swimming part of our adventure.
After a long, heavy climb, the three of us made it to ground level again. Another hike took us to a beautiful look out over a lagoon, where we learned we’d be zip lining across the entire quarter-mile lake. Again, not going first. The guide explained that the stick we’d been wielding was actually our brake and that we should hook it onto the singular line (usually there are two) once we got close to the end to slow down. Plus, two of the petite Mayan people would catch us.
It was a beautiful ride, and exhilarating since we were flying down the line. Once I got close to the other side of the lagoon, I yanked down hard on my stick only to find that I was not slowing down. Seeing it all happen in slow motion, my partner and our Mayan friends noticed I was turning because I yanked so hard and was only inches from getting my legs sliced off by the nearby trees. Luckily, I tucked and they all caught me together as we tumbled to the ground.
After recovering from that, we were told we’d be canoeing back across the lake, but to be careful because there were alligators. Of course there were.
Having seldom kayaked and canoed before, we were a little wobbly in our strokes and balance, but the Mayan team decided it would be fun to race us back to shore. They of course beat us by many minutes and chuckled as they helped us step out of the boats and back toward the van.
The Save
Wrecked and ragged from the emotional and physical day we had, we both slept on the return to the resort. And the bottle of champagne I drank upon arrival was some of the best I ever tasted out of pure exhaustion and relief.
So obviously we survived, but would I do it again? Probably not. Just like doing a back flip off my horse, the older I get the less brave I find myself. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still down for adventure, just calculated risk.
In that vein, there are a couple tips I can offer you based on what we learned during this excursion and the many we have taken since.
Physical safety should always be a top concern.
Try as much weird food as you can, as long as you can reasonably presume safe food handling.
Trust your travel partner if they seem confident, and empathize with them if they second guess you.
Do something local that you can’t do anywhere else in the world.
There is no shame in drinking champagne upon your return.
What was your scariest travel story?