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We leave Cancun for a several-day loop when in each stop Mayan ruins stand. But on the way and to cut down the stifling heat of the day, a network of water-filled sinkholes fed by subterranean rivers offers a bath of salutary coolness. The area around the town of Valladolid gathers three of the most beautiful cenotes, the cenote Zaci in the heart of the city, the cenote Dzitnup Xkeken where the stalactites are reflected in the calm and pure waters of the grottoe and the cenote Samula where a light shaft gushes out from the ceiling and a poplar, settled at the edge of this hole, lets its roots gliding over several meters down to the sapphire-tinted water.
On the road to Chichen Itza, we divert from this aquatic pleasures once for the Balankanche grottoes. This long dimly-lit cavity seeps under the ground in a overheated atmosphere. We end this subterranean stroll by diving again into another cenote, the Ik Kil one, a genuine natural swimming pool where the surrounding wall doesn't array itself in blue mosaics but a smooth rock inlaid with moss and thin hanging roots.

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