Cenote Escondido (Mayan Blue)

About this audio guide

This guide to Cenote Escondido, also called Mayan Blue, south of Tulum, follows the water itself: why a peninsula with no rivers or lakes came to depend on hidden pools like this one for every meal and drink. It traces the Maya offerings made here to Chaac, the rain god, and the divers who spent decades pushing into the flooded tunnels below the surface, starting with explorer Hilario Hiler in nineteen eighty-six. Best heard at the water's edge, watching fish move through water clear enough to see the limestone shelf below.