Tourist attraction
Cenote Xkeken
Limestone cavern lit by one shaft of daylight, with stalactites and turquoise swimming water.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to Cenote Xkeken outside Valladolid traces the local legend of a lost pig whose muddy trail led a farmer to a hidden cave in the Yucatan scrub, and the older Maya belief that gave the sinkhole its deeper meaning. It follows the cenote's name back to the Yucatec Maya word for pig, and to the wider Maya tradition that treated cenotes as doorways to Xibalba, the underworld, and as places to petition Chaac, the rain god, during drought. Listen for the moment the daylight shaft first touches the water below.
This audio guide was created using AI.