Río Secreto, a journey to the center of the Mayan Earth. PART 1
By Melissa Bañuelos
Close to Playa del Carmen and Cancun, is located one of the most amazing works of art of nature. Río Secreto (“Secret River” as in Spanish), is an underground cave that seems to have been built by the Mayan gods and that my team and I had the chance to explore a couple of weeks ago.
The day was perfect to begin a new adventure that until then, we didn’t imagine to be the path up to an underground palace of blue rivers, silver formations and a perfect silence. We depart from Cancun and in less than an hour we were at one of the accesses to the Mayan jungle, home of endemic species and where all trees are brothers.
We jumped in an Unimog, better known as all-terrain vehicle. It had to be a special car, as the path didn’t have trails of human work, no paving, no cobble, no asphalt, no nothing. In that same moment we knew that we would forget about our hectic lives to immerse ourselves in nature.
After a 20-minute ride through the jungle, we arrived to a leved area. We were welcomed by a guide and he gave us the necessary equipment to guarantee our safety and comfort. You don’t need much to get to Rio Secreto: helmet with head torch, neoprene suit and water socks. We walked while we curiously watched the strange vegetation and all kinds of insects. Very soon we realize that the jungle was greeting us as if we were part of its endless ecosystem.
We saw a small bottomless hole on the floor. Our guide told us the story of the casual discovery of this speleological treasure “Don Cleo, owner of this parcel, was tiding up his land when he saw an iguana and tried to catch it for that day dinner. He dug trying to find the reptile when he heard some rocks falling into the void. Something was strange in that place”, said with excitement our guide as if he was already part of that cave.
Mexico is Spectacular!
By Tatiana Doporto
I’ve been to many different shows but the one I liked the most was definitely at Xcaret. Their night show is amazing!! Well, maybe it isn’t as great as they proclaim it but I did love it. It starts at 7pm and it ends like a 9:30pm. You get to see many “Mayan people” all over the place, although the show was basically in Spanish (which is great so you have a real Mexican show) their performance lets you understand what’s the story about.
The show at night is worth the entire price of admission and if you’re going I would advise reading up on the Maya ball games before you go because it will really give you some background to make it even more enjoyable. It seems like Mexico as a country is made of many different states joined together (just like USA), every region has its own identity and the whole Mexican culture is combined with both Pre Hispanic and Spanish culture.
I found the whole place really charming and would highly recommend it to anyone who likes learning about other cultures. It’s totally worth going to this place only for the night show.
