Tulum Ruins and Diving the Sink Holes
Hurrah! Back in a Spanish speaking land! (I´ll have enough English when I get home!) I crossed over the border into the Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico and stayed overnight in the border town of Chetumal, in order to visit the infamous Mayan Museum there. It was a beautifully designed and well organized museum, for a change, and the exhibits were well worth the effort made to house them. I had the fortune to see a small art exposition by a local artist who depicts the cultural Mayan-Spanish mix of the Mexican people in his work. (I have included a few photos of his paintings in the photo link below.)
Tulum is famous for three things: its beach-front Mayan ruins, its Caribbean beaches and its sinkholes (openings in the ground connecting to underground/underwater passages and water holes, usually decorated with stalactite and limestone formations). I took advantage of all three, visiting the ruins, the beach and diving three sinkholes. The sinkholes had to be the highlight; after having dived 19 Caribbean reefs I was starting to get Caribbean reef fatigue. The sinkholes are an amazing new environment to dive in, where you jump into the waterhole from a tiny hole in the rocky ground and dive down into a new world of tunnels, passages, mazes, with weird and wonderful formations and then emerging into caves. The most fascinating was one called Calavera, which boasts both a thermocline (a distinct layer in water where the temperature changes notably) and a halocline (a distinct layer in the water where there is a change from fresh to salt water). The halocline came as a shock, as I was expecting a thin layer, not the two metres of blurry, low visibility water that I passed into and out of. Prior to entering the halocline I was having trouble with my mask, unable to loosen it, resulting in a headache, and then entering the blurry halocline I thought for a moment I was about to faint! All in all a strange but exciting experience!
Unfortunately only one of the underwater sinkhole photos came out, so sadly you won´t get an idea of what a truly magical experience it is to dive in sinkholes, to see from the depths the sunlight shining on a given area of water above you, or the mysterious underwater world of stalactite, stalagmite and limestone formations.
Click here for the Tulum photos.
DISTANCE TRAVELLED (OVERLAND) SINCE USHUAIA: 34,200 KM
Tulum is famous for three things: its beach-front Mayan ruins, its Caribbean beaches and its sinkholes (openings in the ground connecting to underground/underwater passages and water holes, usually decorated with stalactite and limestone formations). I took advantage of all three, visiting the ruins, the beach and diving three sinkholes. The sinkholes had to be the highlight; after having dived 19 Caribbean reefs I was starting to get Caribbean reef fatigue. The sinkholes are an amazing new environment to dive in, where you jump into the waterhole from a tiny hole in the rocky ground and dive down into a new world of tunnels, passages, mazes, with weird and wonderful formations and then emerging into caves. The most fascinating was one called Calavera, which boasts both a thermocline (a distinct layer in water where the temperature changes notably) and a halocline (a distinct layer in the water where there is a change from fresh to salt water). The halocline came as a shock, as I was expecting a thin layer, not the two metres of blurry, low visibility water that I passed into and out of. Prior to entering the halocline I was having trouble with my mask, unable to loosen it, resulting in a headache, and then entering the blurry halocline I thought for a moment I was about to faint! All in all a strange but exciting experience!
Unfortunately only one of the underwater sinkhole photos came out, so sadly you won´t get an idea of what a truly magical experience it is to dive in sinkholes, to see from the depths the sunlight shining on a given area of water above you, or the mysterious underwater world of stalactite, stalagmite and limestone formations.
Click here for the Tulum photos.
DISTANCE TRAVELLED (OVERLAND) SINCE USHUAIA: 34,200 KM
posted by Louise Parmenter at 1:57 am
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