Cenotes Xkeken and Samula

The village of Dzitnup holds two of Yucatan's classic underworlds a few hundred metres apart, run by the community and best taken as a pair. Xkeken - "the pig," after the animal legend says revealed it - is the older celebrity: a low-domed cavern where a single hole in the roof drops light and alamo roots to a milky-turquoise pool ringed by stalactites, the water so still between groups that the dome doubles itself perfectly. Samula, across the parking lot, is the cathedral: a vaster dome, a wide oculus pouring a green waterfall of roots toward the water, and swallows stitching the light shaft above swimmers. Both are proper cave swims - cool water, fish at the ankles, stone stairs descending into wet air - and both were smoothed for visitors decades ago with paths, lighting and life-jacket stands without losing the underworld shiver the Maya read into every cenote. Midday tour flows from Chichen Itza wash through; early and late, the domes return to echo and drip.

What you actually see

• Xkeken's dome - stalactites and roots over milk-turquoise water.
• Samula's oculus - the root cascade in its column of light.
• The stone stairways - descents into cool cave air.
• The still-water reflections - domes doubled between swimming groups.

When to go

Open-to-11 am or after 3 pm for near-private domes; midday brings the beams at full strength and the buses with them. Dry months make the stairs their safest.

Honest expectations

Steps are wet and dim in stretches - shoes with grip help. Life jackets are pushed hard and often required. The vendors' gauntlet at the entrance is good-natured but persistent.

Nearby

Valladolid's plaza and Oxman's rope swing are ten minutes away; Chichen Itza is forty minutes west along the same highway.