Cenotes DONDE EL CIELO Y EL AGUA SE CONFUNDEN Where water and sky merge

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Dicen que el área que abarca Quintana Roo y Yucatán fue el lugar donde cayó el meteorito que extinguió a los dinosaurios hace 65 millones de años, por eso su suelo está lleno de ríos subterráneos con más de 5.000 cenotes. Los cenotes se encuentran únicamente en la Península de Yucatán, Belice y Guatemala, donde el suelo es de roca caliza, muy poroso y blando, lo que permitió la filtración de la lluvia, que después de millones de años dio vida a una corriente de ríos subterráneos: el Sistema Sac Actun. Por su singularidad vale visitar el Grand Cenote, Chikin Ha y Río Secreto cerca de Playa del Carmen, Chukum o Sac-Aua camino a Mérida y Cristal cerca de Tulum.

ENG They say that the area encompassing Quintana Roo and Yucatan was the place where the meteorite that extinguished the dinosaurs 65 million years ago fell, which is why its land is full of underground rivers with more than 5,000 cenotes. Cenotes are only found in the Yucatan Peninsula, Belize and Guatemala, where the ground is made of limestone rock. Extremely porous and soft, it allowed the rain to filter through, which after millions of years gave life to a network of underground rivers: the Sac Actun System. The Grand Cenote, Dos Ojos and Rio Secreto near Playa del Carmen, and Chukum or Sac-Aua on the way to Merida are worth a visit for their uniqueness.

SOLO HAY 300 MUJERES EXPERTAS EN BORDADOS DE ORIGEN MAYA. // ENG THERE ARE ONLY 300 WOMEN EXPERTS IN MAYAN EMBROIDERY.

in Mexico, two hours from Cancún Airport and a road with more than three thousand cenotes, or limestone sinkholes.

The First Magic Town

But the Yucatán peninsula is best known for its pueblos mágicos, or magic towns, the designation given by the government to communities that have maintained their original traditions, history, culture and architecture. Valladolid was Mexico’s first.

With a prime location between Mérida and Cancún, artists from all over the region turned its streets into an explosion of colour. It’s the custom here to visit cantinas where you can drink local beers, mezcals and tequilas with their botanas (appetisers), such as sikil pak, a paste of ground pumpkin with tomato, onion, coriander and salt. “Yucatecan cuisine is Mayan or ancestral, it survived the conquest, it is still alive in every community and here is the place where it all converges,” explains Carlos Aguirre Aguilar, President of the Valladolid Restaurant Association. Valladolid is also home to the archaeological site of Chichén Itzá, just over two and a half hours from Playa del Carmen or Cancún.

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When the Spanish arrived in Mexico they interrogated the natives, who would reply in Mayan “Yuk Ak Katan” or, “I don’t understand your language”. From this struggle to understand each other during colonialism came the word they would eventually use to name the Mexican peninsula, which today includes the states of Yucatán, Campeche and Quintana Roo, with must-see Cancún at the forefront. A journey from north to south along this vast tongue of land that divides the Gulf of Mexico from the Caribbean Sea shows how it is a thriving territory, replete with the fusion of civilisations.

Mérida is the capital of the state of Yucatán. The day here begins religiously with tacos in the Mercado de Santiago (Calle 57, Parque Santiago) dipped in habanero, the region’s super spicy chilli pepper. This jewel of colonial architecture, where the colonisers actually settled, is the only city with a European layout and buildings. Nowadays, it is the safest city

IZAMAL, THE YELLOW CITY

As radiantly yellow as the sun, Izamal has lemon-coloured streets and a huge Franciscan convent which, thanks to its great height, can be seen from all directions. Julio Briseño, a native guide, says that 15,000 people live here “very happily” thanks to the excellent quality of life.

Izamal is a colonial city built on the remains of the Mayan civilisation. The Convent of San Antonio de Padua, with its more than 7,000m2, has the second largest atrium after the Vatican. Juan Pablo, a Franciscan friar, explains that when the colonisers arrived “it was not so much a violent encounter as an alliance”. There was a pyramid on the site where it was erected, and the stones that the Mayans had written on are visible. “They also concealed the symbolism of their gods within the walls of the temple, such as frogs, so they could pray to both the new God and to their own hidden gods,” he says. Another important element is the Ceiba cross, the sacred tree of the Mayas, “an example of the meeting of two worlds”.

Embroidery And Honey

The magic town of Maní is a sort of journey into the past. It is easy to meet one of the more than 300 craftswomen who work in the embroidery workshops there, experts in the x’manikté (“evergreen” in Mayan) technique, the oldest in Yucatán, now in danger of extinction. Their legacy is protected as much as the melipona bees, tiny, stingless insects whose honey is a rare delicacy, but holds great medicinal and nutritional value and can be found in almost every corner of Maní.