Published on Nov, 2020
This is a review of two bikes tours we took. The first was the Mayan tour lead by Frank and the second the cenote tour lead by Iber.
The Mayan tour starts with hotel pick up and a drive North. Once out of the pick up, we first cycled to a small Mayan community cenote. We elected not to swim there, in part not to remove our mosquito repellant. But it was a very quiet cenote, we were the only visitors, and we saw some turtles. From there we went to lunch at a Mayan plantation. I was a little worried that this might be like a Disney recreation of rural Mayan life, but came away convinced that it was the real thing. Foods were from their garden and milled/prepared on site. Our Mayan hosts were very gracious and also gave us a tour of their garden. Then we went to the spider monkey preserve where we had the good fortune of seeing and hearing a howler monkey. We took a short canoe ride to a zip line and then back to the truck for the ride to Tulum. The only negatives were that my wife's bicycle rear derailleur had some shifting issues and separately from this she had a spill that caused some forearm pain. Because of this we were offered the option of doing the cenotes in a car.
We took the car option, first went to the Grand Cenote. The key is to arrive early before the crowds. We were provided with mask and a light, both of which were useful to visualize the cenote life, stalagmites and stalagtites. We also visited two other less developed cenotes, including the Crystal cenote. These were more like ponds. Following the first cenote, we had a stop for some tacos, either chicken or veggie, with lemonade.
Both of our guides were excellent and knowledgeable. I would recommend the Mayan tour over the cenote tour because it is more unique and would be hard to replicate by yourself, but either one is very enjoyable.