Cenotes in the town of Dzitnup

[Cancun Manny]

Dzitnup is a small Mayan town, more like a Mayan community because of its small size. It is located on the outskirts of Valladolid in the state of Yucatan. Here you will find two of the nicest cenotes I have ever seen.

The first one is Xkeken, you can see some Xkeken pictures here.

Xkeken means wild pig or wild boar. The story goes, that around the 1960's a hunter in the area shot a wild pig and then followed it. The trail guided him to a stack of rocks. After moving around the rocks to find his pig, he discovered the entrance to the cave where the cenote is.

The second cenote in the town is called Samula, aka Sambula, you can see some Samula pictures here

Samula doesn't have a neat story as how it was found like Xkeken, but it was discovered after Xkeken. Samula in Mayan means hill of white water, (Sac muul ha, white mound water). As you can see on the pictures, it had an amazing root system that went down into the cenote. Unfortunately about 3 years ago lighting hit the tree, and now the root system is dead. It is still a beautiful cenote, but the staple root system is no longer there.

The cost to visit each of the cenotes is 56 pesos per cenote. You can visit one or both. I personally think it is worth paying the admission to experience both of them, but if you plan to only visit one, Xkeken will probably offer you a bit more of a "wow" factor, but I do want to stress both of them are amazing! These two cenotes don't pay any commissions to any of the tour operators, because of this, they are like local gems, usually with less than 20 people visiting at any given time.

These cenotes are a great stop to cool off after you have walked around Chichen Itza, and after cooling off in the cenotes you can go into Valladolid for a great meal.