Puerto Aventuras day 7

To do list for this holiday:
Snorkel - check
Scuba dive - check
Swim in a cenote - check
Visit Mayan ruins

Sunday is the day off for the locals in the Riviera Maya, and we'd been told that cenotes and beaches and ruins would be busy. With Hannah still burnt to a crisp, we played it safe with a quiet morning and lunch at home. Lay on the patio or under a palapa, reading.

It was windy, so the waves were too high for snorkelling but were perfect for playing in the sea and jumping. Mark, Mike and I had a lovely time in the sandy bay by the Omni.

Mid-afternoon we headed out determined to find Cenote Manatee, down near Tulum. We drove down route 307. We drove back up route 307. We drove down again. We drove up again. We asked directions. Eventually we turned off at the signpost for Tankah, along a dusty road, past a lot of villas, and found Cenote Manatee.

It was cloudy, dusty, there were a lot of people there, and the entrance to the cenote is a very small area.

It was very different to the last cenote we'd visited. This one is a river that flows towards the sea, under a road, then bubbles up just off shore. You enter the water just at the bottom of the river before it goes under the road (yes, this totally freaked me out as a claustrophobe), swim upstream as far as you can, then float back down.

Lining the cenote are mangroves, and if you swim alongside the shore you can peer into the roots and see just hundreds of fish - big and small. It's beautiful.

We put on masks and snorkels, and swam up and down, admiring the fish and secretly wondering about crocodiles. The children then hired a double kayak and we repeated the journey, them paddling at top speed and me desperately swimming after them.

It rained a little - which was not a problem at all after a week of bright sunshine.

We really wanted to swim in the sea where the cenote bubbles up, but it was rough and windy, so we gave up. Casa Cenote - the bar - looked kind of disappointing. So we wrapped ourselves in towels and drove back to Akumal to enjoy La Buena Vida once again.

While we sipped our happy hour drinks and thought about what to order, we noticed a turtle swimming in the sea. And then a ray. And then another ray. It was a bit magical.

A mariachi band played, we ate our dinner, we had another drink, the kids swam in the pool and swung in the hammocks. We saw more turtles and rays. It got dark. Too late, it occurred to us that we didn't really want to drive home in the dark...