Diving in a Cenote and Coco

So I had my first scuba dive in a cenote last Saturday. Again had to get up at 5AM and we were again the first ones to arrive and we left an hour later than planned. My European side is still trying to cope with that. Anyway I had a long nap to Playa del Carmen where we grabbed our gear. We had to try on long wetsuits now because cenotes are supposed to be very cold! After that we had another 45 minute drive to ‘Casa Cenote’ which is close to Tulum. It had been raining since the morning and it only got worse when we were there however they said that once you’re underwater it wouldn’t matter. We prepared our tanks and jackets and got dressed. The cenote was more like a lagoon by the way it looked but once we were underwater we understood it was nothing like it. It was surrounded by a lot of plants and trees. We entered the water and had to float and wait for the others. We went only 10 meters in the water and they told us we were going to descend from there, but I would have never imagined the water would be that deep already. The water was cold!! But I was hoping that underwater it would be better. It kept on raining really hard and I looked down the water with my glasses and I couldn’t see anything! It gave me quite a scared feeling as I was used to the clear ocean water. There was also a very strong current as the cenote is connected underwater to the ocean however we were not going to go through there. Thank god. We started descending and I held my buddy by the hand as everything was blurry and kind of orange. We went 7 meters down and once there the vision got way better. From the surface you could only see a quite narrow stream of water going through the forest but once underwater it was incredibly wide! We went diving under the roots of the plants and trees that you could see from the surface. There were a few fish but nothing too special. It was more about the experience of the cenote. No one really knows how deep cenotes are because they expand so much once underwater as they are underground rivers. Because of the roots and plants the water got different colours. I would look to my left and see blue water, straight ahead it was yellow and to my right it was a complete orange or red colour! Because sweet and salt water was mixed it made my vision very blurry at times and the current was so strong I had a hard time swimming, my ankles were hurting because of the pressure on my flippers. We did some exercises and after half an hour we went up again. I was freezing! And outside it was still raining. We had to wait 20 minutes and we went back into the water but this time to explore a little bit more. You have no idea what hides in cenotes. You would never expect them to be so big but underwater it is like a complete different world or place. I would look up and see all these mixed colours and the roots of the plants. There were a lot of rocks and plants underwater and I saw like see through sea cucumbers or something. Really weird. We were supposed to go through this cave underwater but because of the strong current we couldn’t’ even enter it. It looked really dark and scary anyway haha. It was less cold but because of the current we couldn’t stay too long. After that we drove home again.

We took some rest at home because a big party was waiting for us that night. A friend had arranged a free entrance to a club Coco Bongo. It is in the hotel zone and it is supposed to be one of the best clubs in America! It also has like a 60 euro entrance fee. We went there and at first we sat down at a table in the small bar downstairs. There were too many people inside so we had to wait for a table. Once that happened we went inside. Suddenly the place was huge with all these stairs and rooms and bars and I had no idea what to expect. Then we entered the main ‘room’ and it was this HUGE place. It looked like a place where music concerts were given which was kind of what happened there the whole night. You had a big stage up in the air and then a small one in the middle of the room and a lot of tables and bars on different levels on the sides. It was packed with people so we were lucky to get a table. So basically every half an hour a show would start. There was one of Madonna, Michael Jackson, Pitbull, Spiderman and something else. Someone would dress like the singer and wear and identical outfit like in the video clip of the song they were singing. They actually really looked like them. Really cool, like a concert! Then there were performances of movies like Spiderman and people would be falling out of the ceiling and hanging and dancing there while hanging from some ropes etc. Really fun to look at! Therefore there were also some older people who just came to see the performances while the young people would dance. In between the performances some girls from the public would be asked if they wanted to dance on the huge stage. While walking to our table this security guy asked if Fenja and I wanted to dance there. I was like; what? There?! In front of all those people?! We were feeling a bit shy so denied the offer but after a while we thought, why not?! And we ended up dancing there in front of the crowd hahaha. Gotta take the chances you get right? We stayed until quite late and once outside there were little girls selling bracelets. At almost 5 in the morning! So sad actually…but we did buy a few  Well it was still raining and once home I slept immediately because Sunday I had to study for my first exam week! Not really looking forward to it actually. And here you still have classes in your exam week. So it is not like you get a week off and only go to school to study. I have a sustainable tourism, marketing, German and Scuba diving exam. Wish me luck!

P.S In a club Thursday we asked the DJ to put on a Dutch song but he was scared nobody would like it. However we were with all the German exchange students who knew the song and I had shows it to some Mexicans as well so when he eventually played it everybody went crazy. So funny to hear a Dutch song in a Mexican club! It was the song Drank en Drugs which became really popular for no reason haha!

P.P.S one of our coordinates wanted a photo shoot with the exchange students by the "A" at our university so we were there for a while taking too many pictures :-)