Wandering with Tedder and Tamara

*Tamara posting*

Today was Linda's last day here, leaving this afternoon, and we are leaving early in the morning, so for our last day we wanted one last adventure. We got a recommendation from Gabriel for a good cenote and went to swim there this morning. The road from the highway back past ranches and cenotes was pretty rough and under construction, which was, uh, fun in our little rental car.

Once at the cenote, we were pleasantly surprised when we saw a zipline and some cliffs for Ted to jump from. The zip line was interesting because it was attached with a rope so that it could be pulled back to the starting point, but the rope was fairly short (less than half the length of the cenote pool) so you had to time the drop from the zip line right or else the pull from the rope causes an unintentional somersault into the water - as Ted found out as the first zipper. I did the zipline twice, which is a lot for me.. they convinced me to try it a second time because I should have learned from the first one and be able to hold my nose closed better, etc. It didn't work though, and the second time was worse than the first and I felt like I was drowning! Oh well, at least I tried it. Ted also climbed up tree roots and branches and up onto a cliff at the back of the cenote and did a cliff jump - probably about 25 ft up - that was fun to watch, but he had to really convince himself to do it.

The water was fairly stagnant, with lots of leaves and sediment in the water, and pretty cold, but it still felt great once in. There were a lot of pretty birds and butterflies, though they were hard to photograph because they wouldn't stay still. The house at the cenote had some cool plants - little pineapples, chile plants, and pretty flowers.

For a long time when we first got there we had the place to ourselves, then a couple groups of other tourists came through - one on ATVs, the other on bicycles - they didn't stay very long, and we soon had only a few other people around with us.

After that we had lunch, Linda packed, and we took her to the airport. It was great to see her for a short visit, and it seemed like she a had a good time too. After dinner we visited the local English-language bookstore and got a new set of books to start on.