Ik Kil Cenote

CavesYucatán,Mexico

An almost perfect circle punched into Yucatán limestone, swum in twenty-six metres below the rim, with long roots hanging all the way down.

September·Quiet month

Jun–Oct

Rains arrive and thin waterfalls spill over the rim and down the trailing roots. Runoff clouds the famous jade clarity and afternoon storms build daily — this is hurricane season, peaking in September — but nothing closes, and the tour-bus crush eases.

Year-round The round open cenote with its trailing vines is a cool 25°C year-round; the noon sun drops straight in to light the water blue-green, and rainy-season falls spill over the rim.

Ik Kil is an almost perfect circle punched into the Yucatán limestone, about sixty metres across, with the water twenty-six metres below the rim. Long roots and vines hang from the edge all the way down to the surface, so the shaft is curtained in green. It formed when the roof of a flooded limestone cavern collapsed and opened the cave below to the sky. There are more than ten thousand of these sinkholes across the peninsula. The Maya held them sacred, and Ik Kil was a place of offerings to Chaac, the rain god. Bones and jewellery have been recovered from its depths. It sits about three kilometres from Chichén Itzá, in the same ritual landscape as the great pyramid. You reach the water down a stone stairway cut into the rock, and the change is abrupt. Tropical heat gives way to cool, damp, echoing air, and a single shaft of daylight lights the pool from inside. Around noon the sun drops straight through the opening and turns the water a luminous blue-green. Black catfish drift through the clear depths and swimmers' voices bounce off the walls. In the rainy season thin waterfalls spill over the rim and run down the roots. The Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series set its 27-metre platforms at the rim here in 2010, 2011 and 2014, though most visitors float in life vests or jump from the lower ledges. Ik Kil is now a developed park with a restaurant and cabañas, and one of the busiest stops on the whole Chichén Itzá circuit. It is quiet at opening and packed with tour groups by midday, which is the opposite of the light you want.

Worth knowing

Good to know

Arrive right at opening (8am) — Ik Kil sits on the Chichén Itzá circuit, and by late morning the tour buses turn the well into a shoulder-to-shoulder swim.
A shower is mandatory and sunscreen is banned — oils would foul the enclosed water, so rinse bare-skinned; life vests are included and the pool stays cool even at midday.
The light is a midday-only, sun-only show — the shaft reaches the water for only an hour or so around noon, and an overcast sky flattens the whole effect, so pick a clear day.
Jump only from the marked platforms — the water is deep enough, but the carved stairs run wet and slick, and lower ledges are safer than the high board unless you dive well.

Things to do

1
Swim beneath the curtain of roots
Float in the cool, clear pool twenty-six metres below the jungle floor, the vine-hung walls rising all around you. The water stays crisp even at midday, and black catfish drift through the depths beneath your feet.
2
Leap from the diving platforms
Climb to the carved ledges above the water and jump into the deep centre of the well — the same drop that drew competition cliff divers here. It is a long fall to a pool tens of metres deep, and the splash echoes around the whole shaft.
3
Look down the circular shaft at the water and the roots
Before you descend, step to the edge of the circular shaft and look straight down at the water far below, ringed by roots and framed by the surrounding gardens. The full scale of the sinkhole only lands from the top.

Watch

Nearby

3.1 km