About Cenotes and Friendships

[ariadnem]

Cenotes are surface connections to subterranean water bodies ^[2]. While the most well-known cenotes are large open water pools measuring tens of meters in diameter, such as those at Chichén Itzá, the greatest number of cenotes are smaller sheltered sites and do not necessarily have any surface exposed water. The term cenote has also been used to describe similar karst features in other countries such as Cuba and Australia, in addition to the more generic term of sinkholes.

Cenote water is often very clear, as the water comes from rain water infiltrating slowly through the ground, and therefore contains very little suspended particulate matter. The groundwater flow rate within a cenote may be very slow at velocities ranging from 1 to 1000 meters per year^{[citation needed]}. In many cases, cenotes are areas where sections of cave roof have collapsed revealing an underlying cave system and the water flow rates here may be much faster: up to 10,000 meters per day^[3]. Cenotes around the world attract cave divers who have documented extensive flooded cave systems through them, some of which have been explored for lengths of 100 kilometers or more.

Source: Wikipedia




He was the first person who ever told me about cenotes, like really tell me.  I mean, I'd seen the Latin American version of Sesame Street and they showed it once; and I'd seen programs on them before; but my late friend canek24 (RIP) told me about them, and he did in the most beautiful way posible.  He said that our friendship was like a Cenote:  people would just see a whole on the ground but they'd have to go down the steps to actually know what was there, because it was in truth, a deep and beautiful place.  I don't think it could've been described any better. And I can't tell you enough about the pics he sent me. Hopefully the ones I'll post are more than enough for the ones who read.  (click on them to see better)

My Minino, used to tell me about the XKe'ken cenote.  It was the one he knew the best and his favourite.  It's located in Valladolid, Yucatán, where he used to live as a child  and later as a grown man with his family.  Canek used to tell me about this place and how as a child, he got inside and made noises to scare the people who was going down the steps, and then laugh heartedely.  I can only imagine this, I could never hear him; just his breathing.



This place, a cenote, reminded him of old woods.  He used to say that maybe it was something from a previous life, jejejeje, he used to think the smell inside the cenote must've been like that of a forest in the morning.  He said that getting in Xke'ken was like entering another world, separated from the one above, outside, where the old trunk has been signed by lovers who may not remember each other now. 



He thought a cenote was the safest place in the world.

We always talked about going there together.  I told him I was claustrofobic, and he said he'd hold my hand and I wouldn't be afraid. 



I'm nostalgic, yes.  But, maybe it is because I know my friend is fine, and taking care of me.  I know about his family and his friends and all that, but he's looking after me.  After all, I was his Moon, the light that guided him back from death more than once as he's told me.



I know that one day I'm going to be able to go to Valladolid and visit X'Keken.  I'm sure of that.  It was the place that my friend said was like our friendship and when he did, I agreed with him.  He is one of the closest people to my heart and even though now he's gone from this physical world, I know he's out there somewhere, living happily, and painlessly.  I also know he'll be holding my hand when I get to walk those steps down the cenote and when I smell that place, musky and wet as he said it was, I'm going to remember that previous life of his and I'm going to understand why he loved that place so much.

And when I do, I'll be able to leave knowing XKe'ken is still his shelter and the keeper of his secrets.  And I'll smile for both of us.

Comments

[milosflaca.livejournal.com]

Cenotes are also the underworld for mexicans. Most cultures reffer to the underworld as a far away place who only appears to you as a human in the after life.
To us Cenotes are the underworld that is *here* and some of them are the houses of gods and when one enters a Cenote should do so respectfully.

To this day many people brings "ofrendas" to the gods (jars and other stuff) and in some of those, people also made sacrifices of all kind (they still do).

That cenote you mention here is simply beautiful and I don't remember if it was sacred or not, but you should know my friend that when you visit it, you'll be in the prescense of old gods. Very old gods that are still worshiped here (and all around Mexico for that matter. We live a dual life).
That's why your friend felt that it was "another world" sepparated from the one above, because it actually is.

I assume by what you wrote that your friend told you he did not know about the old legends of the place...(I did not mean this to be disrespectful to the memory of your friend, but I was told as a child never to scream in a place like this. But then again my family did pray to Tlaloc for rain...)

In any case that Cenote in particular is beautiful. There are others in the Chiapas State, full of Cenotes and wonderful natural places to visit.
I hope what I've told you encourages you to visit it some day.

[ariadnem.livejournal.com]

Yes, I know. And he did pray to the old gods; he actually spoke Nahualt and taught me a bunch of things about Mexican traditions. We'll see what happens when I get there, b/c I'll be there one day. Hopefully soon.

As for him and his pranks as a kid, that's like when kids used to go to my neighborhood's church and ran there.