!!!Pit Cenote

by Oleg Gaponyuk,
members of the [AirPano Team|Geography/About/Consortium/AirPano,_Team] that is a member of the [global-geography Consortium|Geography/About/Consortium]. \\

2 September 2016

with kind permission of [AirPano|http://www.AirPano.com]

The representatives of the ancient Maya civilization definitely had the
knowledge of how to enter the kingdom of the Dead: according to their
mythology, every time when a part of a limestone cave hiding the
groundwaters collapsed, the gates to the other world appeared. This hole
filled with water is named "cenote" (ts'onot — "a well").

One of the most famous cenotes is located near Chichen Itza. This cenote
is commonly known as the "Sacred Cenote": in ancient times Maya people
sacrificed objects and human beings into this 60 meters wide hole as a
form of worship of gods.

[{Image src='01_Cenote, Mexico.jpg' caption='Cenote, Mexico' alt='' width='900' popup='false' height='600'}]

Nowadays cenotes attract the strong interest of speleologists,
geologists and tourists, of course. The underwater world of these caves
is absolutely incomparable! The caves of the Yucatán Peninsula are
especially popular among divers. The local geological conditions made it
possible to form a great number of grottos connected to each other. The
most famous of them is the Dos Ojos system. This cave system is the
third largest in the world: its total length measures 319 kilometres.

The deepest part of the Dos Ojos system is the Pit Cenote (El Pit): 119
meters. Only experienced divers are allowed to dive here and not to its
full depth.

[{Image src='02_Cenote, Mexico.jpg' caption='Cenote, Mexico' alt='' width='900' popup='false' height='600'}]

The bottom stratum of this giant "well" contains sulphur compounds,
that's why the washing waters are rich with hydrogen sulphide. The upper
layers of water are clean and transparent — you can easily see the
incredible interiors of the caves, its vegetation and fish. But as you
dive deeper, the water allows less and less light; and at the depth of
30 meters the light is totally replaced with thick sulphur clouds.

[{Image src='03_Cenote, Mexico.jpg' caption='Cenote, Mexico' alt='' width='900' popup='false' height='600'}]

The way further lies through unusual "darkness": there is zero
visibility due to the thick white fog. It feels like this fog lives its
own life — it reflects our motions, shimming and glowing with different
colours. All the people who visited the Pit describe their feeling as a
"flight to outer space": diving to the depths of thick white clouds can
be compared to the experience of weightlessness. That's when you may
remember the story of the gates to another world: how else can they look
like, if not like this?

And though AirPano panoramas will not allow you to experience all these
feelings to the full, this kind of virtual diving will let you see these
caves, even if you are not a professional diver.

\\ \\
[1 Panorama of Pit Cenote|Geography/America/Mexico/Pictures/Panoramas_of_Pit_Cenote]










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