Hacienda Ochil, a tastefully converted hacienda located near Merida, offers a wonderful place to lunch on delicious regional fare, a small henequen museum and shop, and an underground cenote.

In the Yucatan Peninsula, above ground freshwater rivers are almost nonexistant; instead, the region is honeycombed with subterranean rivers that seem almost of another world.

Cenote (pronounced: seh-no-tay), a term unique to Mexico and Central America, originates from the Mayan 'dzonot' and translates as 'abyss'; but this simple term conjures a depth of meaning. As a phenomenom of nature, they are freshwater sinkholes created by the erosion of the soft, porous limestone; but, as the wellspring of life in the Mundo Maya, they are the sustenance of life, an entrance to the wonders of the afterworld, the focus of commune with the gods.