Evidently, winged ants, harbingers of the first rain, had begun to swarm. In spite of the supplications and threats of the chiefs, each man rolled up his blanket and put it in his food pouch and started for his home and his cornfield. Political control of the peninsula was lost by the Maya. At the time of our three week Yucatan visit, I was only dimly aware of these cenote legends. Early one Caribbean morning, I was strolling along the coconut palm lined path that led alongside the shore near our camp-ground.
Mexican beaches are often criss-crossed with a wide choice of paths.
This morning, I chose a muddy narrow path, from which scurried many large hermit crabs. The path wound through mangrove type bushes until it met a crystal clear cenote pool lit by sunlight. This pool stretched about 40 feet across. The bottom, approximately 15 feet below, was crystal clear. Thousands of small silvery fish darted in schools among the dark, deep tree roots.