Mérida Bed and Breakfast Association

Cave Diving in Mérida is fast-becoming an activity of worldwide interest.  In October 2009 the VIII International Meeting of Cave Diving was held in Mérida .  The highlight of the conference was an exploration of the cenotes within a forty-mile radius of Mérida .

It’s often overlooked that the Yucatan is home to some of the world’s pioneers in cave diving – Raúl Echeverría Pérez, for example, led the National Geographic expedition to the sacred cenote  at Chichén Itzá in 1962, and Elmer Echeverría, who is recognized as the leading authority on the cenotes and cave diving around the municipality of Homún.

Mayan Ecotours is the leading operator of cenotes diving tours from Mérida, specializing in day-trips that focus on snorkeling.  Other operators arrange for scuba diving in the cenotes and under water cave system that characterize the geography of the peninsula. 

And cave dives continue to flock to the Yucatan to explore the crystalline or turquoise water, where one can dive between the stalactites and stalagmites of the caves.  “Cenotes are to the Yucatán Peninsula what the Alps are to Switzerland,” said Sam Meacham, director of Centro Investigador del Sistema Acuífero de Quintana Roo, or Cindaq, a nonprofit scientific and educational organization based in Playa del Carmen, reporter Stephen Renegold wrote in the New York Times. “Similar features exist in other parts of the world; however, not in the abundance or natural beauty that we have here.”

To read the New York Times story on cave diving in Yucatan, please click here:

Following are the leading tour operators and guides for scuba, cave diving and cenote snorkeling adventures.

To contact Cave Diving, please click here:

To contact Cenote Dive, please click here:

To contact Eduardo Vázquez, who runs Adventure Tours in Mérida, please click here: