Women help save Mexico's cenotes

Housewives now earn tourist cash after cleaning up one of the region's famous freshwater pools.

from the October 15, 2007 edition

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While they were virtually unheard of 10 years ago, tourists are increasingly visiting the pools, which range from deep swimming holes like the one in Yokdzonot to vaulted caverns where stalactites hang from the walls.

Some are full-blown tourist operations; others draw only locals looking for a picnic and a swim. "Each year the number of visitors goes up," says Mr. Meacham.

Locals once used the town's cenote as a water source, but over time trash began to accumlate in it.

No one considered swimming there – except the young boys who would play anywhere.

Tourists and local residents certainly had very little interest in the town's cenote, even though they have whizzed by the tiny town for years on the way to see the ancient Mayan pyramids at Chichén Itzá.

Tourists are now stopping by

One visitor was Belisa Barbachano, who runs the landmark hotel Hacienda Chichen at the nearby ruins and has driven past Yokdzonot for 14 years. But taking a shortcut one day last year, she passed the town, and a group of women working into the night.

She immediately assumed some high-end tourist operator had moved in, she says. But when she stopped to talk she says she realized it was a grass-roots effort by the community to boost tourism and generate revenue.

"There were these little women," Ms. Barbachano says, whose staff now helps them plan their menus and follow a budget. "I was so impressed with them. They had put down each stone. Everyone thought they were crazy. They told [us]: 'Now that we have it, everyone wants it.' "

Today homemade signs on the highway invite visitors to take a swim. The cenote is still a work in progress. The group takes shifts managing the new tourist attraction: cleaning, handling the $2 entrance fees, or cooking in a small palm-covered restaurant that they built adjacent to the cenote. For now, the group invests most of the money they earn into maintaining the small park and cenote.

It's been hard, says Mendez, who used to sew in her spare time for extra cash. While they were building the pool, some men complained that the women were gone all day and night. Some men helped, but others have not accepted that they must sometimes help out.

That, she says, has not stopped their efforts.

"As a woman, all you want to do is help your family," Mendez says. "That is why we did this."

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