Cenotes Hacienda Mucuyché

Hacienda Mucuyché stands at the edge of the small village of the same name, about 490 people in the 2020 census, in the municipality of Abalá, south of Mérida. The name is Maya for roughly "tree of the dove", from mucuy, the little ruddy ground dove, and che, tree. The estate is recorded from the 17th century and belonged for a long stretch to the Peón family, who raised cattle and crops here before turning to henequen. During the henequen boom it was one of the most prosperous haciendas in the state; it even issued its own tokens to pay workers, and a 1914 five-centavo piece names it as the property of A. L. Peón. In its heyday the estate covered around 5,000 hectares; about 11 remain with the main buildings.

The hacienda has two cenotes, joined by a narrow channel. The first and more open one is named after Empress Carlota, wife of Maximilian, who stopped at Mucuyché in 1865 on her journey through Yucatán toward Campeche and, so the story goes, was the first person to bathe in it. It is semi-open, around 5 to 7 meters deep, with clear, calm water under walls hung with plants. A channel the hacienda calls the Imperial Canal leads from it to Cenote Azul Maya, a cavern with stalactites that are still forming; around late morning, sunlight comes through the opening and lights up the water. The cenotes were already a sight for travelers in the 1840s: John Lloyd Stephens described a cave here in his book on Yucatán, and Frederick Catherwood drew both the grotto and the hacienda gate.

The main house stands out because it is painted blue rather than the usual ochre or red. Its long front has ten arches, and the grounds include the old machine room with remains of the henequen machinery, warehouses, stables, a chapel and a stone entrance arch. Much of it has been only partly restored. Visits are run as a guided experience of about two hours: a walk through the hacienda's history and buildings, then time to change, shower and put on a life jacket before swimming or walking through Carlota, the canal and Azul Maya. There is also a pool, a restaurant serving regional food, a craft shop, showers and lockers.