Moctezuma’s Revenge at Hacienda La Mucuyche

I want to warn you that this post is a bit graphic and completely embarrassing. But travel isn’t always ballgowns by the Eiffel tower. Sometimes shit happens, literally.

One of my sisters went to live in Mexico for a few months in 2019 to study Spanish (what a dream), so one of my other sisters and I went to visit her the first weekend she was there to kick off her experience. I was most excited about visiting the cenotes and drinking margaritas.

One thing everyone tells you to be aware of is the water. I was VERY careful as I have a sensitive belly anyway and do not need any help in that department. I used bottled water to brush my teeth, made sure my margaritas either didn’t have ice or the ice was purified (usually not an issue in touristy/more traveled-to destinations). However, my mistake was at the cenote.

Elli’s friend, Charly, drove us 3 girls to Hacienda La Mucuyche which is about an hour away from Merida city center. We tacked it on to a trip to Uxmal, which are Mayan ruins that give Chichen Itza a run for its money. Hacienda La Mucuyche has a beautiful hacienda ruins and 2 cenotes connected by a lazy river. It’s honestly pretty touristy as opposed to some other cenotes that literally have one person there to tell you to shower before getting in the water, but is VERY pretty.

One cenote is open-air while the other is completely underground and is pretty dark and scary. During the lazy river portion, some dragonflies were trying to get freaky on the top of my head. I kept dunking myself underwater to get them off of me. On the last time I dunked myself, I accidentally swallowed some water coming up… I looked at Elli, my sister, with pure fear in my eyes. She tried assuring me that maybe the cenote water would be better than the tap water somehow lol.

When we got to the second cenote, my anxiety was getting a little intense with the dark water and swimming underground. My anxiety tends to exhibit itself in more physical ways than mental. I get some tunnel vision, shaky hands, and mainly an upset stomach... I ended up calming myself a bit while we were swimming.

After the cenotes, we walked around the hacienda. It was gorgeous, and I highly recommend visiting this cenote. However, after about 10 minutes of walking around, it hit me.

Moctezuma.

I turned to Elli and Keighlin and said “I gotta go….”

I tried running as fast as my body would allow me to run to the restrooms. They are open-air locker rooms in the middle of the jungle basically. It is hot af outside, humid af, and add on the sweats you get when your body is trying to release an atomic bomb, I was severely uncomfortable. I ran into the first open stall I could find and I see there isn’t a toilet. Just a hole in the concrete and a trash can for the toilet paper.

I work out maybe 5 times a week and do lots of leg exercises (squats, lunges, etc.), but this was an entirely different workout. Having to squat over a hole, have some form of aim, while your body is expelling demons, in the summer in a jungle in Mexico…. I do hot pilates and I have never sweated so much in my life.

After this horrific experience, I walked quickly back to the car and succinctly said to Elli “tell Charly to go as fast as he can.” I ended up having an upset stomach for a few weeks after I returned home and had one bout hit me at my boyfriend’s ironman with only Port-o-potties available in the Georgia summer.

Moral of the story: avoid ALL of the water in Mexico.