Mérida, Yucatán — With a budget of 7.9 million pesos, the state Institute of Highway Infrastructure of Yucatán has modernized 3.2 kilometers of “cenote route.”
They concentrated on the road connecting the municipality of Cuzamá and the village of Chunkanán. The road was re-surfaced and painted, new signs were erected to guide drivers, and speed bumps were built to slow them down.
The modernization of this highway will benefit 5,181 inhabitants in Cuzamá, where visitors are pulled by a horse-drawn cart on rail tracks to find three different cenotes in the jungle.
But this project was mainly for the local residents, who had tolerated poor-quality roads for years.
The cenote route is important to both locals and tourists. Nearby Homún already had several tourist-ready cenotes about 50 kilometers southeast from the Yucatecan capital.
To get there from Mérida, drivers take the Cancun highway and a detour toward Acanceh.
Chunkanán, technically part of Cuzamá, was home to several henequen plantations, but has struggled to survive since the industry collapsed in the mid-20th century.
