About ten minutes outside of the town of Tulum, on the coast of Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula, lies Cenote Angelita - one of the thousands of water-filled sinkholes and caves which pockmark the southeastern peninsula. After diving deep into Cenote Angelita, Russian photographer Anatoly Beloshchin has brought part of this underwater world back to the surface in a series of remarkable photos which depict what would seem to be a mysterious river flowing underwater. Click the link below to see video of the underwater journey.
Those cenotes, formed in the wake of collapsed limestone bedrock, once had religious significance for the ancient Maya, who considered them openings to the underworld and would carry out rituals at the mouth of them - including human sacrifices. Their descendents still live in the southeastern region of Mexico. Many of them are accessible without breathing apparatuses at all, but to truly explore the networks of cenotes on the peninsula, one has to be an experienced diver.
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The bottom part of the cenote reaches about 180 feet in depth. The first part of that depth consists of fresh water, like most of the water in Yucatan cenotes, which flows in and out of openings in the caves (meaning the water you find when you step foot in it isn't stagnant). But about 90 feet down, a "river" comes into view: a mysterious-looking layer of hydrogen sulfate about six feet thick, which obscures what lies beneath it and travels parallel to the surface. Below it lies salt water: the collision between the two different types of water is what creates the layer of hydrogen sulfate. Divers would be able to switch on their lights as they descended through the layer in order to emerge into the salt water on the other side.
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The similarity the image shares to that of a river is enhanced by the trees and branches which lie on top of the rubble which fills almost half of the cenote and leaves a narrow passage for the hydrogen sulfate to flow.
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"We are 30 meters deep, fresh water, then 60 meters deep - salty water and under me I see a river, island and fallen leaves..." says Beloshchin of his photos. "Actually, the river, which you can see, is a layer of hydrogen sulphide."
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