Rio Secreto (or the Secret River in English) is about 10km South of Playa del Carmen on the way to Tulum. They offer a few different packages from a basic tour of the cave to a more overall tour of the history behind it to a complete day where you go into deeper parts of the cave.

So those that know me know that it’s not a shock when I tell people I like caves. I like all nature, but caves are just super cool. They are nice and cool in the summer and warm in the winter and they provide a habitat to numerous types of birds, fish, and other animal life. Not only that but they were formed a long time ago.

Turns out the Mayans though they were pretty cool too. They believed that the Gods of the underworld were down there somewhere and they burned an offering before they would enter for protection.

Packages

So before I talk about the cave itself undoubtedly somebody will come across this page when they are confused about that Rio Secreto is offering. Like all tourist things in this area they seem to sell a confusion about of packaging instead of just charging in admission.

The cheapest package gives you a tour of the wet cave and some food. For people short on time this is probably the best options.

The Plus package gives you the above plus a bit of a bike ride, a walk though a dry cave, but the best part – you get to rappel down into another cave. This package cost $20US more in December 2020 and I thought it was well worth it. The whole thing takes about 5 hours.

The top level packages goes deeper into the cave and you also get to ride mountain bikes inside the cave. I cannot comment on this as I did not do it.

The bike ride was on pretty cheap (read old and needing work) equipment – but it is a short part of the whole experience. Perhaps my only complaint would be that they need better bikes. The rappel however is just fantastic. It’s about 15m straight down. If you have never done it before, there is a personal at the bottom that controls who fast you release the rope so he won’t let you fall too far.

The tour provides you with life jackets, helmets with head lamps, and a wet suit. The water is fairly cool so the wet suit is a good idea. There are plenty opportunities to just float around in the water and there is a section where you all turn off your lights and you can see what it would be like to discover the cave without a headlamp.

You are prohibited from taking a phone or a camera so the pictures above are taken by a professional photographer. The only downside to this is to get access to the photos you either pay $25US for one or $99US for all of them which I find to be a bit steep.