Pueblo Tankah – Connecting With The Riviera Maya

In Pueblo Tankah, visitors not only do the usual eco-park activities, like swimming in cenotes and gliding along zip lines. You’re a guest in a real pueblo—a town—, where you can meet the local community and learn more about their daily routine and their culture.

How do you get to Pueblo Tankah?

Tankah cove is just three and a half miles north of Tulum. The entrance to Pueblo Tankah is just across the Chetumal-Cancun highway, at the end of a long dirt road. As no buses or colectivos cover this stretch of road, perhaps your best bet is to rent a car or take a taxi… or your feet. It’s not a short walk, though.

The Pueblo Tankah community

Before the tour begins, you get an explanation of how this place works. Like many of the Riviera Maya tourist spots, Pueblo Tankah, and everything in it, is owned and administered by the local community who make up most of the staff.

Because of that, a chunk of the tour is devoted to them. In a small walk-in Mayan hut, visitors learn about and experience a small slice of their everyday life, traditions, and overall culture.

Cenotes and zip-lines

Before you realize it, you’re hanging from the first zip line in the tour, the cool waters of a cenote under you, waiting for you to decide to let go. This is only the first one in the tour; there are three more, one of which is Naval, the largest cenote in the Riviera Maya. You can cross the entire thing on a zip line, which gives you a great view of just how large it really is.

Once across, there’s only one way to make your way back: a kayak. As you row among the narrow mangroves, you’d swear this can’t be the same cenote you just saw from above.

Lunch at Pueblo Tankah

Everything about the food at Pueblo Tankah is traditional: it’s traditional Mexican food, cooked in the traditional way, served in those traditional plates made from deep red clay.

You’ll leave not only having done a few adrenaline-pumping things but having connected with the Riviera Maya a bit more.