Xenses Theme Park In Mexico Challenges Your Perceptions And Ignites Your Imagination

in travel •  7 years ago  (edited)

Imagine if Willy Wonka dropped acid instead of chocolate and built a new theme park. Xenses (pronounced senses) in the Riviera Maya near Playa Del Carmen, Mexico would be the result. The only thing missing are the Oompa Loompa's.

Xenses challenges your perceptions and immerses you into a sensory smorgasbord that at times mimics being high and had me wishing I had smoked another joint before arriving.

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Some friends (@donnaincancun, @mrs.machete, and @keith11walker) and I went to see what it was all about. We pulled into the parking lot and spotted this van from a tour company called Nowhere Tour Company and their slogan is, "We can't take you anywhere". Kind of like some of my friends. 😁

nowhere tour company.jpg

I got a good chuckle from that as we grabbed our stuff, headed towards the entrance and walked past this unique, floating island fountain.

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Walking past the turnstile after buying our tickets I couldn't help feeling like Big Brother was watching me. These little one-eyed camera figures are scattered throughout the park snapping your picture when you scan a wrist band with a sensor embedded in it that you must where at all times. Something about it gave me the creeps.

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The Pinwheel is the center of the park and where every experience begins and ends. We changed into our swim gear and stashed out stuff in our lockers passing some unusual props along the way.

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The bottom of each of these pinwheel pillars is the entrance to another strange experience

On the way to the lockers we passed under a ladder with a black cat sitting on it. There was no way to get to the lockers or the bathroom without walking under it. Feeling lucky and light on my feet I strolled through.

xenses black cat on ladder.jpg

These really weird looking toilets were in there and thankfully they were just for show.

xenses toilets.jpg

Then we walked through these strange tunnels with a heart beating at the center of it. Here's a short video of it.

The tunnel opened up into the strangest Mexican style town that was built to create an illusion of walking uphill when in fact you are walking downhill. The effect was completely intoxicating.

It totally messed with your equilibrium and made you feel drunk. The stream running alongside the road appeared to be flowing uphill.

xenses guy on stairs in the drunk town.jpg

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xenses family on stairs.jpg

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It was a fun day full fun adventures like swimming through colorfully lit tunnels, clay pools, and water slides. We even got to hook up to some kind of zip line that strapped you into the line horizontally making it feel like you are flying.

xenses flying.jpg

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A fun place to visit for the adventurous traveler, Xenses will set your senses on overdrive and leave you feeling exhilarated.

donna big heart.jpg

You can read more about it on this post titled, Living In Cancun A Steemit Fun Day Out To Xenses Park --- by @donnaincancun

I'll leave you with this quick video.

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Wow! Xenses looks like a great fun place for the family, appreciate the share :) It's quite a distance from where I'm located, but who knows, maybe some day.

Nice post!

Willy Twilight Park. Upvoted. Resteemed.

Thanks for the resteem and upvote.

upVoted.

Best photography....Nice story .... and specially the theme park is amazing.... Nice Post....
nazirkhyber_01.JPG

Thanks

Welcome.....

So glad those toilets are just for show!! I'd be constipated the whole time there :O

LOL, me too.

Whahaha ;)

Wow a very beautiful place

Sounds like an interesting experience with the floating island fountain. However I hate it when old big brother is watching. Thanks for sharing. - Troy

It was really strange to see those one-eyed things all over the place, but even weirder were the stuffed toys that were one-eyed illuminati looking toys.

crazy place lol

Looks like a neat little adventure. I love the cave river looking photo

Thanks. It was a trip floating down it and they had another one that was full of silky mud.

Oh Wow...I remember almost moving to Playa when it was known for its amazing beach! To see your post is amazing, but never would have thought in Playa. Would love to follow you as we were considering Merida as a place to live as well! Love MEXICO! Keep up the great posts!

I live in Playa. Been in the Riviera Maya since 2003.

What do you do for work if I may ask? We have always wanted to live in Playa since back when we worked on Cruise ships some 15 years ago. Do you have any recommendations or advice as you have been there to see all the massive growth?

Amazing post @luzcypher. You are having great fun. Nice pictures. Upvoted and Followed. 😊

Thanks a lot and yes we are having fun. The Riviera Maya offers so many fun things to do.

That looks like an awesome trip! The town pictures are so weird... My brain gets confused simply by looking at them...

I felt like I was drunk as hell just walking around there. It really does mess with your head.

I can imagine! A few years ago at the zoo, they had this weird little trip through halls with luminescent paintings and at the end was this tunnel with all these moving parts and it made me so disoriented and dizzy!

hi, I live in Myanmar Country.
Please , follow and vote me.

You should read this

Resteemed, I could not agree more.

What? You could not agree more with what? Obviously you didn't read the post dude.

Oh, I see. You did not resteem this post but another post of mine. Thanks for that. I think you accidently added your comment to the wrong post.

Yes that's what I did!! I agreed with your post on asking for upvoting etc..

Oh, so you're talking about my other post, not this one. I get it.

Yeah, sorry for the error ;O)

i followed you , very interesting post please share more

Hello! I just upvoted you! I help new Steemit members! Upvote this comment and follow me! i will upvote your future posts! To any other visitor, upvote this post also to receive free UpVotes from me! Happy SteemIt!

I would say thanks for the upvote but you didn't upvote this post. I just checked and you didn't. Also, you should read this and stop leaving comments like this or you're going to turn people off.

Good trip you got there. I am following you now for more. If you are interested you can check my travels through Bulgaria. I am posting regularly about them. It is so awesome we can explore the world here on Steemit :)

I hear it is beautiful in Bulgaria.

Don't just believe the rumours. Check my posts with title Bulgaria is beautiful ;)

Nice post. thanks for sharing

Was a pretty awesome day out! I cant believe Ive only just come across your post now!!

nice post

Very cool place need to check out - particularly the cave. Curious how similar the experience will be compared to a sensory dep tank.

The Ripley's Believe It or Not Odditorium in Orlando, FL has room with a pool table which is very similar to the town at the end of the heartbeat tunnel. From the perspective of the window looking in, the table looks like it's sloped upward, but it's actually level.

Great piece @luzcypher.

There is a walk in pitch dark at Xenses where you brush by all these textured walls and feel your way through it. Mists of water spray on you and animal sounds howl and chirp in the blackness. I began to hallucinate in color as a passed through it. Strange experience.

@luzcypher when I did my first Deeper Dive (part of that series), I went into a sensory dep tank for the first time in my life and it was life altering.

When I was doing the write-up, I started to research how the physiology of the brain behaves in the sensory deprived state. It turns out researchers have discovered if even one sense is "deprived", then hallucinations can be induced and it can happen in as little as fifteen minutes. Not surprised you were hallucinating in that environment. Makes me want to check it out all that much more.

meep

I did a sensory dep tank before and it's true, you start to hallucinate. I could even hear my heartbeat and blood flowing through my veins. I was a trip.

That's was a great time!! Glad I ate the pot cookies hahahaha

In a voice like the Cookie Monster
Yummy, me likes pot cookies.

Wow! That looks like it was super fun. Except for the one eyed camera things... Those are quite creepy...

Creepy. It was a whole lot of fun.

Nice post! Thanks for sharing.

Wow that place is freekin gorgeous!!! Love the pics! :D

It is beautiful around here for sure.

Looks like you thought about everything!

Thought about everything? What do you mean?

Really cool post. Funny place to be and beautiful. In Sweden they have a house that are upside down where u feel like u walk up when its down etc.....weard feeling.
Great place thx for sharing. Followed

That looks awesome & relaxing. The tunnels look fun. Looks like you were having fun too! lol. Nice work. It has been almost 10 years since I have been to playa del carmen, but when the kids get a little older, we're going back. Love that area of the world. We'll have to check this out.

Those camera things are creepy by the way... I agree.

Wow this is cool! I like the fact that it has a resemblance of an acid trip... kind of Alice-in-Wonderland-esque looking ;)

I seem to find myself in Mexico an awful lot... less now being across the world on the other side but I don't doubt that my love of tacos will bring me back. I'd be interested in checking this out one day when I do. I also just gave a trip to my brother for his wedding and this looks like it would be right up his weird-imagination's alley :)

Thanks for sharing this @luzcypher... now I am going to read your post about UBI because I am all about that! 💜

You know what that camera reminds me of?

Lol. It does.