AKUMAL, Mexico — Hidden Worlds Cenotes Park on Mexico’s Caribbean coast is nothing like the noisy, over-mechanized amusement parks found in the United States.

There’s no merry-go-round, tilt-a-whirl or roller coaster; no popcorn, cotton candy or funhouse mirror.

What there is: an Indiana Jones-meets-E.T. Skycycle that you pedal along an overhead cable atop the jungle tree canopy and through a couple of watery caves. Along the way, you swing like Tarzan on a zip line, splash down in a natural pool and snorkel in two hauntingly beautiful caverns.

This new Ultimate Adventure package is brought to you by Gordon ‘’Buddy'’ Quattlebaum, 55 — expatriate Floridian, inventor, underwater cave explorer and conservationist, who has been operating this popular park for more than 20 years.

‘I started thinking, `what is the perfect tour?’ and worked backwards,'’ Quattlebaum said. “It had to be high-adventure, but easy enough that anyone can do it. I wanted it to be low impact on the environment and self-propelled. Then I invented the machine to do those things.'’

Unusual bicycle

His patented Skycycle is a recumbent bicycle with belts instead of chains that the rider pedals along a cable mounted on poles like a ski lift. The rider can go at his or her own speed, pedaling fast-forward to speed up and backward to stop. The contraption also has hand brakes and harness belts for added security.

Quattlebaum says none of the more than 15,000 Skycycle riders have fallen out yet.

An outgrowth of the zip line — popularized in jungle tours of Costa Rica — this new mode of overhead transportation has wide applications, according to its inventor: ferrying children to school over dangerous ravines in Mexico’s western mountains, shuttling well-heeled guests among treetop houses in jungle vacation spots and providing a new way to tour major American amusement parks.

‘’You could go over Busch Gardens high enough that the animals wouldn’t bite you in the [butt],'’ Quattlebaum said.

But right now, the only way to ride the Skycycle is to visit Hidden Worlds — an unusual treat.

On a recent weekday morning, two middle-aged women tourists were strapped into their seats for the overhead trek across the Mayan jungle. Along the way, one of them spotted a brilliant green-headed snake with a thin, tapered body slithering across a palm frond just off the ground. A guide identified it as a common, non-venomous tree snake.

They had signed up for the Ultimate Adventure package, which allows guests to ride the Skycycle for as long as they want and make as many stops as they want to snorkel in two of the park’s cenotes, or watery caverns; rappel down the side of a limestone cliff; splash down from a zip line into a cavern pool, and browse an outdoor gift shop.

‘’It gets people into the environment and they can’t tear it up,'’ Quattlebaum said.

The Jacksonville native typically greets his guests barefoot and has them shuttled through the park in jungle buggies — bulky vehicles made of cobbled-together automotive parts.

Treehouse

Quattlebaum lives in a four-story treehouse in the jungle with spotty electricity, a detached cookhouse, outdoor toilet, elevated Jacuzzi and a cenote in the backyard. A smooth wooden dock lines the grotto, which was the setting for The Cave — a roundly panned 2005 movie about underwater explorers being menaced by evil cave creatures.

A former building contractor and tropical fish collector, Quattlebaum first visited Mexico’s Caribbean coast — now marketed worldwide as the Riviera Maya — in the late 1980s. He was on his way to Costa Rica to set up a dive operation, but ended up staying to help a local biologist protect a sea turtle nesting beach from development.

As an experienced cave diver, Quattlebaum helped pioneer the Riviera Maya’s booming recreational cave and cavern diving industries. He has helped map miles of underwater passages, but now devotes himself to inventions. Besides the Skycycle, he’s working on a water-powered automobile.

Said Quattlebaum: “I’ve got a lot of inventions in my head — more than I’ve got life left in me to build.'’

Of course, the first place they’re likely to show up is in Hidden Worlds.

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