Day 305 – San Cristobal de las Casas

Tour of Sumidero Canyon

Today we woke up at our home stay, Casa Hamsa and got ready to leave. The owner wasn’t anywhere to be seen, so we assumed we would not get the included breakfast. We walked down to Real De Guadalupe, so we could have some breakfast. We went to a bakery called Panaderia Dona Isabel for some super cheap bread and then a more pricey coffee at Con Tenedor.

Sumidero Canyon

Our tour with Explorando Chiapas for Sumidero Canyon, was meant to start at 9am. We were picked up just after 9:30am. Apparently it is typical for tour companies to take this long to pick up people. The driver was also the guide, who spoke in Spanish only. We arrived at the boat dock at 10:30am, where we had to wait around for a little while. 

At the dock we were given life jackets and a wrist band before we got onto the boat. We were lucky enough to sit right at the front of the boat. The company that the tour went with was called Turistica del Grijalva.

The breeze as the boat goes down the river was refreshing. The canyons were really massive but the water was a dirty brown colour with bits of floating rubbish.

However, the water turns into a more beautiful green colour as we went further into the canyon. The boat driver (also Spanish speaking) showed us several animals including crocodiles, monkeys and various birds throughout the journey. After one hour on the boat, we arrived at the dam, which was the halfway point of the trip. Here the driver asked for tips before driving to some awaiting refreshment boats.

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The boat then turned around and returned to the dock, along the same path. We spent around 2 hours on the boat, arriving at the dock at 1pm.  

Chiapa de Corzo

We then drove 15 minutes to a public square, called Chiapa de Corzo. Here the driver gave us 50 minutes of free time. We checked out the main building in the square, which was nice to look at, but nothing too special. 

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We walked around the square looking for a restaurant, before having lunch at Sabores de San Jacinto Restaurante. The food was nice, but nothing special. 

Sumidero Canyon Viewpoints

We then drove for almost an hour before reaching the view points for the Sumidero Canyon. It’s a good idea to keep the wristbands from the boat ride on, as you need to show it to get into the National Park. 

We stopped at 3 viewpoints in total, which are only slightly different from each other. However, the 1st view point, Mirador La Coyota isn’t that great. The 2nd (Mirador el Tepehuaje) and 3rd (unknown name but has nice platform) had much better views. In total all three viewpoints only took around half an hour.

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We then drove back to San Cristobal, arriving around 5.30pm at the Zocalo where we were dropped off. 

We walked back towards our home stay. Along the way we signed up for Spanish Classes at SanCris Language School. The rest of the day we bought some notebooks and I finally bought some new sunglasses and it was a struggle all day to see.