Long post... but lots of good photos! Hope you enjoy.

Day One - Food and Touring the City

The bus to San Cristobal was 14 hours overnight but it was worth it as a flight would cost you an actual day, and you’d have to go back to Mexico City and fly from there to a nearby airport (close to San Cristobal). The price was also about the same, so it just made sense to take the bus. However, when reading about how to book the bus, I had heard of buses getting robbed at night. This was a bit scary, but when you look at the actual stats (there are hundreds of buses running in the area each day), the odds are very low. The one interesting part is that they take a video of everyone who boards the bus.

The bus ride was really winding to start so it made it hard to sleep. I ended up watching Ice Age 3 in Spanish… I barely understood but the animation was cool. We stopped a couple times along the way, and I must say, the washrooms were very clean at the checkpoints.

We arrived in the morning around 7 am and went to Hostel Angel. Angel (pronounced more like “Angle”) is the nicest dude – he took really good care of us, helping us book tours and get familiar with San Cristobal. He also had laundry next door which was key! We got breakfast before checking in and then just chilled out for a bit and figured out what to do and where to get lunch. We ended up having some awesome meals here.

The first one was a seafood lunch on our first day:

We finished up the afternoon checking out a church with a nice viewpoint. That evening we went on a walking tour of the city. Our tour guide was a Zapatista – super interesting guy! Highly encourage you to google “Zapatista Movement”. He took us around the city, and it ended up with us tasting something called “poxna” (an alcoholic beverage).

Day Two - Sumidero Canyon Tour

The next day, we booked a canyon tour. This was a boat ride through a canyon about an hour and a half away. It was some of the most imposing views I have ever seen! There was also a ton of wildlife we saw along the way, mostly birds but also a crocodile and some monkeys. They brought us back and we stopped on the way for lunch. I had this banana, ice and mango dessert.

Brought home some tacos (120 pesos) and beer (47 pesos) for dinner.

Church of San Juan and Great Burgers on a Rainy Day

The next day, we checked out the Church of San Juan which was a cab ride away from San Cristobal. This church is one of the most interesting places I have visited. The people who belong to this church follow a mix of Mayan religion & Catholicism. In the church, the Saints are all Catholic, but the traditions appear to be all Mayan. You are not allowed to take photos, but I can roughly describe the church.

From the outside, it looks like a regular church, but the inside is different. There are no pews and simply pine needles spread across the floor. People, dressed in more traditional Mexican clothing, come into worship and create an empty space on the floor to pray. They light candles and bring drinks & food as offerings. My understanding is that you cannot leave the church until you have drunk everything you brought. Most of the beverages are alcoholic so people are intoxicated when they leave. A few folks also brought chickens which were then sacrificed in the church. We were there for about 45 minutes or so and it was quite an experience.

It was raining that day, so we were looking for other things to do afterwards. We heard about this nearby town that was worth checking out, it’s called Zinacantan. We ran into a couple people from our hostel at the church who happened to also be looking for something to do 9on this rainy day) so we shared a cab to that town. We got there and it was dead since it was raining. We walked around for a bit, followed by these wild dogs, and checked out another church.

But there was not much else to do. Apparently, people bring tourists into their homes usually. But it didn’t look to be the case this rainy day.

We headed back to our hostel and decided to get a late lunch. My dad had to catch a bus to the airport that evening as he was heading back to Toronto. The folks we met on the way to Zinacantan recommended this place that served awesome Brazilian Burgers. We decided to check it out and had some caipirinhas. They were some of the best burgers I have ever had! I saw my Dad off after this.

That evening, I got dinner at an Indian restaurant with a German friend I met at the hostel. He and some others were heading to a wine bar that evening before going out in San Cristobal. The wine bar had cheap beer & wine, so we stayed there for quite some time before checking out some of the other local bars. I met a ton of French people that night.

Waterfalls and Lakes on another rainy day

The next day, I had a tour booked a tour to see Lagos Montebellos and the Chiflon Waterfall. This was a 12-hour day as the Chiflon Waterfall is about two hours from San Cristobal and then Lagos Montebellos is another hour and a half from there. They formed a triangle, so the drive back was about 3 hours but in the rain, I think it took closer to four and a half hours. I made a French friend on the way though and got some meat and beans to go, so it was a pretty okay journey despite the rain. Unfortunately, the day didn’t turn out great overall. The weather was not in my favour again on this day.

Lagos Montebellos are supposed to be these incredibly deep blue lakes but, in the rain and fog, it was hard to make out. This was why I was really on the tour, unfortunately. ☹

The Chiflon Waterfalls were great though. Really nice hike through nature to see some big waterfalls.

That night, I went to the wine bar again with my German friend. But I had booked a 4 am tour to check out the Palenque Ruins so I didn’t stay out too late. After this tour, I was not planning on coming back to San Cristobal since I figured I could fly from there to Cancun. Villahermosa is a nearby airport (to Palenque) and the total trip back to San Cristobal would have been 16 hours. I was ready for the next part of my journey, so it didn’t make sense to come back to San Cristobal. On this tour, there were also a few other places I wanted to see – we stopped at Agua Azul and Misol Ha. Also, one of the friends I made at the wine bar the night before was also on the tour, so we hung out most of this long day.

Agua Azul and Jungle Ruins

The weather was great this Sunday but, unfortunately, the poor weather of the two days before continued to cause me problems! Agua Azul are a set of rapids/waterfalls that are supposed to be this blue-ish/green colour but ended up being a more of a brown colour because of the rain from the days before. They were still pretty with the sun shining down.

The Misol Ha waterfalls were cool as we were able to go down a path that went behind the falls.

What ended up being the highlight were the Palenque ruins though. I think they are also known as the Jungle ruins. It reminded me of the Jungle book. There were howler monkeys howling as you walked through these ruins. There was also more greenery within and surrounding the ruins, which I had never seen before.

It turns out the ruins discovered today, which covered maybe 800 square metres, accounted for less than 2% of the total ruins still to be discovered. These were buried under the forests and vegetation of the surrounding area. My mind was blown.

The friend I made was also going to stay in Palenque after the tour but was catching a night bus to Merida, while I was flying from a nearby airport to Cancun the next morning. We got some nice food before he had to take off that evening. Palenque was honestly a little creepy. There is no tourism here and so I stayed in this clean but unwelcoming hostel. I was also late booking a hostel and given that there was not much supply to begin with, I got the short end of the stick. It could have been worse – it was honestly super clean but was decorated more like a prison. Thank god I was only staying a night. I flew to Cancun the next morning.