Having said goodbye to San Cristobal in style with an excellent meal at an authentic Mayan restaurant complete with marimba music, we were more than ready for Alberto to pick us up and transfer us to Tuxtla airport for our flight to Mexico City.
The itinerary had suggested there may be time for a short boat ride. But nothing prepared us for the treat in store. After a blissful hour on a four lane, smooth highway, going quickly downhill and popping our ears as we went from over 2000m to around 500m, we pulled off and parked at a river jetty and put on life jackets in readiness for a shared trip through the Sumidero Canyon. The first surprise was that our shared boat turned out to be us, Alberto and thankfully someone to steer the boat.
The river cuts its way through 2000m high cliffs and is at times 200m deep. Over the next two hours we passed through spectacular scenery including caves, stalactites and wildlife with our guides giving background commentary.
A bonus was an annual swimming competition where around 100 foolhardy Mexicans willingly swim for around 2 hours through the crocodile infested river (yes we did see some)!
Wind and sun blown we arrived back at the jetty to hear the magic sentence from Alberto, "would you like a beer before you set off?"
Our lunch time flight to Mexico City took off on time and although we could have a beer, there was no food apart from a packet of nuts.
Our hotel is dead city centre and overlooks the main plaza called the Zocolo. Unfortunately it is covered in huge marquees for some mobile media event. It is due to end on Sunday and so hopefully it will be restored to its beauty before we leave.
The hotel has a roof top terrace overlooking the cathedral and square and so we took the opportunity to celebrate our arrival with what for us is the first bottle of rose of the summer. We then returned to our room to hear CNN telling us about the snow back in England!
The itinerary had suggested there may be time for a short boat ride. But nothing prepared us for the treat in store. After a blissful hour on a four lane, smooth highway, going quickly downhill and popping our ears as we went from over 2000m to around 500m, we pulled off and parked at a river jetty and put on life jackets in readiness for a shared trip through the Sumidero Canyon. The first surprise was that our shared boat turned out to be us, Alberto and thankfully someone to steer the boat.
The river cuts its way through 2000m high cliffs and is at times 200m deep. Over the next two hours we passed through spectacular scenery including caves, stalactites and wildlife with our guides giving background commentary.
A bonus was an annual swimming competition where around 100 foolhardy Mexicans willingly swim for around 2 hours through the crocodile infested river (yes we did see some)!
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| The swimmers getting ready to set off |
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| This is the boat we had to ourselves! |
Our hotel is dead city centre and overlooks the main plaza called the Zocolo. Unfortunately it is covered in huge marquees for some mobile media event. It is due to end on Sunday and so hopefully it will be restored to its beauty before we leave.
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| Our hotel on the corner |
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