Is Sumidero Worth A Visit?

Sumidero Canyon is a deep natural canyon located nearby San Cristóbal de Las Casas. This canyon has vertical walls which reach as high as 1.000 meters. Visiting the canyon is super easy, several bout tours start from Cahuare.
But, is Sumidero worth a visit? We will tell you what we liked and what to expect while visiting this canyon.

IS SUMIDERO WORTH A VISIT?

While in San Cristóbal we decided to visit Sumidero Canyon. We heard beautiful stories about it but, visiting this place for us was a sweet and sour experience.

Reaching Sumidero from San Cristóbal is quite easy, it only takes roughly 45 minutes by car. We did it with a tour so the company picked us up around 9:30 in front of our house. The minivan dropped us directly at the imbarcadero. Once we got our life jacket and headed onto the boat, we were are ready to explore the canyon. This is a touristic place so they tend to fill up the boat, be ready to be squeezed a bit!

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THE TOUR

The tour in the boat last approximately two hours. Once the boat arrives at a dam in the northern part of the canyon, we turned around and headed back to the town. The way back it may be a bit boring.
The Boat stopped by different look points along the canyon. We saw beautiful landscapes and lots of wildlife: monkeys, crocodiles and different species of birds.
During the 30km sail, you’ll be surrounded by nature, enclosed in the rock walls.
Birds will fly aside the boat, touching the water with their wings. Pelicans won’t care about you while strolling around. Mono arańa monkeys will strike a pose for your Instagram account. We saw even a few crocodiles which they look fake until we got close. Probably annoyed by us, they suddenly moved to a quiet place.

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After being overwhelmed by the magnificence of Nature, we suddenly discovered where all the garbage of dozen villages nearby the canyon ends up. More or less in the middle of the canyon, we had to navigate through tons of plastic.
Rivers and streams that cross all the villages around the Sumidero dump into the canyon all the garbage collected along the way. Especially during the rainy season the amount of garbage duplicate and it all ends up at the canyon.
It was shocking, we know how big is the plastic contamination problem, but seeing it with our own eyes it was strong.

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We know that before opening the canyon to tourist it was not navigable due to the quantity of waste. That part of the money we spent on our tour contributes to the cleaning of the Sumidero.

SO, IN THE END, IS SUMIDERO WORTH A VISIT?

Well, if you have a few days in San Cristòbal we rather recommend you to explore the city or do some other day trips like visiting Chamula or discover the beauty of Palenque.
That said if you have enough time give it a try and feel free to share with us your experience.