The bus ride to Tuxtla was around 11 hours long. I woke up pretty often, but I feel like I slept a lot more than I did on the first overnight ride.
We arrived around 8:45 on Thursday and headed to our hotel/hostel. We walked around a good number of streets and could only find one restaurant, so I ended up buying some fresh fruit, yogurt, and bread for breakfast. When we got back to the hotel, there was a guy there who offered his services to take us to Sumidero Canyon. That was where we wanted to go anyway, so we did it. The canyon is one of the 13 natural wonders of Mexico, and parts of the canyon's walls are over 1000 meters tall.
We first went down to the river, to take a boat through the canyon. The ride lasted about 2 hours, and it was amazing.
This made for three boat rides in three days!
We saw some birds and crocodiles and monkeys too.
The canyon:
At the end of the canyon, there's a dam that gives electricity to Chiapas and Guatemala, I think.
Almost to the end:
Going back:
There were some cool things along the way too. There was a little cave in which parts of the wall were naturally colored pink.
There was this figure, which is supposed to be a person holding a cross in the hand on the left.
This one is a Christmas Tree. During the rainy season, it becomes a cascade.
We then drove up a road overlooking the whole city.
Then we stopped at three of the miradors (look out points) along the canyon. Seeing the canyon from the boat was amazing, but it was really cool to be able to see it from both places.
The mirador from the highest point of the canyon:
We went back to the hotel and walked to a little garden area with lots of crafts and restaurants.
The number of ice cream stores around this block was incredible! We figured we'd eat some lunch/dinner and then some ice cream, but our sandwiches were so big that we didn't have any room left. We were going to walk to the zocalo of the city, but it started to rain, so we went back to the hotel instead.
I believe this was the hottest day of our trip so far. Oaxaca was in the low 80s, except for the last day, Puerto Escondido was in the upper 80s, but we had the ocean to cool off. Tuxtla was 99. It only got down to 70 at night. We had a nice balcony, so we opened the doors to help with the heat.
Friday we woke up and decided we'd go to the one restaurant we had seen yesterday. Unfortunately, it was closed. So, we bought some snacks like yogurt and bread and we were on our way to the Zoo.
It was in a very natural environment, so that was kind of cool. It didn't have as many animals as I was expecting, but I really enjoyed the monkeys.
We took a cab back to the garden area that we had been to yesterday, but most things were closed. We assume this was because of Good Friday. So, we walked towards the zocalo. Still nothing. We went for the next best thing: ice cream. It was an amazing flavor, it had cappuccino and cajeta (like caramel, but better) and almonds.
The Cathedral:
We then walked back to the hotel and got a cab to the bus station for a 2:30 ride to San Cristóbal de las Casas.
The canyon was amazing, but other than that, Tuxtla wasn't my favorite city. Most of the cities that I've been to here have nice, historical districts and everything, but this one didn't. It might have been different if someone from there had shown be around though. I'd definitely go back just for the canyon.
Facebook pictures: Tuxtla Gutierrez
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