Late afternoon kayaking on a gorgeous Mexican lake near the Guatemalan border. Can it get more beautiful?
Since San Cristóbal was so good we figured we’d stop at Comitán, one more old colonial town in Chiapas, for three days. Turns out you don’t find amazing surprises every time you turn around down here. To be sure, it was a cute town, but one day is really all you need to see the town, plus another to tour a lakes region nearby.
Comitán de Dominguez (the Dominguez part of the name was added in 1915 to honor a legislator who was martyred after speaking out against the dictator Victoriana Huerta) is about two hours southeast of San Cristóbal; two hours of blaring, slashing, exploding movies. And – joy of joys – I got to do the route three times: down to Comitán with Mark, then back to San Cristóbal and back to Comitán the next day on my own when I realized I’d forgotten the wireless stereo speakers I carry with us up in San Cristóbal. It has a cute central square that was pretty lively both day and night. Our first evening there, for instance, a little local band was playing and couples were dancing and otherwise enjoying themselves.
Walking along the stream up to the falls. And seriously, this really was the color of the water. Almost unbelievable.
Besides being an opportunity to break up the trip down into Guatemala, the big attraction in the region is a bunch of water nearby. El Chiflon is a series of waterfalls with exceptionally beautiful turquoise water. We hired someone to drive us out there and he dropped us off at a stream where we had to pay all of $1.75 each to walk up stream, and then further up and up. It was a beautiful walk, calm, peaceful, sweet smelling, with smaller falls all along the way. When suddenly we spied the 375-foot main falls we were pretty much blown away. It was impressive.
Mark at a bit of a distance in front of the big falls. You can see just to the left of his head the more proximate viewing platform that we were ultimately headed for.
After a series of smaller falls, you suddenly approach Velo de Novia, the 375-foot major falls. Powerful and beautiful.
Then we continued on to Lagos de Montebello, a series of lakes down along the Guatemalan border. Again, truly beautiful with spectacularly blue, clear water. It reminded me of being in Northern Minnesota so naturally I went swimming in one of them. At another we went kayaking for 45 minutes or so before heading back to town for the evening.
One of several lakes we stopped by
So that was Comitán, a quick stop in a cute but ultimately uninspiring town. It was memorable for one reason, though: we celebrated 1,000 days on the road here! Yup, it’s now been over a thousand days since we left Cambridge in 2013. So far we haven’t found the place where we want to settle down so I guess we’ll keep going for at least another thousand days.
Meanwhile from here now we cross into Guatemala tomorrow. Exciting!
Comitán’s main square, with its highly manicured trees, was always lively
The grounds at our little lodge, Casa Delina, made for a pleasant place to lounge in the afternoon
And lounge I did. I mean, who could resist plastic pink Adirondack chairs?
One day I happened to stumble by Comitán’s Labor Party headquarters. All Power to the People! If they’d been open I’d have tried to sell them some canvassing and organizing tools…
The Guatemalan-Mexican border running through the lake and up the hill. You can see the markers all the way to the top. Donald Trump would hate it: you could (and we did) just walk across the border back and forth with no controls. It was strange to walk into Guatemala and then back into Mexico knowing that the next day we were driving back to cross the border seriously.
And finally, another of the lakes. This is the one we kayaked on. How is it that I travel the world only to fall most in love with a place that looks like Minnesota?