Day two of our Chiapas trip started much earlier that we would have liked after the late night of drinking the day before. But after a good breakfast at the Best Western in Palenque, we were almost on our way. Before leaving, you have to make sure you have LOTS OF COINS!! VERY IMPORTANT! As you are driving along the road to Agua Azul, you will be stopped many times by ladies holding ropes with flags across the roads selling various food items. We bought: banana chips, sugar cane, some fruits, some vegetables, some home made flour things… the list goes on! There are always two or three women you must pay at each stop before they allow you to proceed. Sometimes you just pay them a little bit so you can continue if you do not want more food. This can be a very traumatizing experience so be prepared if you are driving this road.

The road is spectacular in a number of ways! The change in elevation is awesome, especially after spending so much time in the Yucatan where there are no hills whatsoever. The winding road was pretty good except for the portions where mudslides had washed out parts of the road. Pedro told us that you could definitely be stranded on this road during rain storms. The jungle was amazing to see from the heights of the mountains.

Cascadas de Agua Azul

Arriving at Cascadas de Aqua Azul you are of course bombarded by people selling things as soon as you exit your vehicle. We left Miguel in charge of guarding the van as we went on our adventure. This hike took us several hours and was definitely worth it. At the top of the falls, you can pay to ‘extend’ your hike and like Darren kept saying, “We will probably only be here once, might as well see what is next!” This was a great little extension and enabled us to walk on ‘pathways’ at the top of the falls and swim in pools at the top. Great opportunity to cool off from the small hike to the top!

There are many vendors lining the side of the pathways and they were not obtrusive on our visit. You can definitely spend four hours wandering around the area and shopping. We bought several things here and believe the prices to be less than shopping in Palenque.

We had lunch at the bottom in one of the little restaurants before heading off to Cascadas de Mishol-Ha. There are two tolls on this road, one when you turn in to go to the falls, and another one closer to the falls themselves. These falls are located close to Palenque and are enroute from Palenque to San Cristobal and is a great opportunity to cool off if you are hot. These falls are famous for a scene from the movie Predator. Total time to explore this area could be anywhere from 30 minutes to 3 hours if you are going to relax, swim, and maybe have a picnic!

I would recommend for you to walk along behind the falls before going down the main stairs to the swimming area. The reason for this, is the walk behind the falls is quite hot, especially if you go into the cave to see the small waterfall inside. By the time you return to the main area, you are more than ready to jump into the pool and swim around. The swimming area is massive and has many ropes criss-crossed across it to allow swimmers an opportunity to rest if needed.

Pedro found a very large shrimp inside the cave and was very excited to share his find with everyone as he pieced it back together (something had eaten it already). At the entrance of the cave there are some fossils which are pretty neat to see as the location is so far away from the ocean.

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