If you’re visiting either the city of Tuxtla Gutierrez or San Cristobal de las Casas you should probably also visit the Canyon del Sumidero. This is a massive canyon towering above the city of Tuxtla Gutierrez with a large water reservoir at the end. Mexico’s CFE has a hydroelectric dam there.
We visited the Canyon in 2 ways. The touristy and common way is to hire a boat and go down the river which we did as a sort of part 2. But a little less common is a land route along the top of the canyon with some stunning views. We went up the land route first. This route takes you about 400-500 meters above the river and gives a great impression of how high the canyon really is. I have made a simple route to ride and off we went…
On top of Canyon del Sumidero
In the neighborhood of ‘La Esperanza’ you’ll find the entry gate to the Sumidero Viewpoints. In Mexico they call those Miradores. So here it’s Miradores del Canon del Sumidero. Entry onto the road is 50MXN per person. After that you’re let loose on the long winding road. Once you reach the top of the mountain range there are 5 miradores spread out over the area, along the canyon.
Unfortunately it was a bit cloudy when we were there, so at first we didn’t actually get to see much. Watching the clouds move about was fun too, and occasionally they would let up and give us a glimpse of the canyon below.
Driving to the other viewpoints took a while and the lower clouds were mostly gone then. So the view got better with every stop. Here you can see one of the tour boats in the river for scale.
Finally we made it to the last viewpoint where the local government built a balcony kind of thing where you can see into the length of the remainder of the canyon. Unfortunately it was a bit cloudy again. But I managed to snap this picture. You can see another boat down there too. Later we found out these are 16 person boats.
And after a while of enjoying the views and hoping the sun would burst through, we drove back down to the city.
This was Part 1 of our Canyon del Sumidero Adventure. Click here for part 2, where we go on a boat into the canyon!
