El Chiflon

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I have been remiss not to write in my blog, so I am determined to sit down and write 2 different blogs. I apologize in advance for these being so short; I will try to make up for it in pictures!

Friday the 6^th we went to Comitan to visit El Chiflon, a huge waterfall. Comitan is about an hour and a half southeast of San Cristobal de las Casas. This is one town in which I would like to spend more than a few hours. The streets are wide and well-marked and the directional signs for the tourist attractions are well–marked, as well. After driving a half-hour past Comitan, over a mountain and through sugar plantations, we found ourselves at the entrance to El Chiflon.

While the park wasn’t empty, we did have it almost to ourselves. We started up the beautiful, well-maintained path 1200 meters to El Chiflon, or chimney pipe. El Chiflon was quite dramatic, towering over us at 220 meters. As we walked closer and closer, you could feel the mist and hear the roar from the falls. We took turns walking up the slippery stairs to the platform extremely close to the falls so we could take pictures. The wooden platform was slick due to the water from the falls. My shirt and hair were soaked! I had to hold on tight to the wet rope handrails as I headed down the slick stairs, hoping nobody was coming up as I went down the stairs.

The state of Chiapas had to one-up the beauty of El Chiflon by adding a zipline! For a mere 150 pesos, you could take the zipline across the waterfalls, walk up the hill on the other side, and the complete the triangle by ziplining even closer to the falls! I so wanted to try this, but common sense prevailed. How would an old, heavy woman explain breaking her leg (or worse) on a zipline?

I would definitely go again. Who knows, maybe common sense won’t prevail the next time!

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