We headed along a highway, toward the border of Mexico and Guatemala, to Parques Nacional de Lagunas de Montebello. There are a series of lakes here. On a sunny day each lake has its own remarkable shade of blue or green, sometimes both. But when we arrived, it was raining, so we made our way to where we were going to camp for the night and thought we would drive to visit the various lakes the next day.
El Chiflon is one of many sites in Chiapas that are run by an indigenous cooperative group called Paraisos Indigenas (Indigenous Paradises). We arrived at the falls later in the day with the plan of sleeping in the parking lot, but when we got there, we were once again enticed to book a cabin for the night (600 pesos, about $40).
We left Oaxaca on a highway known as the mescal trail and drove past several fields of agave and many small shops selling Mescal made right on site. Some were still using stone wheels about 5 feet in diameter powered by a horse. The wheel is dragged around in an endless circle running over the agave to make a mash, which is then made into Mezcal. We considered stopping at one to buy some Mezcal, but the sample we had had in Oaxaca didn’t really appeal to either of us so we decided to keep driving to our destination for the night, Hierve el Agua.
We looked at the map and made a rough estimate of the distance from Tonichi to Basaseachic Falls. It looked like maybe 175 km. Nice easy day. A little way down the road when we got phone coverage, Google Maps said it was 250km and would take 4.5 or so hours….what?