Caves and More Climbing

We left San Cristobal and headed out of town via the Grutas del Mamut. More than just caves, this little ecotourism site had nice picnic areas along a gurgling creek, a short viewpoint hike, and of course a series of caves with interesting stalactite, stalagmite and column rock formations. We were glad to have made the detour, which also allowed us to pass through interesting small villages as we worked our way back to the main highway. We knew we had a lot of downhill to our destination of Ocosingo at 800 m in elevation, but we also had a lot of uphill (details you somehow manage to gloss over when looking at elevation profiles!), and many many topes (speed bumps) as we passed through each village or town along the road. This made the going slow, and as the afternoon stretched on cloudy conditions made it feel like night was almost upon us. We were relieved when we finally arrived in Ocosingo just before 6 pm and were able to stay with the Proteccion Civil, inside no less, while rain started to fall outside. We are lucky that these service personnel are so generous to bike tourers - what a treat to have a safe, dry place to spend the night, with drinking water, showers and power freely available.Read more