In Chiapas there is a considerable national park, which protects a part of the original jungle. We don’t want to miss that. Moreover, the stop is perfectly located about halfway between San Cristobal and our next destination, Palenque. The direct road in between is notoriously known for its incidents. At the moment the road is supposed to be passable again without any problems, but we find the stop in the jungle tempting and so we accept the way over a longer road along the jungle.

We arrive at a miniature village towards the end of the afternoon. There is a big resort (Centro eco turistico Las Guacamayas), two campgrounds of which at the moment – it is still rainy season and therefore low season – only one is open and we are the only guests for the night. The best thing about this place: It is located directly at the Lacantún River and on the other side the big jungle in the Montes Azules National Park begins. We hear howler monkeys all the time, but unfortunately, we don’t see any directly. The better part is that we can observe wild Spider Monkeys directly above our heads in the trees. For this purpose, we also go to the restaurant of the resort Las Guacamayas. We have breakfast with a view over the river and into the big garden and during breakfast we can watch the spider monkeys having their breakfast in the surrounding trees. Wonderful!

Besides the monkeys, the region is also known for its parrots, the scarlet macaws (Ara Macao). But also for the parrots it is unfortunately not the right time of the year at the moment. The better time to visit is from about January to June. In this time the ripe, sweet fruits attract the birds.
At our visit we can only observe two pairs of wild macaws in their overflight, that is from far away. However, there is a cage with several scarlet macaws in the village itself as well as in Las Guacamayas, so we cannot observe them in the wild, but still from close range. However, this already has something like a visit to the zoo, which is why we have much more fun observing the free-living spider monkeys.

There are also boat tours, which would have made the Montes Azules jungle experience even better. Unfortunately, the price of a boat is not affordable for the two of us alone. In high season, we probably would have had to share the impressions with more visitors, but then we certainly could have reduced the cost of the boat tour.

It’s a great stop and it makes the impression that a functioning piece of virgin forest is still preserved here. On our further way towards Palenque the jungle will accompany us the whole time more or less close to the road on our left side. We are already looking forward to the onward journey through the dense green!