Montebello Lakes and Waterfalls Tour from San Cristobal

Los lugares muy lindos, ya muy estudiado el recorrido y el chofer muy amable y accesible, definitivo regreso a contactar a la agencia para otro viaje.

We really enjoyed the tour! Our tour guide and driver was super nice, flexible and communicated well. We would have given 5 stars if he had spoken English as well as Spanish as we booked this tour particularly because we were able to choose the option of an English guide. We were lucky, however, that some people in our group spoke English and translated everything for us! A little outline of what the tour looks like: The hotel pick up takes some time. We were one of the last ones to be picked up and waited for 30 min. You will then drive for approximately three hours with a stop in between to buy snacks to get to the El Chiflón waterfalls. There you will have between 1,5 and 2h in which you can easily walk the trail, see both waterfalls, take a lot of photos, go for a swim and then walk back IF you are good on foot. Otherwise, it might be a little rushed. This is the option we chose. Alternatively, you can skip the swimming and do the ziplining which costs 300 pesos per person additionally and can be paid by card or cash. Our driver asked us whether we wanted to spent 1h40min or 2h. I definitely recommend spending as much time as possible! Afterwards, you'll drive for another 1,5h hours until you reach the Montebello Lake where you will be able to have some lunch and do a boat ride. We arrived at 3pm and had time until 6pm. We went for food first (there are plenty of places that basically all sell the same dishes) and then took a boat with some other people of our group. This is not necessary though, because you pay per person. We paid 250 each (only cash accepted), which we found quite expensive, but if you don't do the boat ride there is not much else to do. If you want to swim in the lake you need to do the boat ride and will be able to enter the lake on the other side. The boat are rafts, so if you drop something into the water during the ride, it's gone. Btw in the description it says 5 lakes. This is very misleading because it actually is only lake with different "departments". Your last stop will be the Mexico-Guatemala-Boarder after a 30-minute-drive. Here, we had half an hour to spend. You can take some nice photos and buy some souvenirs or snacks. You also get to see another lake there that looks quite nice while the sun sets. The last drive back to San Cristobal will take around 3 hours. We arrived back in town at 10.15pm. Which means that the tour had a duration of almost 15h. Most of the time is spent sitting on the bus, which are super modern and clean, but definitely not made and not comfortable for tall people! Our knees, 175cm and 185cm, constantly touched the seats in front of us. We really enjoyed the tour and can recommend it! Especially the waterfalls are extremely beautiful and worth driving for a long time! The tour was well structured and did not feel like 15h. You will find rest rooms at every stop along the way.

Was advertised as being ‘in English’ but no guides spoke English at all. It’s a long tour - was 13.5 hours There’s no food stop until around 3pm so very important to have/being breakfast & snacks etc. Communication for what’s needed on the tour wasn’t very good and in advance they should have communicated that you need to bring $1000-$1500 pesos each in cash for activities not included (Zipline, food) Small change for tips/some toilet stops Sunhat, sunglasses, suncream & bug spray Swimsuit & towel for the first stop (optional) Layers of clothes as it’s hot climbing the mountain but colder later in the evening/on the way back Have/bring breakfast/snacks as already mentioned & maybe drinking water although you can buy that at the first stop Driving time between stops would also have been good First stop involves a one hour climb up the mountain to see the waterfall. Quite physical - the last stretch in particular. There is a ‘path’ all the way up but it gets a lot rougher at the top. The waterfall is very beautiful. Then you can walk back down or Zipline. There are 3 Ziplines and you can do all 3 for around 650 pesos per person (not included in the tour). That was a lot of fun although the Zipline doesn’t start at the top so you need to allow 15/20m to descend to the first Zipline (this wasn’t made clear by the guide who said it would take ‘about 10m’ which wasn’t accurate by the time you walk down to the first Zipline, get fitted with equipment etc). Second stop is the lakes. There are lots of little kitchens to stop for food. They are average (for food). Then you take a ‘boat’ (6 planks of food ropes together & although you have a ‘driver’ you are also given paddles). That costs $200 pesos extra. It was quite fun and the lakes are beautiful although the ‘boats’ are actually very basic rafts. If you don’t want to do the ‘boat’ there’s nothing else to do for an hour. Then you continue on to the Guatemala border (just for photos). Fun to take the photos and interesting to see the lake split between Guatemala and Mexico. But also a lot of driving for this stop. Then it’s 3 hours driving back to San Cristobal with no stops.