27 Jan 2022
The evening before the tour I received an email telling me we would be picked up 03:30hrs. Given at the time of booking the time quoted was 06:00. When I queried this with operator they gave me some spiel about unexpected and unpredictable road blocks. I queried this with the guide and driver and clearly it was total BS - there had been issues on this route for months and the earlier time had been the norm for those months. If I had been quoted a leaving time of 03:30 I would never have booked the tour in the first place. While the falls and Palenque were definitely worth seeing this tour is insane. The roads are plagued with literally hundreds of speed bumps, which the bus has to slow almost to a stop to pass, which probably at least doubles the journey time and gives you whiplash. We got back to the start point at 22:30 - 19 hours against advertised 12-14. Obviously driving at night in remote Chiapas presents its own issues, not least the threat of bandidos and robbery. We had to team up with several other buses in convoy and even had police escorts through some of the dodgier parts. The tour is totally misrepresented by the booking company who make no offer of refund when you pull them up on this. There is no way I would have booked this tour had the truth been presented in the description. The driver should never have been asked to drive for this amount of time. Caught him nodding a few times towards the end.