Montebello-søerne og El Chiflón-vandfaldene, San Cristóbal de las Casas

Peace and tranquility in a small raft of cork tricks, to forget any sorrow, fills you with energy and fulfillment

Extraordinary place. Together with my wife it was possible to visit it, from Comitan by collective transport, without any problem, with the absolute freedom of time with the support of the Motorcycle Taxi Service it was possible to know that natural beauty of Chiapas.

The lakes of Monte beautiful unique experience, very beautiful place, rows in a wooden boat have some mobile benches to sit, the island is the place to swim, only very little time, the water somewhat cold, tolerable. On Tour with Tourism Enterprise you enjoy very little, because of the times and the route to get there because they usually leave San Cristobal.

My only regret in all my time in Mexico. Was told I’d be picked uo at my hostel at 8 AM and dropped off at my hostel at 8 PM. Was told to bring a swimsuit. First half of day was fine, driving then enjoying El Chiflon (although the tour description says that the lakes come first and the waterfall after). The nature itself is incredible but DO NOT take this tour from this company. My advice - if at all possible take a collectivo, go on your own & camp there!! After the waterfall, it was more driving and then our driver says we are going to stop for lunch. He pulled over on the side of the highway where there are a lineup of five eateries that literally have photocopied the exact same menu on their wall. Which means you have the option of one. This photocopied menu had only four options. Meat, meat, meat, or cheese. I bought a beer and since I didn’t have smaller change, handed the lady a 50 pesos bill. She cracked open the beer for me, took my money, walked away, I took a sip and she never came back. 50 pesos for a beer. I was expecting 20 tops! Truly highway robbery. Incidentally, only about half a kilometer further down the highway there are numerous restaurants with vegan, vegetarian, meat, and seafood options available to please everyone’s pallet but this was not offered as an option. WHY? We continued on our way driving until eventually coming to the Montebello Lakes. We were told ahead of time that there would be an option to rent a small wooden boat to take you around the lake. We arrived at the lakes at 4:10 PM. This can be confirmed by the timestamp on the first photograph I took there which was the first thing I did upon arrival. You get out of the bus and are funneled down a staircase which leads to a concrete platform that ends in water with all the wooden boats lined up against it. No beach, no sand, no water access. We were told we had one hour. One hour to choose to pay the additional for the boat or sit on our butts on the concrete platform and do nothing. No swimming allowed. In order to swim, you have to pay the additional for one of the boats who then will take you to a beach where they permit you to swim. It is a monopoly. Everyone was under the impression that after sitting in a hot bus sweating for 8 hours minus the 2 hrs @ the waterfall in order to reach the lakes, of course we would be able to swim in the “crystal waters”! This is not the case. 7 persons in our group, after being really upset by this, eventually decided to give in and just rent the boat. That meant they were a couple minutes late returning. But only a couple. Meanwhile, Antonio the driver loads the rest of us into the van and drives away. Since I was the only one on the tour who didn’t speak a word of Spanish, I was not in a position to stop him. He drove up the highway a ways and told people they could get out and take a photo before coming back approximately 20 minutes later. The group of 7 were ranging between furious and about to bawl. They were absolutely freaking out because they thought that they had been altogether abandoned near the Guatemala border. Antonio laughed. We then left around 5:30 to drive back to San Cris where we arrived at 8:40 PM. Antonio at that time then Merli parked the van somewhere in the city and told us to get out. When I protested that I had paid to be dropped off at my hostile he extremely sarcastically said, “Finished!” & told me to get out of the van. Interesting that he knew this word since the entire day I hadn’t a clue what was going on as he made no effort to tell me even through sign language where we were, where to go, how long we would be there or anything. I had to ask for interpretation from fellow guests. At this point, having taken multitude of photos throughout the day, the battery on my phone was at 4%. I rely on my phone for directions. If my phone had of been dead I would’ve had no way to message anyone or find my way back to my hostile that night. Thankfully, it held out to 2% battery power by the time I found walked back to my hostel. I followed up this tour with a visit to their office and spoke with who I presume to be the manager. He listened to me and then he called Antonio. He came back and told me that “Antonio said” we were at the lakes for four hours, that drop off to the hostel was not included, and that no one ever told me I could swim at the lakes. Clearly Antonio knows he can lie and say whatever he wants about what happens on the trips and that his boss will believe him over any customer. Even when faced with proof of my photographs timestamp. The manager couldn’t care less that his driver was rude to me, he couldn’t care less about the suggestion of having more options to eat that would please more people would make his business better, he couldn’t care less that his trip description is misleading and has no intention of changing it, and he couldn’t care less that Antonio left seven people behind to think that they were stranded. Lagunas de Montebello is absolutely stunning. El Chiflon waterfall is the prettiest I’ve seen in my life. That’s Gods work. This review is for the company and the men. They deserve zero stars. Please don’t support such bad business.

Jalapeńo Tours made our experience even MORE memorable. We were lucky enough to get a driver who was enthusiastic about San Cristobal's history, culture, and nature. Lagos de Montebello and Cascada de Chiflon is a fun trip for those seek adventure and appreciate nature. Savor every moment, because you are bound to miss something you've never seen in person before.

The tour is very complete, the landscapes and places to visit are beautiful, totally worth it, the cost of the tour is very accessible and complete. Herick our guide and chauffeur was the most, he is a very funny person, friendly and has a lot of knowledge about the area and its history, along the way he was explaining everything about the vegetation and ecosystems of lakes and waterfalls, he always gave us very interesting information, he is very good chauffeur. In each place to visit there are additional services that you can hire, equally accessible and the best thing is that the people of the communities are in charge of providing those services, that way they benefit economically.

very beautiful lakes, the whole route is very beautiful, since starting from dede san cristobal of the houses, before reaching the lakes, you can pass to the beautiful waterfall the chiflon. In the city of San Cristobal you can hire a day tour which will take you to the waterfall the chiflon and the lakes of montebello, the tour lasts all day, I recommend that although you go to San Cristobal by private car, you better take a tour because of the distance from the lakes and that the route is a little complicated, so you can better enjoy the tour without worrying about driving.

The place is worth it.. but bad transport services, bad caretakers of the place, stinking vests do not clean them, travel and journey very tired, you return made talcum, the food very bad in the place and charisma for what they give you. Nodal and unhelpful caregivers. Typical of Chiapas..

I did this tour and the sumidero tour. On both occasions they were punctual and stayed very close to the times they promised. I like that they pick you up downtown and you don't have to waist time being picked up. On both tours the drivers gave us info and were very polite and honest about what to expect. As far as English... well on the sumidero tour the girl that interpreted wasn't very fluent and my wife chewed me out because I kept correcting her lol. I speak both languages fluently so it wasn't and issue. Clean vehicles, great staff. It was funny because I booked through viator (TripAdvisor) and picked the wrong date accidentally. The viator staff refused to change date so I contacted jalapeño directly and they went out of their way to accommodate me. Will definitely use them again!

I would not describe this as a tour, it is more like transportation to get to these places. The driver, who was also the "guide" was quite unfriendly and not at all personable, quite grumpy to be exact. If you are English speaking, most likely you will not understand any of the instructions on the bus/van. I had some knowledge of Spanish which was helpful. There are a lot of tourists in San Cristobal who have limited Spanish skills so it would be recommended that perhaps on one day a week or otherwise, there would be an English tour( transport) option. We visited the tour office on numerous occasions to ask questions and get information on several tours. We did not find the staff to be at all friendly, they dealt with clients in an assembly line fashion. We enjoyed what we saw and we thankful for the opportunity to be in this area.