Zona Arqueologica Tonina -how to get to these remote Mayan ruins in Chiapas Mexico

In 2022, Luigi, Carlos and I traveled to the state of Chiapas via Tobasco.

Our flight to Tabasco is a whole story in itself, with us being detained in Mexico City for hours because Luigi used his Mexican passport and Aero-Mexico handled our second leg of the journey. Apparently his super common name was on a list of flagged people and we thought for a minute he may be carted off to jail. Anyway, we did eventually make it to Tobasco where we rented a car and drove down to Palenque. You can read about that adventure here. Using Palenque as a base for a week long of adventures including ?>>>>>, we decided to travel to see the ruins of Tonina.

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We started driving south down Mexico 199 toward Ocosingo stopping at Agua Azul on the way. We planned to spend the night in Ocosingo because we read it was dangerous to travel after dark in this area. The ruins of Tonina are just …. minutes past Ocosingo. The drive down was nice for the most part. A word to the wise, Chiapas is not highly populated. There were no gas stations per say anywhere between Palenque and Ocosingo. You could however get gas – but out of liter plastic bottles – imagine buying gas out of a used coke bottle at a roadside stand – yep that was the gas station.

We got literally a mile from Ocosingo in late afternoon almost dusk when traffic totally stopped. We sat for a long time with it steadily turning dark until I finally convinced Luigi to get out and walk to the gas station (yes an actual OXXO type station not a stand) a few hundred yard up the road. He came back and said we may stuck there all night because all the roads leading into the city were blocked off by the Fortaleza y Voluntad as a pressure measure so that the Ocosinguense Mayor gives in to their whims. Luigi wanted to turn around and return to Palenque because he was told we could be stuck there all night, but many people at the gas station told him that would be very dangerous so we decided to wait it out. Finally after several hours the military came and we were able to move into the city. We stayed the night at a wonderful ex-hacienda and got up the next morning to go to Tonina. Side note: Luigi wanted to turn around because he was scared the roads would be blocked again but I stubbornly refused.

Here are three takeaways:

Getting to Tonina

Tonina wasn’t really that easy to find. We made several wrong turns because Google Maps was giving invalid directions. I always print maps and save offline Google Maps when we travel to remote places, so eventually we did get there.

When you drive up to the site, there is a museum on the left (it was closed when we were there because of Covid) but it looked worth visiting. Several guides were hanging around. We did hire one. Luigi, I think enjoyed him, us not so much because he only spoke very little English and Luigi is terrible and spending the time to translate to us.

Getting to the site is a little strange. You walk down a dirt road for a while and end up in someone’s yard. They have a little store here with drinks and snacks. You literally walk thru their backyard and down a path thru the woods and end up entering the site. It opens up near the ball court and then there is a large open area and Tonina is beyond.

This city is amazing because it is literally a pyramid city. There a >>> levels – only >>> levels were open during Covid. There were also many parts you weren’t allowed to go in on the lower levels unless you had a guide. So it really was worth it to hire one because he took us in areas we never would have seen.