Lacanjá Chansayab

Introducing Lacanjá Chansayab

Lacanjá Chansayab, the largest Lacandón Maya village, is 6km from San Javier on the Carretera Fronteriza, and 12km from Bonampak. Its family compounds are scattered around a wide area, many of them with creeks or even the Río Lacanjá flowing past their grassy grounds. Nights here are wonderfully quiet, the sky screaming with stars and the ground twinkling with fireflies. Low-key tourism is now an important income-earner and many families run ‘campamentos’ with rooms, camping and hammock space. As you approach the village you’ll cross the Río Lacanjá on a bridge, from which it’s about 700m to a central intersection where tracks go left (south), right (north) and straight on (west).

The campamentos all offer guided walks through the surrounding forests to the 8m-high, 30m-wide Cascada Ya Toch Kusam waterfall, the little-explored ancient Maya Lacanjá ruins, and the 2.5km-long Laguna Lacanjá. The waterfall can actually be reached by a self-guiding trail, the 2.5km Sendero Ya Toch Kusam (admission M$35), which starts 200m west from the central intersection. To continue from the fall to the ruins (a further 2km or so) you do need a guide. A typical three-hour guided walk to the fall and ruins costs M$200 to M$450 per group, plus the admission fee for the trail.

Staying at Lacanjá is an interesting experience, and the Lacandón people are amiable and welcoming, though don’t expect to find much evidence of their old way of life: the villagers here are now predominantly Presbyterian and attuned to the modern world, and only some wear the traditional long white Lacandón tunic. Some have developed their traditional crafts into commercial artesanías, and you may want to budget some pesos for the pottery, wood carvings, seed necklaces, arrows and drums that they sell.

Last updated: Feb 17, 2009