Chiapas in 5 days

A colonial town founded in 1528, with low tiled houses in ochre, red and blue, and a Tzotzil and Tzeltal textile market by Santo Domingo.

A Tzotzil town 10 km from San Cristóbal with its own rules, whose priestless church has pine needles for a floor and hundreds of candles.

Boats leave Chiapa de Corzo and run up the Grijalva between sheer walls up to 1,000 metres high as far as the Chicoasén dam.

Dozens of falls and stepped pools over more than a kilometre, 60 km south of Palenque, milky blue from dissolved limestone; swim only where signposted.

A jungle-bound Maya city at its height under King Pakal, whose tomb beneath the Temple of the Inscriptions was found in 1952.

A national park on the Guatemalan border: 59 sinkhole lakes in pine and oak forest, each its own colour, ten or so reachable by road.

Five falls down a limestone gorge near Comitán; the highest, Velo de Novia, drops 120 metres, reached by a 1.2 km path with 600 steps.