Puerto Escondido Adventure Guide #8: The Overnight Bus East to San Cristobal

A monthly guide to give you fresh ideas for adventures just outside of PXM

Preface: I’ve lived in Puerto Escondido for almost four years, and at this point have been to most of the small towns, beaches, and points of interest in the area. I used to help lead trips for the Hikers of Puerto group, led by my friend David (you can find them on Facebook), which certainly helped to that end.

Every month I’ll be sharing a weekend adventure idea here on my newsletter, in hopes that it inspires you and your loved ones to pack the car, jump on the moto, or flag down a colectivo with the goal of making new memories. Listo por una aventura amigos!?

East to San Cristobal

Covering San Cristobal is stretching the limits of what these Adventure Guides were originally conceived to achieve. Most of these guides are for day or overnight trips near Puerto Escondido. You’ll probably want at least a week carved out for a journey to Chiapas, but I just love San Cris… so here I am, writing about it again.

Basically, I wanted to make a San Cristobal Adventure Guide to share with y’all some basic information about it, in case you’re curious. In case you do have a week to go check it out.

For the past three years, I’ve visited San Cristobal for a week every August. The annual pilgrimage is one of my favorite weeks of the year, and I think after reading this, you might decide to make a similar plan.

Last year I published a BIG GIANT REVIEW of San Cristobal with my top 5 activities, cafes, restaurants, and bars. There will be a bit of overlap with that older comprehensive review of my 20 favorite bites and sites in San Cris, but we’ll follow the Adventure Guide format.

Buckle up (for the overnight bus) and let’s get into it.

How to Get There:

You could drive if you wanted to make it a road trip, but I recommend booking a direct overnight bus. It’s about 13 hours. If you get on a 9 pm bus, read for a few hours, and then sleep for as many hours as you can, you’ll wake up the next morning and eventually pull into San Cristobal around 11 am.

The ADO is fairly comfortable, and if you’re lucky enough not to sit next to a snorer or baby, it’s relatively easy to get a decent night’s sleep. The seats drop back and even have a place to charge your phone, just be sure to bring a sweatshirt or something warm to bundle up in because the AC will be blasting. I always have my tapestry and a hoodie ready for the bus (one used as a blanket, one used as a pillow).

I love being on the way somewhere, so I enjoy the night bus. Maybe that’s not you, but it is relatively comfortable and will only cost you around $75 USD (1500 pesos) to make it across half of southern Mexico to a new state.

Pro Tip: It’s also two nights of the trip (assuming you take the bus back) that you won’t have to pay for accommodation.

Note: I use Busbud for all my bus booking needs in Mexico. The app works great and gives you all of the options for any route you might be interested in taking.

What to do:

This stuff… All of this stuff.

There are 20 total recommendations in that post linked above, but I’ll quickly shout out my top 3 overall recommendations here.

1. Canyon Del Sumidero (Day trip activity)

If there’s a “can’t miss” activity on this list, it’s certainly Sumidero Canyon. It’s one of the most breathtaking natural wonders I’ve ever seen in person. I went on the full-day tour 10 years ago on my first visit, and I vividly remember being on that little boat smiling wide-eyed, squinting into the sun until my face hurt.

The canyon is gorgeous. The walls shoot straight up into the sky, while birds fly overhead. If you’re lucky, you’ll even spot a Crocodile in the water. I decided to run it back again on my visit to San Cris this past year.

Note: It only costs around $25-30 to book the day trip with most tour groups, and it’s a fun way to potentially meet a few people while effortlessly getting the canyon experience.

2. Naufragio (Live music, craft beer & pizza hot spot)

If you end up in San Cristobal, this place will likely be recommended to you whether you read this or not. It’s a pretty famous establishment, and for very good reason—it’s fuckin’ rad.

It’s got a speakeasy feeling upon arriving at the address. It’s just an innocuous light blue wall with a wooden door on a dark street a few blocks away from the action, but once you enter you’re in a whole new world. 

Naufragio is a large labyrinth space with 5 or 6 different rooms. The back room is filled with smoke from their pizza ovens, and the taproom in front is always pumping with incredible live music. 

Only open from Thursday-Saturday

3. Kukulpan (Cafe)

Kukulpan is one of those spots, that once you find it, you’ll make sure that your walking route curves past it at least once a day. Kukulpan is a bakery and coffee shop right on a prominent corner about a block from Plaza de Santo Domingo.

They have amazing baked goods, both savory and sweet options, at prices ranging from 20-50 pesos. It’s one of my favorite cafes anywhere in the world. Take your computer for a work session that will also certainly involve entertaining people-watching and delicious flavors.

Walking to the bus stop in Tuxtla.

Other fun stops to make:

These two places I’ll likely never make an Adventure Guide for, but they’re both worth checking out. In fact, they’re both proper cities.

Tuxtla is the capital of Chiapas, so a larger city than San Cristobal, just not as well known among travelers. I’ve now stopped in Tuxtla for a night on each of my past two trips to San Cristobal. It’s on the way!

I’m telling you, the mall in Tuxtla is BUZZING.

Tuxtla

My first and biggest recommendation for Tuxtla is the hostel I’ve stayed in for the past two years. Hostal Tres Central is in an excellent location right near the main Zocalo, and it’s so nice for the price. It’s around $25 for a private room, and my guitar even had its own bed.

From that home base, go explore! My two trips to Tuxtla involved a lot of long walks taking in the sites, smells, and sounds of the city while a podcast tickled my ears and taught me something new.

Visit Parque de la Marimba and find the street with a row of esquites carts. Eat at Gorditas Don Rafita. Wander the markets. Run to Parque de Oriente. Go to the mall!!!

Really, I had a great time at their mall, Plaza Las Americas, on this most recent visit. It’s attached to the bus station so you’ll end up there either way, but go early to check out the food court and catch a movie!

Note: Part of this joy is certainly because we don’t have a proper mall in Puerto Escondido so classic malls have become novel to me at this point.

If you’re nostalgic for the 90s, it’s alive and well in the food court at the mall in Tuxtla. Go get a Big Mac and find out for yourself.

Salina Cruz

Salina Cruz is another proper city that nobody will recommend you visit… well, nobody except me! I like visiting everywhere at least once because I like knowing places. As I describe in the final section of my travel memoir, Not That Anyone Asked…

So many names and places on the map still represented mystery, which never sat well with me as a kid paging through National Geographic in our suburban basement. Now that I was so close to so much that was new to me, I had to go see more.

I stopped in Salina Cruz for a day last year on the way to San Cristobal. The route goes to the bus station in Salina Cruz, so I decided to check it out. I was curious why nobody ever mentions it.

It’s an industrial shipping port right on the coast. It definitely is a bit rough around the edges, but there’s cold beer and beauty everywhere, so I had a great day walking its streets. In Mexico, there are also esquites and elotes everywhere. I found a spot with a huge line and had a very memorable cup of corn. (See photo above)

Visit the Zocalo (something you should just do anywhere you go in Mexico) and grab a drink at Moonlight on the corner of the main square. It’s a nice rooftop bar with a great view of the action below.

It’s not the most beautiful town, but I did find it interesting, and you can even eat a Whopper at their Burger King—something we can’t easily do very easily living in Puerto Escondido.

Find more of my thoughts and words on my Medium

Read my 5-star Travel Memoir, Not That Anyone Asked

Insider info: San Cristobal’s Asian Food Scene is Incredible. Here are my favorites