Near vertical walls tower 3,000' overhead, egrets, herons, and kingfisher nest in the trees, bromeliads hug the canyon walls, ceibas, apricots, and ocotes flourish in the humid climate, and brocket deer, augoti, and anteaters roam the forests.

Sumidero National Park is a wildlife sanctuary and ecological reserve harboring more than 150 species of birds including cormorants and pelicans, and providing habitat for threatened and endangered species like the Central American river turtle, and the American crocodile. This is one of the last refuges for the great curassow, jaguarundi, and the ocelot.

Begonias, ferns, and mosses, vie for space along the springs, rivers, and streams that empty into the canyon, and dense tropical rainforests cluster along the riverbank.

Cascada Árbol de Navidad or "Christmas Tree Waterfall" is impressive even when there's no water flowing. Created by mineral deposits over many millennia as water flows over the edge of the canyon wall and cascades down the 3,000' drop to the river.

In the early Spring, when the water is running and moss and greenery cling to the rocks, the water sparkles in the sunlight and it really does look like an enormous Christmas tree.

The canyon walls harbor an astonishment of geological surprises like the Cueva de Silencia, so named for its spooky silence. There is no echo or any other sound audible in the cave.

The Cueva de Colores shimmers and sparkles in the sunlight, its colorful walls caused by the leeching of minerals. There is an altar here honoring Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe, so be sure to take some roses as an offering. The cave is on a rock face about 50' above the river, but there's a ladder to help you up the last 10' or so.

We cut the engines of the boat and are immediately enveloped by a great silence, rocking gently in the diminishing wake, the warm sunlight filtering through the trees, casting dappled patterns of light and dark on the blue-green water. To journey here and to quietly slip beneath the shadow of these enormous walls and be caressed by the cool breath of the canyon is to become increasingly aware of the vastness of time and the vulnerability of being a tiny speck in the universe.

The many forms of life that seem to thrive here have lived on this earth for millennia, but for many species this is a place where only the last few survive. The families of spider monkeys that frolic through the trees, as fascinated by the tourist boats as we are with them, have gradually moved from roaming free in their world to being captives in ours. There is a dawning realization that as vast and complex as this canyon is, we have intruded on a world that is shrinking. We have changed the world beyond these walls into a place where these animals and plants can no longer survive. We have chased them into this canyon. This is their last refuge.

What is here is both beautiful and frightening. It is easy to see how all this will end. As Norman McLean once observed “When I looked, I knew I might never again see so much of the earth so beautiful, the beautiful being something you know added to something you see. What I saw might have been just another scene, although an impressive one, but what I saw because of what I knew was something different."

The American crocodile, one of an estimated 400 who live here, suns himself on the riverbank, but amphibians that once glided silently down this mighty river can now only pace the narrow stretch between dams, like restless, caged, animals at the zoo.

And then there's the final insult. The trash. The heaving masses of bottles and plastics that undulate along the shore, clogging the waters edge, edging out the shore birds, choking the grasses, leave no room for the crocodile to glide below the surface, only his eyes and snout easing above the water, scanning the surface of the river for whatever torment might be coming next.

"Eventually all things merge into one, and a river runs through it."

~ Norman McLean

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Photography by Bill Sheehan - March, 2019 - Chiapas, Mexico