Experience the best of Villahermosa

Villahermosa sits on the Grijalva River in the Gulf lowlands of south-east Mexico, about 140 km north of San Cristóbal de las Casas. Hot and humid, the city is thick with greenery. Its best-known sight is La Venta Museum Park, a shaded park beside a lagoon where huge Olmec carved heads and altars, brought here from the archaeological site of La Venta in the 1950s, stand among the trees. The Carlos Pellicer Regional Museum of Anthropology shows more Olmec and Maya pieces.

Comalcalco, a Maya site built with fired-clay bricks, lies about 55 km to the north-west, among the cacao farms for which Tabasco is known. Palenque, with its temples in the jungle of Chiapas, is about 140 km to the south-east, and the waterfalls of Misol-Ha and Agua Azul lie beyond. The Yumká reserve on the edge of the city has savannah, jungle and lagoon habitats.

Tabasco is the home of cacao, and chocolate drinks such as pozol, a cold maize and cocoa drink, are everyday refreshment. River and lagoon fish dominate the local cooking, especially pejelagarto, the tropical gar, which is grilled, along with tamales de chipilín and plantain. The heat is constant and rain falls in every month, heaviest from June to October.