Villahermosa was a few hours further south than Catemaco and seemed to mark a transition point on our trip as we were entering the state of Tabasco which has a very different landscape and feeling to Veracruz, where most of our trip had taken place up to that point.
However, Villahermosa failed to impress us. We arrived in a busy, and not very pretty city and got stuck in loads of traffic. The hotel we had booked had no parking and was really difficult to access, so as we couldn't find anywhere within a few streets of it to park we gave up and started looking for a different hotel which did have parking.
The hotel we ended up in was nothing special and it did have parking but possibly the tgtest and most awkward parking ever. Once we'd got in we went for a walk down by the river and had a drink. The river was nice but again, nothing special. We had a wander round looking for fod and browsing the shops and ended up having dinner in a sort of mid range hotel restaurant.
By this point we'd decided just to spend the one night in Villahermosa and in the morning we'd go to the sculpture park and then move on to Palenque. So we got an early night and headed out to the sculpture park in the morning. Unfortunately the traffic was crazy and the car park was rammed. It tok over half an hour just to drive through the carpark, not find a space and get grumpy and angry.
W drove to a shopping centre nearby but didn't think it was worth parking there and walking back and eventually decided to go to the Yumka safari park, near Villahermosa. For a Mexican safari park it was quite fun and we had a nice morning there. The irst part is a walking tour through Mexican woodland / jungle - there were wild pigs, iguanas and birds roaming around free and pumas and other wild cats in cages - they looked like the hapiest big cats in cages I'd ever seen as there were really active and playful which was nice to see.
The next part was the African and Asian safari on a tractor pulled trailer. It was nice and quite fun to see all the animals, but not as impressive as some other safari parks. When you got to the end of the traler ride there was an area with a restaurant, aviaries and a few other small animals as well as hippos in a small lake. We had lunch and relaxed there for a bit before taking the rest of the trailer ride back.
We didn't do the lake tour because you had to pay extra for that. We were all set to give up on the sculpture park and just drive on to Palenque, but as we got to the toll booth we suddenly made a U turn and headed back into Villahermosa for a quick walk around the park before leaving.
And I'm so glad we did. It was by far the best thing abut Villahermosa. It was beautifully laid out, the sculptures were interesting and the whole park was lovely. We got round in about an hour and a half but I could've stayed longer and I really enjoyed the time we spent there. It's a good reason to visit Villahermosa, even if there's not much else I could recommend about the town.
After that we headed on to Palenque, before it got too late.
