Grutas de Coconá

The Coconá caves open into the side of Cerro Coconá, one of the forested hills that ring Teapa, only a couple of kilometers from the town square. A guided path leads through eight large chambers, each with its own shapes of stalactites and stalagmites, and some with still pools of water. The name comes from the Zoque language and is usually translated as "deep water."

The caves were found in 1876 by the brothers Rómulo and Laureano Calzada, and in 1892 the Tabasco naturalist José Narciso Rovirosa led the first expedition inside with a group of students. In 1979, while workers dug to install lighting, they uncovered bones of a mammoth and a giant ground sloth, which went to the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City.

Since 1988 the hill has been protected as a Natural Monument. It holds one of the last pieces of rainforest close to Teapa, with howler monkeys, raccoons and plenty of birds, and the dark water inside the caves is home to a blind fish found almost nowhere else.