Water, water everywhere and many types to enjoy. Here are some facts and personal hints about bodies of water in Mexico.
Lakes
There are 95 freshwater natural lakes in Mexico recognized by the federal government, compared to about 29,000 in the United States. Canada contains more natural lakes than the rest of the world combined.
Lake Chapala in Jalisco is the largest lake in Mexico, but its size shrinks and expands depending on seasonal rainfall. Noted for its temperate year-round climate, it has become a home for many expats from north of the border.
Lake Avandaro in the Valle de Bravo is the go-to weekend retreat for many Chilangos from Mexico City and other Mexicanos. Ringed by mountains with pine forests, it provides opportunities for water sports and hiking.
Lake Patzcuaro is on the itinerary of many bus tours of Mexico. It is surrounded by colonial villages producing beautiful crafts and is home to Isla de Janitzio with souvenir shops lining the path to the top of the island. Visit early in the morning before hordes of tourists hit.
Gulfs
Gulf of Mexico: The name first appeared on a map drawn by a Spanish cartographer in 1544. The body of water was referred to by that name in the writings of explorers earlier than that and was based on the name of the indigenous Mexica (aka Aztecs). Although the shoreline is in both Mexico and the US, Mexico has the longest portion.
Gulf of California: This gulf separates the Baja Peninsula from mainland Mexico. The name California was given in the 16th century and reportedly came from a popular novel published in 1510. It is also known as the Sea of Cortez. A ferry from La Paz in Baja California to Mazatlán across the Gulf started running in 1970. The ferry is not recommended for those subject to seasickness.
Gulf of Tehuantepec: Meaning jaguar hill, this gulf is separated from the Gulf of Mexico by the Tehuantepec isthmus (just called “The Isthmus” in Huatulco). The gulf is infamous among sailors because of its perpetual fierce difficult-to-navigate winds – also called Tehuantepecs. Even driving across the Isthmus in these winds can be a challenge.
The Mexico coastline and lagoons
The coastline is more or less 5,800 miles (9,330 kilometers) long. Most of the west and south coast borders the Pacific Ocean and the Gulf of California. The rest borders the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea.
Over 100 coastal lagoons, separated from the open ocean or sea by reefs, islets or sandbars, can be found in states all along the coast. Among the most famous are the brightly colored Laguna de Bacalar in Quintana Roo, the huge refuge for migratory birds Laguna Madre in Tamaulipas, and Las Coloradas – interconnected pink lagoons in the Yucatan. Our personal favorites are the lagoons and Mayan canals that make up the Sian Kaan Biosphere Reserve in the Yucatan. Floating supine down one of the largest canals while staring up at brightly colored birds and remains of Mayan villages is an unforgettable experience.
Rivers
Mexico has about 250 named rivers, compared to about 8,500 in Canada and 250,000 in the United States.
The longest river at about 1,900 miles is the Rio Bravo del Norte (aka the Rio Grande) that forms much of the northern border with the U.S.
The Usumacinta River, named after the howler monkey, is slightly less than 700 miles long and forms part of the border between Mexico and Guatemala. A noisy night spent on the river bank makes clear how it got its name. A mysterious trip down the river in the dawn fog is highly recommended.
You may have your own favorite lake, lagoon, or river – there are so many in Mexico to explore.
Drs. Marcia and Jan Chaiken have been married for 62 years and have published many justice system research reports together.
Nine minutes into the opening game of the World Cup 2026, Julián Quiñones scores the first goal of the tournament to give Mexico, one of the three host nations, the lead against South Africa.
The iconic Azteca Stadium in Mexico City erupts in joy, and I shoot from my seat in a bar at Gatwick Airport, arms aloft, punching the air with a loud cheer. I am undaunted by the bemused looks of onlookers, for I have skin in this game.
I am Cornish and for over two centuries, my people have played a significant role in Mexico’s silver mining industry. In 1824, the first Cornish mineworkers arrived at Real del Monte, a small town in the picturesque Sierra Madre Oriental in the State of Hidalgo. They were employees of the British-capitalised Real del Monte Mining Company and one of those men was a distant cousin to me.
The Cornish did not just bring their innovative high-pressure steam engine technology and mining know-how, which helped to revive the flooded mines of Real del Monte, but also their culture.
This included their Methodist faith, Cornwall’s signature dish – the pasty – and sports, including cricket and football.
All of these left an indelible imprint on the mining settlements of the Comarca Minera de Hidalgo, also known as Mexico’s ‘Little Cornwall’.
Along with the humble pasty, adapted to suit the Mexican palate and now a dish as famous throughout Hidalgo as barbacoa, the Mexican people embraced football. Mexico is the first nation to host the World Cup three times.
With the spotlight firmly on Mexico’s footballing pedigree, attention has turned to the history of the sport in the country, with several places claiming to be the cradle of Mexican football.
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Prior to the late 1880s, the game was not mentioned in the Mexican press. In 1887, the employees of the General Offices of the Central (a railway) in Mexico City, were reportedly trying to set up a football club.
In November 1891, a match was played at San Cristóbal between ‘Pearson’s Wanderers’ (of the British construction firm S. Pearson & Sons) and the ‘San Cristobal Swifts’. The Swifts were defeated 1-0. The game was still relatively unknown in Mexico at this point:
“Many of the Swifts had never played at football before, and consequently were at a disadvantage, but they played remarkably well considering that the Wanderers had just returned from a trip to Europe where they had practiced for some months.” Daily Anglo American, 3 November 1891.
In September 1892, The Two Republics newspaper reported that a football match was being arranged in Mexico City for the inauguration of the Mexican Athletic Club’s ground on the Paseo, “the first game between two organised clubs ever played in the vicinity”.
British schools in Mexico City undoubtedly played the game at this period, but it did not take off due to lack of competition.
However, competitive football was being played in Mexico’s Little Cornwall several years before the abovementioned games.
It is only by chance that a report of one of those matches, the earliest documented in Mexico, found its way into El Minero de Pachuca in May 1889.
A football match between men from El Rosario Mine in Pachuca (managed by Cornishman, Richard Rule) and those from La Joya Mine in neighbouring Real del Monte, was abandoned.
The game, played on the sport’s field of the Railway Racetrack in Pachuca, descended into a free fight when the referee awarded a penalty to El Rosario, which was winning 7-4.
The players from La Joya disagreed with his decision and attacked their opponents, causing serious injuries to two players. Fourteen people appeared in court for involvement in the brawl.
In the mid-1860s, one quarter of all British subjects in Mexico were resident in Hidalgo’s mining settlements. This critical mass of people and the ‘friendly rivalry’ between Cornishmen in Real del Monte and Pachuca, echoing the fierce sporting rivalries in Cornish towns such as Camborne and Redruth, undoubtedly led to the success of football in Hidalgo.
Pachuca had established a football club by late 1892, as an anonymous letter in Mexican newspaper, The Two Republics, revealed. The Pachuca Football Club had lately degenerated to a great extent and was being reorganised. This was due to a schism between the players at Pachuca and the “mountain men” (the Realmontese):
“This must be attributed to the lack of energy of certain members of the above-named body. We may in particular refer to certain so-called football players who live in the mountains and who are so egotistical as to imagine that without their mighty efforts the club would not but expire.”
Besides the deep rivalry between the two mining settlements which made competitive football attractive, was the fact that organised sport already existed in the form of cricket.
In August 1888, Cornish newspaper, the Cornishman, reported that the Pachuca Cricket Club was over 20 years old. Mining entrepreneur, Frank Rule, Pachuca’s most famous Cornish resident, had served with the club for 21 years. Crucially, the Pachuca cricket team played against established teams in Real del Monte and Velasco.
Pachuca’s first football squad was built from its cricket team and included William Retallack, Sydney Ludlow, Charles Grenfell, John Mayne Rule, W.C. Rule, and some enthusiastic recent arrivals from Cornwall.
By the early 1890s, football was growing in popularity throughout Mexico’s British enclaves. Clubs had been formed in Mexico City, Orizaba (State of Veracruz) and Puebla. In 1894, Mexican newspaper El Nacional explained that football was a team game played with a rubber bladder covered in leather.
In 1895, a meeting was held at Hacienda La Luz in Pachuca to agree on the amalgamation of the Pachuca Cricket Club, the Velasco Cricket Club and the Pachuca Football Club, to create a stronger competitive entity: the Pachuca Athletic Club.
A large field belonging to Hacienda La Luz was given over for a sports field. The officers and committee were all Methodist Cornishmen, so no games were to be played on Sundays. The team chose as its strip, the historic dark and light blues of Oxford and Cambridge, with blue shorts.
In February 1902, a hotly contested international between Scotland and England was played on the Reforma Club’s grounds in Mexico City, watched over by the British Consul, which England won 3-2. The game between the two ‘auld foes’ was not without controversy, with Scotland claiming the referee had made an error that awarded the game to England!
This galvanised interest throughout the expat communities and later that year, several Scottish footballers involved in establishing the Orizaba Club, suggested setting up an Association League. In 1902 the Liga Mexicana de Football Amateur Association was formed among the English-speaking community.
The teams of the new league were the Reforma Athletic Club, the Mexico Cricket Club, The British Social Club (all three based in Mexico City), the Pachuca Athletic Club and the Orizaba Athletic Club.
League football benefitted from the Porfiriato’s improved communication and transport links, particularly the railways, which made it easier to travel to opponents’ grounds for matches. English language newspaper, The Mexican Herald, published upcoming fixtures and devoted column inches to detailed reports of the various matches.
Pachuca’s first league game was played at the Velódromo Pachuca against the Reforma Athletic Club. The game began at 4.00pm and was well supported and hotly contested, watched by the Hidalgo state governor, Pedro L. Rodriguez, and all the principal families of the area.
The only drawback was the strong wind that interfered with kicking, which occurs each afternoon in Pachuca, La Bella Airosa!
“The scene on the ground was made picturesque by the presence of a large number of ladies in most beautiful costumes, many of them wearing the colours of the Pachuca club, dark and light blue.” Mexican Herald, 2 November 1902.
Both teams played “with dash”. The game ended in a tie: three goals apiece. Orizaba won the first league of 1902.
Pachuca AC won its first amateur title in the 1904–05 season and also won the Copa Tower twice (1907–08 and 1911–12).
Football was deemed modern, encompassed British cultural imperialism, and became fashionable in societies wishing to emulate the British sense of fair play. In 1908 the first Mexican, David Islas, became a Pachuca club member.
Alfred ‘Fred’ C. Crowle (1889-1979), the Pachuca-born son of Alf Crowle, a Cornish miner from St Blazey, was a key player during this era. He was eventually promoted to team coach and freely admitted Mexicans from all backgrounds to the team, blurring class and ethnic boundaries.
Under Crowle, Pachuca won two more amateur league titles (1917–18 and 1919–20). He later went on to found Club Necaxa before becoming the national coach in 1935, enjoying a 100 per-cent record during the year he was in charge.
The Mexican Revolution (1910-20) and WW1 affected the team, as players moved away. Pachuca-born Johnnie Vial, a cousin of mine, signed on as a gunner with the Royal Field Artillery. He died at the Somme. In the 1920s, the club folded.
The Pachuca club, ‘Los Tuzos’ (The Gophers, honouring the city’s mining legacy), was successfully revived in the 1960s and currently plays in Liga MX. Pachuca prides itself on being the spiritual home of Mexican football and boasts the interactive museum, Mundo Fútbol.
I will continue to follow ‘El Tri’ with gusto during this year’s World Cup. Next time you see La Ola (the Mexican Wave) ripple through a stadium, remember the role that Mexico’s ‘Little Cornwall’ played in popularising the beautiful game in this football-mad nation.
Born and bred in Redruth, Cornwall, Sharron Schwartz completed her PhD at the Institute of Cornish Studies, University of Exeter. She is the pre-eminent authority on Cornish migration to Latin America and is a Bard of Gorsedh Kernow.
We are in the midst of World Cup fever. What is more Mexican than El Tri? And yet, when we dig a little deeper, we discover that football itself is an import. The game arrived in Mexico with Cornish miners in the nineteenth century and was gradually adopted, adapted, and embraced until it became something undeniably Mexican.
At what point do the blurry lines of otherness disappear? I find myself thinking about this often. Maybe because I have spent so much of my life living somewhere other than where I was born. Over the years I have been called a tourist, a traveller, an immigrant, and occasionally the word that makes me cringe the most: expat. What is the difference, exactly?
An immigrant moves somewhere permanently. An expat plans to leave? A traveller keeps moving? A displaced person had no choice? The definitions seem straightforward until you start looking closely. Then they begin to fall apart. Is it intention that matters? Money? Privilege? Time? And what about the rest of us?
Aren’t we all being displaced constantly? We move across countries and continents, but also through relationships, careers, beliefs, identities, and stages of life. The person I was at twenty is not the person writing this today. Sometimes the biggest migrations happen without ever crossing a border.
Perhaps movement is not the exception. Perhaps it is the human condition. The World Cup offers a fascinating reminder of this. National teams are presented as symbols of identity and belonging, yet many of their players have roots stretching across multiple countries and continents. Some were born in one place and represent another. Some hold dual citizenship. Some choose to play for the country of their parents or grandparents rather than the one where they were born.
These teams reflect a deeply interconnected world shaped by migration, colonial history, family ties, opportunity, and choice. And yet we remain remarkably attached to the question of origin.
Where are you from? Sometimes even when someone answers, it is not enough. “No, where are you really from?” As if birthplace alone could explain a person.
In this age of rapid technological change, global travel, and lives that increasingly unfold across multiple places, I sometimes wonder why we continue to use the location where someone first slipped into the world as one of our primary measures of identity.
Who are you really? Perhaps that is the more interesting question. The World Cup reminds us that identity is rarely as simple as a flag, a passport, or a place on a map. We are all shaped by where we come from, but also by where we go, who we love, what we learn, and the communities we choose along the way.
The older I get, the less interested I become in where people are from and the more interested I become in who they are.
May is the worst time of the year on the Oaxacan coast. It is when the land is the driest, the ocean the warmest and it seems as though everyone is waiting for those first drops of rain. While many people come to the Oaxacan coast for the beaches, I am most enthralled by the mountains. Turn around and look behind you. They rise up in majestic tones of purple and blue. When it gets unbearably hot it’s time for a drive into the Sierra Sur, where the temperature drops, the air sharpens, and everything slows down. Within a few hours’ drive from Huatulco, a completely different world unfolds.
The journey itself is part of the ritual. Leaving behind the palms and salt air, the road climbs steadily, curling into the mountains. The vegetation shifts almost imperceptibly at first, dry brush gives way to greener growth, then to dense forest. Windows come down. The air cools. By the time you reach the higher elevations, you’re reaching for a sweater. This is the Sierra Sur: a region defined by altitude, cloud forests, and quiet.
San José del Pacífico: Where the Clouds Settle
Perched along the mountain highway, San José del Pacífico has built a reputation as Oaxaca’s most atmospheric escape. Known for its drifting clouds and panoramic views, the town often disappears into mist by afternoon, only to reveal dramatic sunsets hours later. It is also famed for the hallucinogenic mushrooms that grow there.
One of the highlights is that many cabins come with a chimenea, a fireplace, which keeps you warm and cozy. The pace is unhurried, slow, chilly mornings—listening for birds, watching steam rise from your café de olla. Travelers come for the cool weather, but they stay for the feeling of introspection and awe that the environment inspires. Whether sitting on a balcony wrapped in a blanket or watching the clouds roll through the valley.
San Mateo Río Hondo: The Quiet Alternative
A short drive, or an hour’s hike, from San Jose, lies San Mateo Río Hondo, a lesser-known but equally compelling destination. Down in the valley this town has some great hiking. Dirt roads, community life, and long forest walks define the rhythm. The smell of pine trees and woodsmoke. With fewer visitors, Río Hondo offers something increasingly rare: space to be alone with the landscape.
Pluma Hidalgo: Coffee in the Clouds
Just an hour from Huatulco, Pluma Hidalgo offers another kind of escape, one rooted in agriculture and tradition. This region is synonymous with high-quality coffee, grown under the shade of forest canopy and nourished by the same cool, misty climate that defines the Sierra. Visiting Pluma Hidalgo is a chance to see the slower cycles of rural life: coffee drying in the sun, families tending to their land, and a deep connection to place that feels unchanged by time. The air here carries the faint scent of earth and roasted beans, a sensory shift from the salt and sunscreen of the coast.
A Different Kind of Luxury
What ties these places together is not just the temperature, but the contrast. In a matter of hours, you move from heat to cool, from open beaches to enclosed forests, from movement to stillness. There are no beach clubs here, no urgency to fill the day. Instead, the luxury is found in simple things: a hot drink in cold air, a quiet night wrapped in fog, the sound of wind through pine trees. It’s the kind of reset that doesn’t announce itself loudly, but lingers long after you’ve returned to sea level.
For those living or visiting the Oaxacan coast, this mountain escape isn’t just a trip. It’s a seasonal rhythm. When the heat builds, you go up.
Jane Bauer is the editor of The Eye and a chef. You can follow her on Instagram @livingfoodmexico
“It was one of those March days when the sun shines hot and the wind blows cold: when it is summer in the light, and winter in the shade.” From Great Expectations by Charles Dickens.
Even that image from Victorian London seems warmer than this. Here, no sun or shade, only grey and flurries, and it’s mid-April already. The steady heat of Huatulco is now a distant memory. Standing at the window watching snow that should have stopped weeks ago, the body does what bodies do in the cold. It complains. Specifically, and elaborately at the cellular level, and more ‘whiny’ at the snowbird level. Why is it such a struggle to stay warm?
HOW DO OUR BODIES CREATE HEAT?
In a nutshell, body heat is a waste byproduct of cellular activity. Those cellular activities are enormously complex and varied, like running our organs, firing our muscles and digesting our food. But they have one thing in common. Like a car engine that heats up trying to turn the wheels, our cells cannot do their job without generating heat.
The energy that drives all our cells to perform their different functions comes from the body’s universal energy packet, the ATP molecule. This molecule is produced by the digestive process, transferring energy from the food we eat into a fuel that every cell in our bodies needs to perform its function. But not all parts of the body generate heat equally. There are four functions that account for most of the heat generation.
MUSCLES: Even sitting idle, muscles have their engines running. They need to be ready for that dash to the bus or to get up to pee. For a muscle to fire, or remain ready to fire, muscle cells hold that ATP energy molecule in a primed state. When our brains send the electronic signal, the muscle-primed ATP molecule splits, releasing energy, and the muscle fires. But that muscle firing is not perfectly efficient, and some of that energy simply escapes as heat. At rest, muscles produce about 25% of our body heat. And WAY more when sprinting from a bear.
THE LIVER: Muscles may get all the headlines in the body gazette, but the liver is relentlessly busy in the background, processing food, filtering toxins and making proteins. Liver cells, like all cells, run on ATP, and all that constant consumption generates significant heat as a byproduct. But unlike the muscle cells, liver cells don’t perform a mechanical function, and so most of the ATP energy ends up as heat, about 20% of our body’s heat overall.
ESSENTIAL SERVICES – HEART, BRAIN, KIDNEYS: These organs run 24/7 and, as a result of their constant consumption of ATP, contribute about 10% each to our body’s heat generation
BROWN FAT: Unlike all those busy organs, doing stuff and accidentally creating heat, brown fat just hangs out and creates heat. Sort of like your nephew who plays computer games in the basement. Except when brown fat isn’t working, everyone notices. Our bodies need a certain amount of heat, and when we don’t have enough, things can go south quickly. Unlike other body cells, where heat is a byproduct of other functions, brown fat cells contain a protein that essentially converts all the ATP energy into heat. This is critical for newborns who are unable to shiver to create heat. And for adults who do not spend their winters in Huatulco, brown fat saves them from having to shovel the whole block just to keep warm.
WHY DO OUR BODIES REGULATE HEAT?
We all know that people can suffer and even die when their bodies get too much or not enough heat. It turns out our Goldilocks body temperature is 37°C (98.6°F), and our bodies have evolved to keep us at or near this temperature. There is a chemical reason for this. Back at the cellular level, the chemical processes cells use to produce proteins and enzymes are highly sensitive to temperature. Nudge that temperature a bit too far in either direction, and the whole system starts to break down.
So the body has a highly sophisticated heating and cooling system to keep us, like Goldilocks’s porridge, ‘just right’. Our body’s thermostat is the hypothalamus, a small region of the brain that constantly monitors our core temperature and triggers responses to keep it within range. Too hot, and it triggers sweating and redirects blood toward the skin to release heat. Too cold and it triggers shivering, ramps up metabolism and redirects blood away from the skin to conserve warmth.
LIVING OUTSIDE THE COMFORT ZONE
All this sophisticated biological body heat regulation can only do so much. Our bodies are happiest when our environment is in the Thermoneutral Zone of 20°C to 25°C (68°F to 77°F ). Moving further from this temperature range in either direction requires action on our part.
TOO COLD: It has been said that one of the most important inventions in human history was the sewing needle. Fifty thousand years ago, needles enabled the making of fur clothing, thus enabling humans to adapt to climates colder than those in tropical Africa. As with most important things, this was both good news and bad news. The good news is that the vast majority of Earth’s landmass lies north of the tropical zone, opening up entire continents for human expansion. The bad news was that humans needed parkas. Yes, chafing was involved, but it also left humans, to this day, spending a great deal of time and energy just trying to stay warm.
Besides clothing and huddling around whatever could be burned, the ‘endurance option’, nature offered warm-blooded creatures just two alternatives: get out or go unconscious. Migrate or hibernate.
The ‘get out’ option came naturally to birds. Birds also have a hypothalamus, which, in migratory species, contains photoreceptors that detect day length. This triggers a hormonal release that drives the migratory instinct. When the days shorten, the hypothalamus sounds the alarm, and the bird heads south. In the highly evolved ‘snowbird’, their computer calendar reminds them to book airfare. Hormones kick in, and they find themselves inexplicably drawn to bathing suits, suitcases, and Huatulco Facebook posts.
Unconsciousness, nature’s only other winter coping option, requires hibernation. Hibernation works reasonably well for bears, chipmunks and squirrels, who don’t have Netflix. Again, the hypothalamus is involved, triggering hormones that dial down metabolism, heart rate and core body temperature to the minimal levels required for survival. During hibernation, an animal’s body is too cold to produce the electrical currents required for dreaming, and that just sucks.
TOO HOT: Options for regulating body heat when temperatures exceed the thermoneutral zone are far less onerous than those on the too-cold end of the spectrum. The body’s cooling mechanism triggers sweat glands on the skin, and blood vessels near the skin surface dilate to bring more warm blood to the surface for cooling. Shade, water and moving air all accelerate exactly these processes.
Water, pool, ocean or shower is the most immediate solution, pulling heat from the body twenty-five times faster than air alone. Moving air, whether breeze or ceiling fan, amplifies the cooling effect by accelerating evaporation from the skin, the same process your sweat glands are already working hard to achieve. Using wind-chill calculations as a rough approximation, a light breeze or a moderate ceiling fan speed in a 30°C (86°F) environment reduces your felt skin temperature to around 28°C (82°F), nudging your body back toward the thermoneutral zone while you possibly enjoy a margarita.
Randy Jackson blends local reporting from the perspective of a seasonal Huatulco resident with explorations of life and change in Huatulco, Oaxaca and Mexico. Email: box95jackson@gmail.com
The Bacaanda Foundation, through its Escuela Rural Inteligente program, has developed an innovative educational model driven above all by its team. This extraordinary group of professionals, guided by vocation, consistency, and a deep sense of social responsibility, is transforming the educational experience.
The team is made up of six educational coaches, a technology engineer, and a project director, all working in close coordination to directly support teachers and students. In addition to conducting in-person visits to schools for 3 to 5 days each month, the team provides daily online support—guiding teachers in lesson planning, the design of teaching and learning strategies, and the effective use of educational technology.
During these visits, the coaches monitor, advise, and train teachers in the use of internet resources, smart screens, iPads, and educational apps, integrating them into Spanish and Mathematics curricula at the preschool, primary, and secondary levels. This hybrid model—combining in-person and virtual support—allows for continuous, timely, and personalized attention.
The role of the engineer is equally essential, overseeing the proper functioning of equipment, ensuring the effective use of technological tools, and providing timely technical solutions to prevent interruptions in the learning process.
Complementing this work, the project director coordinates efforts, ensures follow-up, and maintains the quality of implementation across the 53 rural schools currently served, guaranteeing consistency, efficiency, and alignment with the foundation’s educational goals.
In addition, the team maintains an active presence within the communities—observing and modeling classroom practices during school hours, and offering training sessions for teachers and parents in the afternoons. This close engagement strengthens trust, local commitment, and the long-term sustainability of the program.
Thanks to this consistent, hands-on and online support, the results have been clear: reduced gaps in literacy, steady improvements in mathematics, and significant progress in digital skills. The Escuela Rural Inteligente team has become a powerful example of how human guidance, combined with technology, can transform educational realities in rural settings.
The Rotary Club of Bahías de Huatulco, established in 1998, is preparing to host a bi-district conference at the Barceló Convention Centre from May 14–16. Rotary is an international service organization with a presence in more than 200 countries and over 1.2 million members worldwide. Its primary areas of focus include healthcare, disease prevention, clean water, literacy, peace, education, and the environment—all guided by the motto “Service Above Self.”
Locally, the club supports its Park Library in Sector U2, which offers a computer lab for area schoolchildren, language classes in Spanish, German, and English, and serves as both a lending library and a resource center for visiting students. The Huatulco Rotary Club has also delivered numerous wheelchairs, hosts an annual dental campaign for rural schoolchildren, and has installed water purification systems in schools across surrounding communities.
The upcoming conference will welcome more than 400 Rotarians from across southern Mexico. District 4195 includes participants from Oaxaca, Chiapas, Veracruz, Tabasco, Yucatán, Quintana Roo, and Campeche. District 4185 will bring attendees from Puebla, Guerrero, Tlaxcala, Morelos, and additional regions of Veracruz. The event will also host approximately 250 foreign exchange students.
For local businesses, this gathering presents an opportunity to offer special promotions or discounts during the low season, as visitors explore the area’s shops, restaurants, and services.
Conference Highlights:
May 15: Presentation by Nobel Peace Prize laureate and Rotary Peace Scholar, Dra. Rigoberta Menchú Tum
May 15: A colorful parade of Rotarians in traditional regional dress, beginning in El Centro and culminating at Parque Guelaguetza near the marina. The public is warmly invited to attend and enjoy food and artisan stalls at the park.
May 17: A 2 km walk/run to the golf course in support of Rotary’s global polio eradication campaign
The Tren Maya links the main cities, major airports and tourist destinations, including major Mayan archaeological sites within the five states rooted in Mayan culture in Mexico (Chiapas, Tabasco, Campeche, Yucatán, and Quintana Roo). It also formally recognizes and helps safeguard the Mayan culture and its contributions to Mexico. All the signage is bilingual (Spanish and Mayan). The major and central station is Cancún.
Although other rail line projects in the region had been proposed by past administrations, the Tren Maya was the brainchild of the former president Andrés Manuel López Obrador (aka AMLO) and his administration, and one of his top priorities shortly after his election in 2018. The Tren Maya consists of 1,554 km (966 miles) of modern rail that loops around the Yucatán Peninsula, with two additional legs, one east to Chetumal on the Belize border, and the other lengthy section south and west from Escárcega to the archeological site of Palenque in Chiapas. There are a total of 34 stations, of which 20 are major, consisting of seven segments. The three train types include the Standard Mayan Train (Xinnbal, ‘walking’ in Mayan), the Restaurant Car (Janal), and the Mayan Train Long Distance (P’ata), the latter of which will provide sleeper cars for the lengthier routes. The Standard Train has a 300-passenger capacity. The stations tend to be on the outskirts of communities, probably dictated by right of way issues, community concerns, engineering, hydrology, and archaeological. Passengers cannot simply hop on and off the train, so if you want to stay in a particular area for an extended stay, buy two one-way tickets.
Engineering, Construction and Operation
The lead firm selected for this project was Alstom, a French multinational company specializing in rail transport, mobility solutions, and engineering. Including the acquisition of Bombardier Transportation (part of Bombardier, known for its aviation division, including business jets), with a facility in Querétaro, Mexico, they are a global leader in high-speed trains, metros, trams, and sustainable signaling systems. At the time, FONATUR (National Fund for the Promotion of Tourism) was the lead agency for the Federal government, with a carefully selected consortium of businesses responsible for the design, manufacture of the trains, construction of the rail line, environmental and cultural analysis, and likely public outreach and coordination. The consortium was in part selected for its ability to manufacture the 42 X’Trapolis trains in Mexico in Ciudad Sahagún, Hidalgo, fulfilling another goal of being a ‘Train for Mexico Built in Mexico’ as well as design and install the entire associated infrastructure. The exterior design is sleek and elegant, and the train’s logo, an artistic interpretation of Kukulkan, the Mayan plumed serpent deity, was clearly displayed.
Construction began in 2019 with clearing and grubbing of the right of way. Topography is mainly flat, though hilly and rough terrain in Campeche required excavation and stabilization of long cut slopes. Some sections required multiple vehicular overpasses to maintain access to small communities. Sections were built and opened incrementally, with the final segment from Escárcega to Chetumal on December 15, 2024.
The routes are now fully operational although, as of this article, it is not clear what services are available at all the major stations. The trains are powered by a hybrid system, utilizing both electric-diesel dual-mode locomotives and dedicated diesel locomotives to travel the 1,554 km route. Approximately 44% of the track (about 690 km), primarily between Mérida and Chetumal, is electrified. The remaining sections are intended to run on clean biodiesel and ultra-low sulfur diesel, resulting in lower emission and energy efficiency. And the source of the biodiesel? Sources are primarily used cooking and vegetable oils produced in the surrounding five states through which the train passes. Alternatively, ultra-low sulfur diesel fuels are also used, according to causanaturamedia.com.
The Guardia Nacional, (established by AMLO in 2019), under the direction of the Mexican Armed Forces, oversees security and plays a role in operations.
Our Trip March 2026
We decided, without much debate, to take the Tren Maya this year from Mérida to Playa del Carmen, then rent a car and head to Akumal to meet up with family members, returning to Mérida. We did discuss taking it last year, but since 2025 was Tren Maya’s first year in operation, we decided to wait for reviews from friends or acquaintances—which never came. We chose Mérida since we had great memories from a brief trip we took decades ago on our way to Tulum; I was alone in Mérida in 2011 to present at an International Conference and wanted to go back with my hubby. We chose Playa del Carmen for the destination north of Akumal since it appeared that the station was better developed than the Tulum station to the south of Akumal and we were concerned about transportation to the rental car agency. As it turns out that was a prudent decision, as neither taxis nor Uber were available at the Playa del Carmen train station, and we were lucky to catch a private van to pick up our rental car.
Mérida To Playa del Carmen
Websites recommended that we be at the station across town an hour early so we left the hotel at 5:15 am, before the Mérida rush hour. The station was elegant but with few functioning services and mostly empty store fronts. Signage indicated that no outside beverages or food were allowed on the train; the body and luggage scanners, however, were not functioning at the time and we noticed employees enjoying a good desayuno in Styrofoam containers once we were on board in our first-class seats. We left at 7:00 a.m. on the dot. The comfortable seats were identical in coach and first class, the latter came with a fold-out table, but that was the only perk, other than first class allows for early boarding. There was plenty of space for storage and even a rack for bicycles. The food, in a separate ‘vagón’ (car) consisted mostly of packaged microwavable snacks, but I had a decent slice of carrot cake and a cup of coffee (skip the chapata de carne with mystery meat) and I was impressed with the selection of magazines. They serve rum, vodka, tequila and beer, but alas no wine, although it was a bit early for alcohol. It appears that the vagón may offer more culinary options in the future, as what we experienced was not the ‘restaurant’ car described on various websites (‘There will be 8 Restaurant model Maya trains, and the reason is that they have a carriage that functions as a restaurant. It has an industrial-type kitchen with a capacity for 140 passengers, and it prepares food from each region it passes through’).
There are electrical charge outlets and USB ports on the trains, but the wireless internet was not functioning on either leg of our trip. It was a 4.5-hour comfortable trip to Playa del Carmen through the flat and monotonous terrain, dominated by scrubby vegetation of the limestone parent material of the Yucatán Peninsula, mostly paralleling the existing highway to Cancún.
Return to Mérida
The train at Playa del Carmen left punctually at 7:10 p.m. and it was good we were early, as an intense downpour would have slowed our 25-minute taxi ride. We ducked into a small fast-food restaurant to get out of the rain blowing through the station and had a few beers. The station had functioning scanners, but they did not catch the limited food and beverages we managed to bring. The train was on time, and other than the coach being very cold (I resorted to wrapping a tee shirt around my head), we had an uneventful return in the dark night, with a few rum and coke cocktails and our books to break the monotony. We caught a cab back to the hotel in Mérida.
Would we do this again? Perhaps! I would love to check out the restaurant car and go back to either Palenque or Bacalar. Some challenges remain along several sections of the train due to difficult and complicated civil engineering associated with the karst topography (porous and cavernous limestone formations) and cenotes (freshwater sinkholes) of the Yucatan Peninsula, and several derailments occurred in 2025. Be sure to check the status of the rails when considering your itinerary.
Reservations: These were easy to do online and directly through their website http://www.trenmaya.gob.mx
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