First Stop on the Tren Maya
The morning after I finished the Texas Bar Examination, I hopped on a one-way flight to Mexico City with only a vague itinerary and no definite return date. A month later, I had reached Cancun after traveling halfway across the country without a single flight. Three all-night bus rides allowed me to efficiently span this mileage, the first from Puebla to San Cristobal, the second from Palenque to Merida, and the third from Merida to Holbox, an island near Cancun. Aside from the discomfort, poor sleep, and sleep paralysis during these rough nights, this seemed like the best way to cover some serious territory on a budget.
I had three travel companions during various stretches of the journey: an Italian, an Englishman, and a Swede. Europeans and Australians apparently have no problem barreling through unfamiliar lands for weeks at a time, but this level of inconvenience and uncertainty is unfathomable for a large portion of American travelers who have historically gravitated towards resorts and the wealthier districts of large cities. This is changing with Gen X’ers and millennials who claim to seek more authentic, off-the-beaten path experiences.
America’s changing travel habits are reflected by the current popularity of Mexico City as a prime travel destination. When I first visited Mexico City in 2009, a was terrified from all the stories of muggings and kidnappings I had heard about from friends and family. I’m assuming most Americans were too, since I only saw a handful who were in town to see Radiohead. A decade later, I watched in awe as I walked down a busy road in La Condesa filled with hordes of young Americans with a strong Los Angeles aesthetic, strutting with the same confidence and entitlement they were sure to exhibit in whatever gated suburb they were raised in.
The fear I once felt about jumping into a sham taxi to be kidnapped was now diminished by the availability of Uber and secure taxis bearing the pink CDMX logo. The city’s rebranding is largely due to marketing efforts by Mexico’s Tourism Promotion Council and other regional tourism agencies. In an era when the positivity from Netflix’s Chefs Table Pujol episode is balancing the negativity of Narco’s Season 3, Mexico has maintained a major source of revenue amid more than a decade of rampant cartel violence.
For much of the last century, tourism has been Mexico’s largest source of foreign income, behind only oil and immigrant remittances from the United States. According to the World Tourism Organization, the country consistently ranks in the top 10 destinations by tourist arrivals in the world.
Because of the persistent success of tourism even as violence has again crept up over recent years was one reason, many people scratched their heads when President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (“AMLO”) gutted the Tourism Promotion Council and slashed the Ministry of Tourism’s budget after taking office. AMLO’s stated reason for these cuts was to reallocate resources to a controversial project called the Tren Maya, a planned 950-mile train route through Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula. The route will consist of 18 stops around the Peninsula and connect nature reserves and archaeological zones in the states of Chiapas, Tabasco, Quintana Roo, and Campeche to Cancun.
The Mexican government projects that the Tren Maya will bring more than three million visitors annually to the region by providing easy access to currently difficult-to-reach sites like the ancient Mayan city of Calakmul. This increased tourism is projected to generate 20,000 jobs and $7 million annually for the local communities.
Despite these purported benefits, the project is controversial because of concerns about fair compensation for condemned land and the environmental impact to the unique Yucatan ecosystem. Despite AMLO’s promise that the Tren Maya “won't uproot a single tree", environmentalists are skeptical. Diana Friedeberg, director of the Mexican office of Panthera, a charity dedicated to preserving 40 endangered big-cat species, warned that the “Tren Maya cuts through the habitats of a jaguar population in grave danger of extinction. We're already seeing inbreeding and malnutrition. This new project could finish them off entirely."
With regard to the economic impact on local communities, locals expressed mixed feelings about the project at several townhall assemblies in late 2019. Though many are optimistic about the wealth the project will bring to the region, questions remain about how people will be compensated for any taken land. Given the country’s track record, these concerns are not unfounded. Similar developments in the past have had mixed results, such as the development of Acapulco and Puerto Vallarta as tourist hubs in the middle of 20th Century. While these projects generated jobs and foreign dollars, they also resulted in overcrowding, sanitation problems, and increased crime for the local communities. The issue of job gains is also complicated, as the process for getting tourism concessions is highly politicized and often benefits favored trade groups at the exclusion of others.
Despite the concerns, the Tren Maya is barreling forward. Rogelio Jimenez Pons, the head of the government tourism agency promoting the train, recently announced that contracts would be bid in early January and construction would begin in late March or early April of 2020.
For better or worse, the Tren Maya will undoubtedly change the Yucatan landscape, one of the few sparsely populated regions of Mexico that has largely avoided colonization and massive development. With their significant spending power, tourists have the ability to vote with their dollars to make informed travel decisions and ensure that the land Hernan Cortez couldn’t conquer doesn’t fall by the sword of influencers with selfie sticks.
Please subscribe to the Camino Aztlan Newsletter to stay informed about the Tren Maya and other similar projects. In the meantime, just take the bus.