With my mom and younger sister I’m visiting the Yucatan Peninsula for the first time. My wife Z is joining us partway through the trip.

Monday 12/15/2025 – Vancouver -> Cancun

  • 9:30am flight YVR -> CUN
  • listened to albums in Deepcuts Best of 2025
  • wrote a bunch for my upcoming 2025 retrospective piece
  • late dinner w/ maternal family that is from Cancun

Tuesday 12/16/2025 – Cancun -> Bacalar

  • breakfast buffet @ hotel
  • cab to Tren Maya station, ride train to Bacalar
  • cab to hotel, Rancho Encantado; check in; eat lunch
  • take private boat tour of the lagoon, stopping at cenotes & channel to swim
  • go in hot tub with my mom and drink a beer
  • rest in room; shower; do digital chores

I’m impressed by the Tren Maya. Not by how well it works but by the mere fact it exists. It’s not the kind of thing I would expect to see in Mexico. Admittedly, it’s no bullet train. From Cancun to Tulum it takes an hour forty, the same travel time by car. And it only runs a few times per day. But it only opened last year and it connects the Mexican southeast. We’ve mentioned it to servers, cab drivers, desk clerks, but no one we’ve spoken to has taken it. On this one today there are a few dozen passengers but what strikes me is the number of workers.

To enter the platform, we show our printed tickets and identification before progressing to automated gates where a lady instructs us to scan our QR code in the typical place at the front of the gate. It beeps and opens to let us through. A step past it on the other side another lady motions us forward toward the metal detector a few feet away and tells us to line up on the right side. Four or five uniformed officers stand at the one metal detector, feeding in bags and baskets into it on the conveyor belt on one side and taking them off on the other side. Once seated on the train a man comes down the aisle asking for tickets but when I mutter I don’t know where I put it he just confirms our destination before continuing down the aisle. At each station we pass uniformed officers of the Guardia Nacional stand and traipse around while several cleaning ladies sweep and mop already tidylooking floors.

Wednesday 12/17/2025 – Bacalar

  • sleep in; eat a late breakfast; relax in room
  • lounge in hammock on covered dock looking out on the lagoon
  • read & write in hammock while my mom and sister went kayaking
  • drink a beer sitting at water’s edge; solo paddleboard in lagoon along the shore
  • join my mom and sister on dock to have a drink & take a dip in the lagoon
  • go to Balacar town center; visit old Spanish fort and read about Bacalar’s colonial history
  • walk through Zocalo & settle in Chanok for late lunch
  • cab back to hotel; go in shared hot tub & then our private hot tub with my mom

Thursday 12/18/2025 – Bacalar -> Calakmul

  • wake @ 7am, get ready, pack, eat breakfast, take cab to train station
  • ride Tren Maya to Calakmul

This morning when we came out onto the train platform a worker greeted us and queried about our assigned train car. We told him and he led us to a particular spot on the platform marked with yellow and black tape to which our car would align when the train arrived. Already I thought this was unnecessary information but then to my surprise he explained a few more things. Please stay behind the yellow line, when the train arrives let passengers get off before boarding, and please bear in mind while doing so that there will be a gap between the station and the train, and if you happen to drop a belonging into it do no try to retrieve it – be it a cellphone, a bag, a pair of sunglasses – do no try to retrieve it, that’s what we are here for, we will retrieve it for you.