TRAVEL | MEMOIR
The Bacalar Booze Blues
The ebb and flow of life in the lagoon-side party town
Tourist towns can feel a bit like social experiments. The constant cycling in of new people leaves the distinct impression of a life in flux.
Hostel inhabiters, backpacking brigades, and globetrotting gurus wander through these microcosmic facades of entire nations with a wanton openness to everything. In moments, it all feels like a festival.
French Canadians intermingle with the Dutch, Spanish, Americans, Finns, and Irish alike in delightful defiance of language barriers. My lack of comprehension hardly holds me back. When the music is loud enough and alcohol is consumed enough, charades and laughter become our common dialect.
The towns are almost invariably brighter versions of the countries they represent. They wear vibrant faces to the come-and-go masses of camera-clad solo sojourners who drift their way between destinations.
Bacalar, Mexico is one such town. Fixed at the lower outskirts of the third-world-adjacent nation, it’s a town that’s cultivated a feeling of safety that can’t always be found within the country.
The armed military men stationed at certain corners are a somewhat jarring presence for many foreigners. As an…
