Villahermosa

About 500 miles southeast of Mexico City and nearly 400 miles southwest of Mérida in Yucatán, Villahermosa is the capital of Tabasco state. An oil boomtown, it was known in the seventies as “Villahorrorosa, horrible village!” It is still not a holiday destination, but it is no longer ugly, thanks to municipal investment in the last decade. It now shows off wide boulevards, shady parks, and a pedestrian zone called the “Zona Luz,” dotted with small cafes. The town, with a population of over 500,000 inhabitants, has one great attraction by international standards: its superb anthropology museum, devoted primarily to the intriguing Olmec civilization and their jaguar cult.

A couple of other museums and parks are worth popping into, but Villahermosa is of prime interest to tourists either as a transport hub for its proximity to Palenque or for medical emergencies, as it has the only MedToGo referral hospital in the region. The only real hazard here is heat exhaustion.