May 27, 2007

We stayed in Villahermosa just long enough to visit an outdoor museum - Parque-Museo La Venta - where about 30 oversized stone figures that had been carved by the Olmecs some 3,000 years ago are on display.

The stone figures were found in La Venta, 120 kilometers from Villahermosa, and moved to the museum in the 1950s through efforts spearheaded by Mexican poet Carlos Pellicer.

The Olmecs, who had an established presence by 1,200 BC, are believed to be the first culture of any significance to settle in what is now Mexico.

Five months after we walked the jungle paths at Parque-Museo La Venta, workers were frantically putting sandbags around the figures in a vain attempt to prevent rising floodwaters from submerging them.

The floods that drowned at least 80 percent of Tabasco (of which Villahermosa is the capital) in late October/early November 2007 were deemed by President Felipe Calderon to be one of Mexico's worst recent natural disasters. Almost half of the state’s two million people had had their homes flooded, damaged or cut off by high water.

It was Mexico’s own version of Hurricane Katrina, and completely devastated the city, which normally is the hub of the voluminous oil and gas activity in the region.

(According to the World Energy Cities Partnership website, “Nearly the totality of oil and more than 90 percent of natural gas is produced within a 200 km radius of the city”).

Although it had rained buckets at points during the five-hour drive from Lake Catemaco to Villahermosa, the storm clouds had cleared by the time we reached the campsite at Recreativo El Gordo Y San Pancho.

Recreativo El Gordo Y San Pancho was a nicely kept balneario, or Mexican water park, and given the sweat-inducing temperature that envelopes the Gulf Coast at this time of year, and thus us, we were happy to learn that the price of camping included admission to the pools.

Key Facts & Figures:

-Recreativo El Gordo Y San Pancho (including the water park): $15/night
-Parque-Museo La Venta: $4/person