Ciudad del Carmen

The bus crossed the bridge from the mainland at first light, and on the water to the south there were lights that were not buoys. Fixed lights, evenly spaced on the horizon, industrial and deliberate. Oil platforms in the Sonda de Campeche, the shallow bay off the coast of the Yucatán Peninsula where the Cantarell field — once the second-largest oil field on earth — is located. I had been asleep most of the overnight journey from Campeche City and woke to these lights, and then to the bridge, and then to the skyline of Ciudad del Carmen arriving through the early haze.

It is the most specific arrival I have had in Mexico. The context is unmistakable.

Oil City

Cantarell peaked in production in the early 2000s and has declined substantially since, but Ciudad del Carmen remains the operational center of Mexico’s offshore oil industry. Pemex has its Gulf region operations here. The oil service companies cluster around the port. The workers — engineers, technicians, offshore crew on rotation — move through the city in the particular rhythm of the extraction industry: intense periods on the platforms followed by days off in the city, money spent in the restaurants and hotels along the malecón.

The bridge I crossed is one of two that connect Isla del Carmen to the mainland across the Laguna de Términos. The island is long and narrow, and the city occupies most of it. The lagoon to the north is one of the most important wetland systems on the Gulf coast — it’s a protected biosphere reserve and an extraordinary bird habitat, which exists in deliberate tension with the industrial activity offshore. The mangrove channels of the lagoon are within sight of the port cranes.

I took a taxi from the bus terminal to the market and arrived at 7am to find it already in full operation. The workers from the early shift rotations eat at the market stalls before heading to the port. I sat at a counter between two men in Pemex company shirts who were eating mojarra frita — whole fried freshwater fish from the lagoon — and ordered the same.

The Lagoon’s Seafood

The Laguna de Términos gives Ciudad del Carmen its food identity in a way that is distinct from the rest of Campeche state. The freshwater species of the lagoon — mojarra, robalo (snook), and the extraordinary pejelagarto, a prehistoric-looking gar fish with a long snout that appears on menus throughout the Tabasco-Campeche border region — define the local kitchen more than the Gulf offshore catches do.

The mojarra arrived whole, fried crisp, on a plate with rice, black beans, and fried plantain. The fish was from the lagoon that morning, according to the woman at the counter, who said this not as a selling point but as a statement of fact. It had the freshwater sweetness that mojarra does when it’s actually fresh, a lightness that surprises you given that it’s fried. I ate everything and ordered a coffee and watched the market fill and empty around me.

The pejelagarto is harder to find at the breakfast hour. I had it for lunch the following day at a small restaurant two blocks from the malecón — stewed, in a sauce based on dried chiles and tomato, served over rice. The fish has a dense, flaky texture and a flavor that is intensely savory without being strong. It is the kind of thing you eat in a specific place because it exists there and nowhere quite like it, which is the best argument for eating locally.

The Cumbia Under the Petrochemical Sky

What strikes you about Ciudad del Carmen, if you spend more than a night there, is the musical culture. The Caribbean influence — cumbia, danzón, the rhythms that circulate between Veracruz, Tabasco, and the Gulf coast — is stronger here than anywhere else in Campeche state. The interior of Campeche leans toward a more austere colonial-Mexico cultural register. Carmen leans toward the coast of Tabasco and the Gulf, toward the Caribbean music that moves along this shoreline.

On the malecón in the evenings, there are families and there is music from the restaurants and bars that face the water. The danzón culture — the dignified, structured Cuban-derived dance form that took root in Veracruz and spread along the Gulf coast — still has its practitioners here, older couples who know what they’re doing and do it with the ease of people who learned when they were young.

The oil money and the Caribbean music and the lagoon seafood and the industrial infrastructure produce a combination that is particular to this place and doesn’t resolve into a simple character. Ciudad del Carmen is not a destination city in the way Campeche City is. But it is a city with a genuine life of its own.

Getting There

ADO and other bus lines connect Ciudad del Carmen with Campeche City (about 3 hours), Villahermosa (about 3 hours), and Mexico City via overnight services. There is an airport with domestic connections to Mexico City. The city is on Isla del Carmen and everything is accessed via the two bridges from the mainland. The malecón and the market area are walkable from the central hotels. If you’re in Campeche state with a vehicle and the time to detour, the lagoon ecosystem around the island is worth exploring — boat trips into the mangrove channels are arranged through guides at the port.