The Tren Maya is one of those rare trains that’s hard to love. It’s an upwards of $20 billion project meant to take tourists into the heart of the Mexican rainforest where important, hard-to-reach cultural sites are a big business for some of the poorest places in Mexico. But the construction of this train is actively unveiling, and then destroying, the very sites that already draw tourists from across the globe.
The Washington Post has a deep (and I mean deep) dive on Manuel Pérez Rivas, the state-employed archeologist leading a small team that’s been given an impossible job; advocate for cultural treasures in the face of incredibly rapid development. Pérez faces ostracization from his peers, impossible deadlines from egomaniacal political leaders and constant fights with construction crews while uncovering truly amazing ruins and artifacts from the heyday of Mayan civilization.
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His job demands his team scour miles of unexplored jungles and caves in mere weeks and rate any finds on a scale that will a large portion of sites shoveled into the dustbin of history with little or no investigation.
Read more: Jalopnik
