“Mexico’s biggest crocodile sanctuary is only 20 minutes from here,” I told my sister-in-law while relaxing on a balcony overlooking the beautiful bay of Cuastecomates, near Barra de Navidad. She opened one eye and gave me a glance that seemed to say, “A cocodrilario? Ah, yes, toothy monsters that never move a muscle, piled topsy-turvy behind a cyclone fence. Boooooring!”

In a previous article I described Los Hervores, a hot spring located 50 kilometers due west of Guadalajara.

For some time, I’ve wanted to spend a night at Igloo Kokolo – said to be an environmentalist’s dream come true – on the ribera sur of Lake Chapala, between Tuxcueca and Tizapán.

“The most beautiful route in and out of Guadalajara is, in my humble opinion, dizzily zigzagging Highway 54 through the spectacular Barranca del Río Santiago.”

“La Gente del Agua” by Dr. Eduardo Williams is a 416-page book, in Spanish, representing 20 years of study of the “fishers” – as he calls them to avoid gender prejudice – who live on the shores of lakes Cuitzeo and Pátzcuaro in Michoacán. 

Nowadays every other renovated hacienda is advertised as a spa even though there may be no mineral-rich spring anywhere near it, and, of course, the rates for hotel/spas can be sky-high.