The hook
A turquoise lake filling the crater of an extinct volcano, ringed by jungle-covered walls, with a handful of family restaurants along the shore, campsites, and water warm enough to swim in most of the year, twenty minutes off the highway in Nayarit.
01Why it's worth it
This is a small, uncomplicated pleasure rather than a monument. The laguna sits in a collapsed volcanic crater a few hundred metres across, and the mineral content gives the water a strong blue-green colour against the dark forested rim. A track runs around much of the shore for walking or riding, kayaks and paddleboards are for hire, and the shoreline restaurants serve fish and cold beer at plastic tables. There are simple cabins and camping if you stay. It's close to Tepic and about an hour and a half inland from the Riviera Nayarit beaches, so it makes an easy detour from the coast, and midweek you may share it with almost nobody. Weekends and Mexican holidays bring families from the surrounding towns, which is its own kind of good. What it isn't: developed, luxurious, or English-speaking.
02How to experience it
Come on a weekday if you want quiet, swim, walk the shore track, and eat at one of the lakeside places. Stay a night in a cabin if you'd rather not rush. It pairs well with a Riviera Nayarit trip or as a stop between Guadalajara and the coast. Basic Spanish helps.
From the locals
It heads Mexicans' own list of the loveliest little-known places in the country: "Santa María del Oro en Nayarit… está bien chingón," one wrote — "es un lago con aguas turquesas adentro del cráter de un volcán viejo rodeado de selva, lleno de restaurantitos en la orilla y hay lugares para acampar." A turquoise lake inside an old volcano's crater, ringed by jungle, with little restaurants on the shore and places to camp. He adds the part that stuck with him: hitching a ride when he thought he'd missed the bus, "la gente se portó a toda madre" — people treated him wonderfully.