Also on the west side, a few miles west of Laguna Manialtepec, the Atotonilco hot springs, a Chatino sacred site, provides an interesting focus for a day’s outing. The jumping-off point is the village of San José Manialtepec, about half an hour by bus or car west of Puerto Escondido.

At the village, you should hire someone to show you the way up the semi-wild canyon of the Río Manialtepec. The trail winds along cornfields, beneath forest canopies, and past Chatino native villages. Finally, you arrive at the hot spring, where a clear bathtub-sized rock basin bubbles with very hot (bearable for the brave), clear sulfur-smelling water.

Get there by tour, or driving or busing to the Highway 200 turnoff for San José Manialtepec, around Kilometer 116, just east of the Río Manialtepec bridge. Village stables provide horses and guides to the hot springs. It’s a very easy two-mile (three-km) walk, except in times of high water on the river, which the trail crosses several times.