Local camping opportunities are excellent at Corinches Reservoir near Mascota. Here, authorities have built a fine facility, now known locally as La Terraza. For starters, you can enjoy bass and carp dinners from a lake-view palapa restaurant with mariachi entertainment Saturday and Sunday afternoons. Alternatively, you can enjoy your own picnic beneath one of several airy picnic shelters, complete with car pad, useable for self-contained RV parking and camping. Launch your own boat at a good boat ramp downhill, and swim in the cool, freshwater lake to your heart’s content.

Moreover, wilderness camping is permitted all around the reservoir’s gorgeous five-mile pine-and-oak-studded shoreline. Get there by car or taxi from the Mascota plaza, southeast corner. Follow Calle Constitución south one block. Turn left on Juárez and follow the signs about three miles (5 km) to Restaurant La Terraza on the lakeshore.

The surrounding mountains offer still more wilderness camping opportunities. Pine- bordered volcanic crater Lake Juanacatlán Chico, accessible from Navidad, is a good spot to set up a tent and enjoy a bit of fishing, swimming, and hiking.