Marieta Islands — national park
Marcin Klapczynski · CC BY-SA 3.0

Marieta Islands

Islas Marietas

  • 1 min read
  • 20.699° N 105.585° W

Interesting facts

  • The protected area covers about 1,383 hectares of land and sea around two main islands, Isla Larga and Isla Redonda, and several islets.
  • The islands hold a major breeding colony of brown boobies, and about half the region's bridled terns nest here.
  • More than 90 bird species use the islands for breeding, feeding or resting on migration, including red-billed tropicbirds.
  • Reptiles found only in Mexico live on the bare rock, among them Lane's leaf-toed gecko and the Mexican spiny-tailed iguana.
  • The islands were added to the Ramsar list of wetlands of international importance on 2 February 2004.
  • The national park was formally decreed by the Mexican government in 2005.
  • The humpback whales that visit Banderas Bay in winter arrive from feeding grounds as far away as Alaska.
  • Annual visitor numbers jumped from about 27,500 in 2012 to more than 127,000 in 2015, wearing down the coral and the Hidden Beach.

Why it is worth it

The Marieta Islands are a small group of uninhabited volcanic islands at the mouth of Banderas Bay on Mexico's Pacific coast, about 8 km southwest of Punta de Mita. From a boat they look modest — low, pale cliffs topped with scrub — but up close the rock is riddled with caves, arches and tunnels, and the water around them is full of life. Blue-footed boobies nest on the ledges, manta rays and sea turtles pass below, dolphins are common and, between December and March, humpback whales come into the bay.

The islands owe part of their shape to an unlikely history. In the early twentieth century the Mexican military used them for target practice, and bombing helped carve the caverns that now make the place famous. Advocacy by Jacques Cousteau in the late 1960s pushed the government towards protecting them; today they are a national park, a Ramsar wetland and a UNESCO biosphere reserve.

The famous sight is the Hidden Beach, or Playa del Amor: a crescent of sand at the bottom of a deep round hole in the island, open to the sky but walled in on all sides. It is generally explained as a collapsed cavity shaped by bombing and erosion, and the only way in is from the sea, by swimming through a low rock tunnel at low tide. Emerging from the dim passage into a sunlit amphitheatre of rock with its own private beach is one of the most surreal small experiences on the Pacific coast.

Getting there

The islands are reached only by boat with authorised tour operators. From Punta de Mita the crossing takes about 20–30 minutes; from Puerto Vallarta it is about 1–1.5 hours. The nearest town on the coast is Bucerías, about 27 km away, and Puerto Vallarta International Airport (PVR) is about 35 km away. Visits to the Hidden Beach are made with licensed boat tours.

On these lists

The Most Beautiful Places in Mexico 56The Most Beautiful National Parks 61The Most Beautiful Gardens, Parks and Forests 232

From the encyclopaedia

The Marieta Islands are a group of small uninhabited islands a few miles off the coast of the state of Nayarit, Mexico, located in federal waters approximately 7.9 kilometres (4.9 mi) southwest of the peninsula known as Punta de Mita, in the municipality of Bahía de Banderas.

Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

20.69900, -105.58500per Wikidata