Catemaco

Lakeside Los Tuxtlas town known for rainforest excursions, boat rides, and brujeria.

Catemaco sits on a wide volcanic lake in southern Veracruz, in the wet green country of Los Tuxtlas. It is a little scruffy around the edges, but the setting is excellent: rainforest hills behind town, fishing boats on the lake, and Gulf coast lagoons and mangroves within day-trip range.

The town is best known in Mexico for brujeria, or witchcraft. That reputation can feel theatrical, especially around the annual March gathering, but it gives Catemaco a sharper identity than most lakeside towns. The more reliable pleasure is getting onto the water, where boatmen head for small islands, birdlife, and forested shorelines.

Catemaco works as a base for Los Tuxtlas if you want nature without staying in a resort. Lake Catemaco and Nanciyaga Ecological Reserve are the headline anchors, while Laguna de Sontecomapan adds mangroves and quiet coastal water. Salto de Eyipantla, closer to San Andrés Tuxtla, is an easy add-on if you have a car or driver.

Guide

Activities

Catemaco sits on a volcanic crater lake in Los Tuxtlas, the northernmost tropical rainforest in the Americas and a biosphere reserve. The combination — rainforest at the latitude of the Bahamas — is why the biology here is strange and why the forest is worth more than the lake.

Boats leave from the malecón for the islands: Isla de los Monos, where a colony of Thai macaques brought for research in the 1970s now lives free; Isla de las Garzas with its herons; and the shore springs. A basic circuit takes about an hour.

The reserves along the north shore run guided forest walks with mineral springs, mud baths and temazcal. Inland, the waterfalls at Salto de Eyipantla are a short drive, and the biological station at Los Tuxtlas can be visited by arrangement.

Catemaco is also Mexico's brujería town, and the first Friday in March brings a national gathering of curanderos. Some of it is serious and traditional, a good deal of it is sold to visitors, and the difference is not obvious from outside. Treat it with the same scepticism you would bring anywhere.

Guide

Things to Do

Catemaco's best sights are around water and rainforest. Take a lake boat first, then choose between the managed forest experience at Nanciyaga and a longer outing to Sontecomapan's lagoon and mangroves.