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Inside Playa Escondida, the surprise of the Marietas Islands (Tours en Puerto Vallarta)
Las Marietas has been a marine park since the seventies. Their special characteristics and the absence of predators made them perfect as a feeding and nesting area for a multitude of seabirds, from blue-footed booby birds to frigatebirds. But the figure of protection was quite lax and there was no surveillance by park rangers due to lack of budget. Nor was it necessary. At that time, there were very few tourists and curious people who rented boats in Puerto Vallarta or in the Riviera Nayarit to go see an erosive phenomenon unique in the world: Escondida beach.
The pyroclastic volcanic structure of Las Marietas has a very weak layer just below another one of greater hardness. The force of the waves eroded the lower layer faster than the upper one, creating stone arches and cavities. One of them collapsed and created a large circular grotto with access to the sea in which sand accumulated over millions of years to form a beautiful hidden beach. Beautiful, as you can see in the photo that opens this report. Too beautiful for the narcissistic age of social media.
“People started posting their photos on the hidden beach of Las Marietas. And that made more and more people want to take the same photo. They came to take their picture, loaded with sun creams (very harmful to marine ecosystems), touching everything, even the guides touched the animals to impress their clients. They didn’t care about the snorkeling or the geology of the place or the birds. They just wanted to take a picture,” Kevin tells me. “All of this has damage to the reef, to the environment, which should be protected by the park.”
(Tours en Puerto Vallarta)
On May 9, 2016, the Mexican National Commission of Natural Protected Areas ordered the Marietas Islands to be closed to the public. They stayed like this for three months. And then they reopened with strong restrictions that last until today: they can only enter Playa Escondida — the true object of desire — 116 people a day and swim (boat access is not allowed), sun creams cannot be used, only the snorkel in specific areas and there is a permanent surveillance service run by park rangers that is financed with the entrance fee that is now charged for access (about 10 dollars, which is paid at the tourist company with which you contract the excursion).
“Since then, the reef has recovered enormously, it is one of the most successful marine parks in this sense that I have seen in the nine years that I have been here”, acknowledges Collyshaw. “There is a growth of corals, especially in a particular area of snorkel which is called La Caladera, but it shows on all sides; huge fish and many species are seen.”
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