Playa Salagua

Playa Salagua lies in the middle of Manzanillo Bay, at the foot of the Santiago Peninsula, between the Las Hadas golf course and the sea. Behind it is Salagua, or Tzalahua, a town of the municipality now absorbed into the port's urban area, between Santiago and the Valle de las Garzas. Like the rest of the bay, which curves for about 6.5 km, the beach has dark sand of volcanic origin.

Before it was called Manzanillo, this harbour was called Salagua. Around 1527 the brigantine Espíritu Santo, part of Álvaro de Saavedra Cerón's expedition, anchored by a freshwater stream that its sailors named the Salagua river, and from 1560 the name was used throughout New Spain for Colima's port. Álvaro de Mendaña anchored here on 22 January 1569, Francis Drake called in May 1579, Thomas Cavendish hid here in August 1587, Sebastián Vizcaíno picked up soldiers in 1596, and the Dutchman Joris van Spilbergen landed on 11 November 1615 for water, firewood and food. Tradition holds that Salagua supplied pearls to the Mexica in the 15th century.

From about 1700 the name Manzanillo gradually replaced Salagua, and the anchorage was all but abandoned. Today the town honours the Virgen del Rosario in October, alongside its ejido festivities, and a statue of the Manzanillo-born Diego Soto D'Urzo stands in its centre.