Dos Arroyos

Dos Arroyos is a rural village in the municipality of Acapulco, inland at about 220 metres above sea level, on the federal highway that climbs from Acapulco to Chilpancingo, near kilometre 350. It had 1,917 residents in 2020; it peaked at 2,179 in 1980, fell to 1,846 by 2010, and 860 people already lived here in 1900.

What brings visitors is its hot springs. The best known is La Escondida, a family-run bathing spot with four thermal pools, each at a different temperature; the water wells up with a natural bubbling that keeps it clean, and the owner says the pools are emptied daily. There is a restaurant serving drinks, seafood and grilled meat, rooms to stay over (300 pesos in 2022) and aromatic salt baths; regulars say the water eases back and muscle pain. In 2022 it saw 150 to 200 visitors a month in the low season and up to a hundred a day at peak times, from Acapulco, Chilpancingo and abroad. Some guests have suggested renaming it "Paraíso Escondido".

In August 2019 a second thermal spa, Castillos, opened in the same village, with five pools of different sizes, water slides and country-style food; Acapulco's municipal tourism office inaugurated it as a family eco-tourism centre. Neither place features in official tourism promotion, and the access road is rough and poorly policed, with rubble and rubbish dumped along its edges. It makes a half-day escape from the beach and the port's heat, best on a weekday or outside holiday periods.