Ipala

Ipala is a small village on the open Pacific coast of the municipality of Cabo Corrientes, Jalisco, in the remote stretch south of the cape that people around Puerto Vallarta call the southern coast of Cabo Corrientes. It sits on low ground about 600 meters from the sea, beside the seasonal Ipala stream and the little estuary at its mouth, where locals wade in to fish with cast nets. Its next-door neighbor is Villa del Mar, a kilometer away on the shore, and the bay of Tehuamixtle, famous for its oysters, is about 3.5 km to the north-west, with the long beach of Mayto beyond it.

The name is old. A traditional gloss explains it as a Nahuatl plural of icpalli, the seat of a lord or ruler, and in the 1880s, when Antonio García Cubas published his Atlas mexicano, the map of Jalisco carried a small inset of Ipala next to those of San Blas, Tomatlán and Chamela, the anchorages of this coast. Today it is a quiet place: the 2020 census counted 248 people, up from 175 in 2005, which makes it one of the larger localities of a very thinly populated municipality. There is a kindergarten in the village and the nearest upper-secondary school is in Villa del Mar.

Visitors come to this coast for its emptiness: wide sunsets over the Pacific, fishing and snorkeling trips with local men, oysters at Tehuamixtle and long walks on the sand at Mayto. Facilities are very basic. The nearest places to stay are the rustic cabins of Villa del Mar and the small hotels and rooms of Mayto and Tehuamixtle; there are no banks or cash machines anywhere on this coast, so bring all the cash you will need from El Tuito, about 26 km away.