Las Juntas y los Veranos

Las Juntas y los Veranos is a small ejido village in the municipality of Cabo Corrientes, Jalisco, in the jungle-covered valley of the Horcones River just inland from Boca de Tomatlán. Highway 200, the road from Puerto Vallarta to El Tuito and Barra de Navidad, climbs through it after leaving the coast, so it is the first place most visitors reach once the road turns away from the bay. The 2020 census counted 537 people, which makes it one of the larger localities of a thinly populated municipality, and the village sits at roughly 285 meters above sea level.

The double name comes from its origin. Into the 1960s these were national lands, worked by families who tapped chicle and fished shrimp while several men claimed to own different plots. In 1965 two groups of 25 farmers, one calling itself Las Juntas and led by Cecilio Segura Guerra, the other Los Veranos and led by David Amaral Robles, petitioned the agrarian authorities for the same land. After a first refusal they joined forces under one combined name, the would-be owners failed to prove their titles, and the ejido was created. Today the ejido has a little over 70 ejidatarios and lives from forest, farming, cattle and, more and more, nature tourism, which the community sees as a way to earn a living without logging its hills.

The Horcones is one of the main rivers feeding Banderas Bay, running out of the Sierra El Cuale through a forested canyon to reach the sea at Boca de Tomatlán; Neotropical otters live along it. In the village it is the backdrop for Los Veranos Canopy, a long-running zip-line park whose lines cross the canyon and finish beside the river, where you can swim. River restaurants, some with slides into the water, hiking trails, waterfalls and camping spots draw Vallarta families in the hot months. A few kilometers further up the highway, inside the community's land, is the Vallarta Botanical Garden, known for its orchids.