Colola

Colola is a small Nahua village of a few hundred people in the municipality of Aquila, a short way north-west of Maruata along coastal Highway 200, and the name of the long, open beach in front of it. The beach is wide and almost bare of vegetation, with yellow sand, the open Pacific and rocky outcrops at each end; the community lives at its western end and farms with the traditional slash-and-burn system. It is one of the most important sea turtle beaches in Mexico: three species nest here, the black turtle (a dark Eastern Pacific form of the green turtle), the olive ridley and the giant leatherback, and the beach has been a Ramsar wetland of international importance since 2008.

Colola is above all the home of the black turtle. In the early 1960s an estimated 25,000 females nested here, and at the peak of the 1965 season around 70,000 eggs were taken in a single night. Heavy harvesting of eggs and adults through the 1960s and 1970s crashed the population, and by 1988 only about 170 nesting females were left on the beaches of Colola and Maruata. In 1982 the Universidad Michoacana and the Nahua communities of Colola and Maruata began patrolling the beach at night and moving eggs to protected hatcheries, paying local children to bring in nests; those children now lead the programme. The recovery has been remarkable: on the night of 14 to 15 September 2014, 1,086 females came ashore at Colola, about 10,000 now nest on this beach alone, and in the 2024-25 season close to 350,000 black turtle eggs were protected in Colola's hatcheries.

Visitors can join the turtle camp's night walks to watch nesting and help with hatchling releases, and there is a volunteer programme, mostly for foreigners, with stays of about 20 days helping with the conservation work. The community has a small ecotourism stop: a few cabins just metres from the sea, a camping area, palapas for hammocks, a restaurant serving fish and shrimp, and a shop. The beach is known for being very clean, its steady surf is good for skimboarding, and you can also go birdwatching, try traditional fishing or take a boat out along this coast shared with Maruata.