Las Varas

Las Varas is a farm town in the foothills of the Sierra de Vallejo, in the municipality of Compostela, Nayarit, about 100 km north of Puerto Vallarta. It had 14,419 people in the 2020 census, but because it sits inland, most visitors only pass through on their way to the beaches. It works as the crossroads of the coast: Highway 200 between Tepic and Puerto Vallarta passes through it, roads branch off to the beaches, Chacala is less than 12 km away and Rincón de Guayabitos about 23 km.

The town began as a hacienda and was only formally made a pueblo in March 1935; a local chronicler, Alejandro Martínez Osuna, has written its history. It still lives mainly from the land, surrounded by fields of beans and tobacco and fruit orchards. Life centers on the main plaza, where people sit on the benches with an ice cream in the evening.

Its small community museum holds pots, arrowheads, ceramics, fossils and old objects, many of them found nearby, including around the Altavista ceremonial site, the rock-carving site near Chacala that the Wixárika (Huichol) people still visit for ceremonies. Out of town, boats go out on the Mataiza lagoon, where you can also camp. Las Varas keeps its traditions: the Judas of Holy Week, a horseback cavalcade for Santiago, the fiesta of the Virgin of Guadalupe and, above all, the mojigangas of Carnival, when costumed locals and clowns parade through the streets and then show off bullfighting tricks in the charro ring.

Being inland, it is cooler at night than the coast, down to about 8 degrees from January to March, while days reach 27 to 32 degrees all year; July and August are the wettest months. There are few hotels, and most visitors sleep at Chacala, La Peñita or elsewhere on Jaltemba Bay and come in for the museum, the plaza or a fiesta.