Los Sauces

Los Sauces is a small rural community in the remote northeast of the municipality of Bahía de Banderas, near the Jalisco state line and far from the bay's beaches and resorts. It lies about 600 meters from the Nayarit bank of the Río Ameca, which marks the state line with Jalisco, about three kilometers northeast of El Coatante, the village on the Camino Viejo a Puerto Vallarta, and about seven kilometers from Tebelchía (El Roble), on the Jalisco side; the nearest towns of any size are Las Palmas de Arriba, about ten kilometers away, and San Juan de Abajo, a little farther.

Its population has barely changed in fifteen years: 268 people at the 2005 census and 274 in both 2010 and 2020, living in 77 occupied homes in 2020. About four in ten residents were born outside Nayarit. Services have improved: by 2020 every home had piped water, almost all had a refrigerator, and more than half had internet, against almost none ten years earlier. The village has a kindergarten and two primary schools.

There are no hotels, restaurants or attractions here; food stands and small restaurants are in Las Palmas de Arriba and bars in San Juan de Abajo and Valle de Banderas, 15 to 19 kilometers away. The climate is hot and humid, around 25 °C on average with roughly 1,450 mm of rain a year. It is a quiet corner of the countryside behind Banderas Bay, of interest mainly to those exploring the back roads between El Colomo and the hills.