Laguna de Pastoría

La Pastoría is the larger of the two main lagoons of Lagunas de Chacahua National Park, on the coast of Tututepec municipality between Río Grande and the village of Chacahua. It stretches up to 9 km east to west and 4 km north to south, and on its eastern shore sits El Zapotalito, a fishing village whose landing is where almost every boat into the park sets off.

A sand bar keeps it from the Pacific, and the lagoon reaches the sea through a natural channel that was reopened in 1972; on the sea side lies the Cerro Hermoso bar, the first stop on many boat trips out of Zapotalito. To the west, the Canal del Corral, about 3 km long and 20 m wide, links it with Chacahua lagoon. Streams come down from the hills into the system, and in the rainy season the Río Verde spills over toward Chacahua and joins the whole wetland together for a while; it has been a Ramsar site since 2008.

One survey counted 39 fish species in the lagoon, ten of them found nowhere else in the system, and the mouth and channel are nurseries for shrimp, snook, jack and mojarra; fishing keeps Zapotalito, Cerro Hermoso and Chacahua going. Herons, pelicans, spoonbills, storks and ducks work the red and button mangroves, and the area is listed as an Important Bird Area, Lagunas de Chacahua-Pastoría. American crocodiles, a specially protected species, live in its waters.

The cooperative's boat trips weave between islets such as Culebras, El Cura, Nana, Jacinta and Piñuelas, where birds nest, then follow mangrove tunnels toward Cerro Hermoso or Chacahua.