Balneario de Imala

Imala is a rural district of Culiacán municipality, northeast of the state capital, with the state's Pueblo Señorial title, and its hot-spring pools have been a Culiacán family outing for generations. The name is said to come from the Nahuatl Imalacatlán, glossed as "water that turns a wheel", a nod to the thermal springs. Local press says people came here to rest and heal long before the Spanish, and later miners from the nearby veins, friars and local villagers did the same. The present balneario opened to the public in the mid-20th century.

The pools differ in size and heat. The first one is fed straight from the spring and is the hottest, around 50 °C, and each pool further down the line is a little cooler, so it is easy to find one that suits you. There are lawns, palm-roofed shelters, picnic tables, a restaurant and food stands, a recently added temazcal sweat lodge and cabins for longer stays. In 2025 admission was 40 pesos for adults and 30 for children under 12.

The village deserves a walk. The church of San Juan Bautista is visible from a few kilometers out: Father Miguel Lacarra, trained at Culiacán's then brand-new seminary and with some engineering background, built and supervised it himself in the 1840s, and went on to do the same for other churches in the region. It is reddish and ochre brick, with a two-tier facade of eight columns and buttresses and decorative cornices along the sides; the city government and INAH restored it in 2010. Shops sell local chorizo, panela and other cheeses, and clay pottery. About 15 minutes away is La Cofradía, a patch of lake shore with a line of trees, half-wild horses and grazing cattle that social media nicknamed "Narnia" and that now draws hikers, runners and cyclists.