Meet Herman. Herman is an owner of the Reino de Atzimba Parque Aquatico. His father founded it 75 years ago, and it has remained in his family every since. This water park is very busy on the weekends in the winter and throughout the summer. It is mostly frequented by Mexican tourists. When Herman saw us wandering around, he made a point of introducing himself and giving us the grand treatment. There is a campground and a hotel on the premises. There are only about 21 rooms, but plenty of space in the camping area for RV's and tent campers. Herman tells us that every weekend the rooms are fully booked.This beautiful hot spring feeds the entire water park. The springs remain at a constant 28 degrees celsius. So much water runs through that the water in all 5 pools is replaced daily.
Looking outward from the spring you can see the first pool it feeds. This one is 3 meters deep and had a high diving board.
The deep pool feeds two childrens playground pools, the first one is a meter deep, and has a Noah's Ark theme.
The hot spring feeds into a separate pool directly, which is exclusively for overnight guests.
In addition to all the pools which are open 7 days a week, there are two water slids and a wave pool that are only open on weekends during the winter, and every day in the summer.
The private pool then feeds into the wave pool.
The hot springs feed into the two water slides directly.
The hotel is up on the mountain and has two tiers. The first tier has 12 rooms a lounge and a restaurant.
This is the view from the restaurant.
My breakfast was delicious. It is called Heuvos Aztec. Basically it is a triple decker torillo with eggs, chicken, some awesome sauce and topped with cheese.
The rooms on this level are modest, but very nice and clean, with two double beds.
The second tier is fancier, with a beautiful view ( the first tier has a beautiful view as well). The rooms are fancier, but I unfortunately didn't get a picture of one of them.
You can see the wave pool from this vantage point.
As well as one of the water slides.
Behind the rooms on the second tier is an area you can hike. We just love these cactus trees.
This is another tree that we find very interesting. The entire bark peels off.
We have no idea what this tree is, but it reminds us of cotton. We googled cotton ball tree in Mexico and it came up with a picture of this tree...but it was just someones photo who didn't know what it is either. We didn't get any other insight.
After we spent the better part of the day in our own private pool, we took a stroll into town. The first thing we saw outside the gates of the campground was this compound. The water that flows out of the pools in the water park, flows into here. The townspeople have a hand washing laundry facility and several pools. They were shampooing their hair in one of the pools, and swimming in the other ones.
From there the water continues to flow into this pond where the townsfolk were washing more clothes and bathing.
In our experiences so far, the town sqaure was unique in that all the bushes were formed into animals.
The central Church was awe inspiring. You had to climb 50 stairs with three landings on a 45 degree angle. We were huffing and puffing the whole way up.
The church was built in 1843. These pictures don't do it justice. Of all the churches we have seen so far, this one was the most magnificent.
On the way back to Myrtle, we stopped at the market. It was not as impressive as the market in Patzcuaro, but it was impressive nonetheless.
These little fellows were just adorable.
The campgrounds are quite nice. They have electricity and water, but no dumping station. The cost is 150 pesos per night. Great bang for the buck! We will be back. Zinapecuaro seems to be situated nicely between Morelia, the Butterfly Sanctuaries, Mexico City, god and silver mines, ruins and several other tourist attractions. With a car, or the incliniation to take buses into any of these places, this campground/resort would be a fabulous home base for a vacation.
