Life in troncones,
majahua & saladita
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LATEST AT LA ONDA
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MEET
Maria Fernanda Nava Merino: Surf Witch
When we started planning interviews for La Onda Troncones last year, Aura asked me to put “The Surf Witch” on my list. One day there was an art workshop and tarot reading going on at Quetzal, and Aura said, “That’s her!” That’s who? When we started to plan out how La Onda would roll out its social media, Aura said, “We have to talk to this woman who lives in Troncones, who I follow on Instagram. She’s got a yoga studio, she’s doing tarot collages and she’s a graphic designer.” Ok, sure. When we met, I had no idea the person in front of me was someone I would be talking to almost every day for the next year—and that she was about to build a house and become a mom—and that she was the Surf Witch, too. Who is she? She’s in my phone as “Fer”. Aura has her as “Maria”. Meet Maria Fernanda Nava Merino. We couldn’t have done La Onda Troncones without her.
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Live
La Fajina 2026
Community is more than a word on this part of the coast. It’s a way of life. That’s especially true in Majahua where 130-some people rely on each other for services you would expect to come from the state or municipality. As the primary route connecting Troncones, Lagunillas, La Boca and Saladita, and a place where the fishing boats come in, life in Majahua depends on local transportation being able to come and go without too much trouble. Every year, the summer rains awaken the jungle which then starts to close Majahua off from the north and east—from Saladita and Federal Highway 200—and every fall, the residents of Majahua get out their chain saws, machetes and weedos [weed-whackers] and clear the way again. That clean-up is known as “La Fajina”, literally, the task, or “La Limpieza”, simply, the clean up.
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Live
Troncones’ Water, Part Two
Editor’s note: Earlier this month we interviewed Alberto Solís Hernández, the secretary of the Troncones ejido, to learn how the ejido manages and distributes Troncones’ most precious resource—its water. It’s tricky. Troncones has a limited water supply, one dependent on rainwater runoff and the ejido’s maintenance of a system of wells, tanks and pipes. The growth of the local population and the lesser rainfalls in recent years constantly put the whole system to the test, especially in the December-to-March “high” tourist season. And after. Until it rains again. Our resident naturalist William Mertz provided us more insight on Troncones’ rain and water usage, and describes what you can do to help the community.
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Live
Paved Paradise
Ask around Troncones and someone will tell you that they paved paradise. They’ll probably credit Jimmy Buffett, too, which tells you something about the local playlist. The line is Joni Mitchell’s, and the premise deserves the same scrutiny as the attribution. The paradise in question was a dirt road that turned to soup every rainy season and to choking dust every dry one. Whether paving it ruined Troncones or saved it depends almost entirely on when you got here. It didn’t happen all at once, either. It came in nine phases over more than twenty-five years, each with its own disasters, negotiations and small victories. Here’s how it went.
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Live
LA HIGUERA
A sign appeared on the road along Manzanillo Bay a few months ago reading “La Higuera”. Literally, the fig tree. Following the arrow up the mountainside a little ways leads you to an extremely unique sort of floating house.
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Live
Your Day of the Dead Altar
In Mexico, welcoming guests always begins with food, drink and a warm embrace. This ritual of la bienvenida—the welcome—is so central to local culture that it extends beyond the living. Every autumn, we-the-living prepare the same kind of welcome for those who have passed on. It’s called la ofrenda, the altar, built to guide our loved ones back home for Día de los Muertos.
An altar is more than decoration. It is memory, tradition, and love made visible. Some are simple — a few candles, flowers, and a photo. Others are elaborate displays with arches, tiers, and dozens of offerings. All are equally valid. What matters most is intention.
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Live
La Casa Chida: Keeping it Cool
It was a brutally hot day last month when I went to go see what our friend Juan Pablo was up to. He’d told me earlier this summer that he was going to start building a house out of mud, that he was going to be creating an adobe house. I knew I was in for a treat, and something completely different.
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Live
The Parrots of Troncones
One of the questions I get asked most often on birding walks is some version of, “Wait—are those actually parrots?” People hear the noise first. A ragged, sharp-edged squawking that cuts through everything else, and then they look up and see a pair of green birds tearing across the sky like they’re late for something important. And the reaction is always the same: genuine surprise that parrots just fly around here, wild and free, like it’s no big deal.
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EAT
Cristo León: The Purist
I’ve been a fan of Crissol peanut butter and almond butter since I first tried them. They’re simple, intensely good. You can taste exactly what they’re made from, and they’re local. So, I went to Saladita to meet Cristo León, the soft-spoken cook behind Crissol, and ended up talking about coconuts, peanuts, surfing, bees and why getting as close to the source as possible matters.
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