Soledad de Maciel Ruins

Most ruins on this coast are stone. Xihuacan was built of earth. The Cuitlatec people raised their ceremonial centre here around AD 450 from adobe and fill, faced in fired clay, on 29 levelled hectares, and ringed it with canals off the San Jeronimito River so it would look like an island. Water still runs in them. A flood around 1350 drove the town out.

The ball court is the centrepiece, and it was there, in 2009, that excavators found the carved place-glyph that gave the site back its old name. Beside the plaza rises the Cerro de los Brujos, where the oldest finds, Olmec-style figurines, came from. There is a site museum, and entry is free; it opens Tuesday to Sunday, 9:00 to 17:00, with last entry at 16:00.

It is 3 km down a local road off Highway 200 between Petatlán and San Jeronimito. Petatlán, with its gold market in front of the church, makes it a half-day out, and buses from Zihuatanejo run to Petatlán all day.