Parque Acuático El Salitre | Established Campground

Nice, quiet, clean with friendly service, 160 pesos per person per night.

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Very nice, clean, Secure and peaceful Place. Highly recommended - just keep in mind that they are very strict with the Alcohol control. They allow it but it is not allowed to bring it into - unless you pay for it! Just keep in mind, I have enclosed a picture of the regulations.

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Forgot to report that there is a strong 3g Telcel signal. You need to be within 20 feet of what looks like a small lamp hanging near the dining table in the store. Wifi is 50pesos 8 hours per device. Both are slow around 800kbps never over 1mbps.

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Great experience here just as OP and others have posted. Actually if you plan to use the thermal pools and/or Waterpark the pricing has been combined and is actually less expensive. 100 pesos per person for 5pm to 7pm next day (if you arrive early first day is 160pp SEE IMAGES). Also the bridge HAS BEEN BUILT. Geat stopover. Read other posts please, they are accurate with exception of my updates.

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I had the place all to myself.I stayed 2 nights. I did not use the water slides/park area so i can't comment on them. I did use the natural thermal pools near the river, both the outside and inside ones. I enjoyed the outside pool the best. The water was the right temp for me. It was clear, but it does have fish poo at the bottom. It's actually a pretty cool place to snorkel if you have it. I found about 12 fish living in the hot temp waters. They say its ok to shower in there with shampoo/soad as the top water does exit the pool constantly, but i told the owner that it is not safe for the enviroment. The bathrooms were getting upgraded while i was there, but still functional. I did not understand why the restrooms were open all night for campers, but the showers close at 7pm?? Other than that, the previous posts is still valid except for the price has increased from 80p per person to 100p for campers. I did enjoy my stay and thought 100p was worth it. I recommened. Bring your own food as their store has very limited items and priced higher.

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Nice place with hotpool and swimming bath. We stayed there 2 days. It was totally quiet at night. The large pools were empty but they cleaned it for the saison. The showe was nearly cold but after hot pool no problem. The joung lady is very friendly and the 3 children also.
We paid only 80 Pesos /person.

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We stayed one night. We paid 80 pesos per person. We had access to
Pools, showers, bathrooms and we were able to get
Power from a lightning post
In front of main office. Bathrooms were medium clean.

We were locked inside during the night and they opened the gate at 8:30. We had the most quiet nigh since our arrival in Mexico 2 weeks ago. We recommend as a good stop between Zacatecas and GDL. Visit La Quemada on your way!!!

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The price for camping and entrance fee in total is 130 Peso/person. Showers are cold. And only the pool next to the river is filled with water. All other pools are empty. Therefore we find it too expensive. By the way - nobody speeks English. That’s no problem, but it’s totally different to the first check-in from DonJuane in July.

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Google Maps Name: Balneario El Salitre, Zapoqui, Villanueva

This is an enjoyable camping location that is not highly advertised or well known. It is owned by a very nice family originally from the US. The daughter of the owner, Soyla, is educated in the US and thus speaks perfect English as well as Spanish. She normally runs the front office and grocery store where they sell ice, snacks, pastries and sundries. Admission is required to enter the facility with a colored arm band system to keep track of payment - 50 pesos per person to swim and 80 pesos per person to camp per day. The setting is constructed along a river with paved stone driveway parallel to the river and grass covered pebble pull-outs with charcoal grills and picnic tables. There are numerous trees lining the river and a fenced-in pool area where the thermal-fed pools can be enjoyed. The hours for the pool and store are 9AM -7PM, including warm water showers open for use during this time-frame. Moderate restrooms are available with flush toilets, toilet seats and fresh water wash basins which remain open for campers 24 hrs per day. Bring your own tissue. The rest rooms were always found to be clean during the day.

This first visit was during the rainy season in a 24’ RV which created a concern that the grass pull-outs might be an indication of mud and getting stuck, but this was not the case. The grass simply covers gravel that held the RV’S 5K load with no issues. While camping during the week you may be the only camper and outside of a few lamps while it appears there may be no one watching the place once it is closed; however, it seems far enough from everything that no sounds or autos were heard anywhere in the area after dark. (Note there could have been someone watching, and they just didn’t show themselves.) Also note that the owner’s family lives about a minute up the road in El Salitre in case of emergency. On the weekend, it is a different story with sound, music and activity all during the day, while things seem to calm down at night. Also note that no alcohol is allowed brought into the park but you can purchase beer for your visit at the general store.

There are a number of 15A outlets on the lamp poles around the property. Note that the 3rd wire is not grounded on some and on others the polarity can be reversed so be careful touching electrical appliances when coming out of the pools (this is true for ANY location in Mexico, actually). There are around 4-6 faucets around the pool area that are used for watering plants but the staff will allow you to fill your camper van, RV, or bottles. The water is reportedly safe for drinking, has ample pressure and is pleasant to taste.

The location should be considered “big rig” friendly as there seems unlimited parking space along the river, at least during the non-holiday season. It is reported that Semana Santa requires reservations as well as other popular holidays due to the 2 hour proximity from both large cities of Zacatecas and Aguascalientes.

I personally highly recommend this location as a great place to stay.

Getting there: The small sign off HW54 is easy to miss. You turn at the sign in the very small village of Villanueva where you will find a recently re-finished paved road in great shape off HW 54 which leads about 3.5 miles to where the pavement ends and continues on as a rock road. A few hundred feet past this change is a flat cement river crossing where the water from the river is running over the pavement. During the rainy season this may be questionable to cross, with some people parking near the river and walking over the new pedestrian bridge. So if you want to know if it is safe to cross, walk across the pedestrian bridge and through the gates a few hundred yards to consult with the main office. I crossed in a 24' RV July, 2017 during the rainy season with no problem. Light weight cars should take caution, however. Note that the government is in the process of building a bridge here, per the owner.

Facilities: In addition to a number of pools and water-slides here, there is also a temescal (closed-in natural hot-bath). I measured the temps of all the pools with my BBQ thermometer and they vary from about 82 to 98F for the temescal spa. There is a "mushroom fountain" kid’s pool, a semi-hot tub (around 87F), a volleyball waist deep pool adjacent to a deep swimming pool and a knee deep pool at the bottom of giant slides.

Do take note that the water being sprayed on the giant slides is not significant enough to keep from burning skin and a t-shirt should be used sliding down the giant slides. This is the only shortfall of the location and hopefully it will be addressed soon with more water being sprayed on the giant slides and/or waxing. The small kid’s slides don’t seem to have this problem.

Note also that there was no Internet service when I stayed, something about a tower being knocked over recently. A TelCel equipped smart-phone did seem to “wake up” enough sporadically to download email around twice a day, but the phone part would not hold for a conversation.

Also note that a few hundred yards up from the balnario and on the same side of the river is a village of about 45 people, El Salitre, where there is a general store with more food items, a few vegetables and items different from the store on the grounds of the springs.

Closing: I have to say that I really, really enjoyed staying here. I pulled in for one day and ended up staying four.

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