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Mexico reinvents island prison as Pacific tourist draw

President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador on Friday evening opened the Islas Marias Tourist Center, bidding to turn the decades-old federal prison in the Islas Marias archipelago into an environmental attraction and place for history lovers. "This is tourism for excursions, to explore, to live with nature," Lopez Obrador said this week. "To recreate history, it's something exceptional, extraordinary."

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Located about 62 miles (100 km) off the western state of Nayarit, the Islas Marias became a prison in 1905 under dictator Porfirio Diaz and was in almost constant use until it was closed by Lopez Obrador in 2019.