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When you take a tour with us, you’re helping us to provide work for people throughout the year, not just during the short butterfly season. All tours begin with an orientation session to give you a brief overview of monarch biology, area history and conservation challenges, as well as an opportunity to meet your fellow monarch enthusiasts. We take care of the logistics, carrying a picnic lunch for you and helping with your horse. You are accompanied by one (or more, depending on the size of your group) of our experienced and attentive English-speaking guides.
Our tours have been featured on the San Antonio News (twice), the BBC, Belgian PBS, the AP Wire and in the documentaries Pursuing the Monarchs, The Guardians and the forthcoming Monarch Ultra.
This is the sanctuary that is closest to our village and closest to our hearts. Joel’s brother Patricio, along with the forest guardians from our non-profit, patrol this mountain every day, so we always have up-to-the minute information on monarch activity there. Cerro Pelón is where scientists first confirmed that the butterflies that left Canada every year were the same ones that overwintered in the oyamel fir tree forests of the Sierra Madres. It is also, according to many butterfly enthusiasts and the Lonely Planet, the loveliest and least touristy of Mexico’s butterfly roosts. Cerro Pelón tours usually involve an hour-long horse ride on half level and half steep mountain trail. Sometimes there is a bit of a hike after we dismount. Apart from the workers present protecting the colony, your group is likely to be alone on the mountain. If you only have time to see one sanctuary, see Cerro Pelón. Tour price of $2,400 MXN per adult includes entry fee, horse rental, bag lunch, and a bilingual guide. Kids under 18 are $2,000 MXN each. (Prices include taxes).
We look forward to working with you to make sure you have a memorable experience
Available November 20-March 15
After Cerro Pelon, we recommend a visit to the completely different but equally impressive El Rosario. Unlike the unmarked trail that winds up the mountain on Cerro Pelon, here you’ll find numerous souvenir stalls, large tour groups, concrete steps, and interpretive signs, as well as bountiful butterflies. El Rosario is a two-hour-long drive from our B&B. Tour price of $2,400 MXN each includes transportation, entry fee, horse rental (if desired), bag lunch and an English-speaking guide. Children under 18 are $2,000 MXN each. (Prices include taxes).
Available November 20-March 15
The trail to the usually smaller Sierra Chincua colony is usually not as steep or long as the one to Cerro Pelon. Most of the ascent is done in car on a scenic mountain road. The trail leading to the butterflies is usually a 30-45 minute walk each way, and horses can be taken part of the way. Unlike the varied foliage on Cerro Pelon, the trees here are almost all oyamel fir trees, making for uniformly dark green vistas. Tour price of $2,400 MXN per person includes transportation (2 hours each way from our place), entry fee, bag lunch, horse rental (if desired), and an English-speaking guide. Children under 18 are $2,000 MXN each. (Prices include taxes).
Most of our visitors come from mid-November until mid-March when the butterflies are with us. But Macheros offers activities that can be enjoyed year-round if you appreciate fresh air, scenic mountain vistas, horseback riding, hiking, birdwatching, dark night skies, or relatively technology-free peace and quiet.
This activity was created to allow families not directly involved with the butterflies to benefit from tourism as well. We take a stroll with us around the village of Macheros to visit people’s houses and see the kinds of home industries they’ve organized to make a living. Stops can include Karen and Enrique’s backyard piñata factory, Adela’s cozy kitchen and tortilla business, Basilia’s handmade pine straw baskets with butterfly designs, and Mariana’s herbal health tonic/moonshine side business. Avocado orchards or sheepherding can be included on request. Tours includes four households, begins at 4:00 pm and involve some walking. Waterproof footwear with good traction is recommended. We need at least 24 hours notice to organize this activity. $1000 MXN per adult and $700 MXN for kids under 18 includes simultaneous translation by a bilingual guide and compensation for participating families.
Gather around a wood burning stove with Doña Rosa and her daughters and learn how to make your favorite Mexican dish. Mole rojo, mole verde, or vegetarian chiles rellenos are popular options. Price of $1200 MXN per student includes the lesson and your meal.
This activity is a good alternative for family members who are unable to make the steep trek up Cerro Pelon. Note that doing a cooking class on the same day as undertaking a butterfly tour can be logistically challenging; this activity is better combined with a less ambitious hike, cottage industry tour or a horseback ride around the village.
Available Sundays at 4 pm
There’s a lot of bad press about the damage avocado agriculture is doing to the monarch migration, but on the ground the issues are much more complex. Gain a more nuanced view of the industry and the challenges that smallholder farmers face by visiting an area orchard with its owner. $1,000 MXN admission includes transportation (a 15 minute ride down the road), a beverage (beer, wine or soft drink) and a how to make guacamole lesson and sample, answers to your questions and more than a few stories about what it’s like to be from here.
Macheros, the name of our community, translates as “stables,” and almost every household has at least one working horse on hand. All of these horses work carrying tourists up the mountain during the butterfly season, and so they are docile and accustomed to carrying unfamiliar riders. On this tour you will be led by one of Joel’s brothers through the shady, gently-sloping trails that meander through the forested foothills that surround our village. They can take you to see the field where the family grows their corn, or to the building that belonged to the hacendados who ruled this territory before the Mexican Revolution, or to the ruins of a mysterious pre-Colombian pyramid on the hill that overlooks the B&B. Tour price of $1200 MXN each includes guide service, horse wrangling, and a picnic lunch. $900 MXN for kids under 18.
Our mountains are working mountains; they are filled with trails used periodically by sheep herders, mushroom hunters, wood gatherers and the resineros who collect tree sap to sell. Because this labyrinth of trails can be confusing to the uninitiated, we work with a cooperative of local guides to lead tours on the large hill behind our house called Cerro de la Silla. A charge of $500 MXN per party means that a local guide will accompany you and make sure you don’t get lost (as has happened on a few too many visitors’ self-guided hikes). Guides can also be booked at the ticket booth at the entry to the Cerro Pelon Sanctuary.
Dating to around 700-1300 AD, San Felipe Los Alzati is the highest archaeological structure explored to date in Michoacán. This impressive example of prehispanic architecture served as a place for ceremony, defense, commerce, and daily living for the people who flourished there for centuries. After visiting the pyramid (including scaling a monumental staircase on the west side), enjoy a picnic lunch at a gorgeous viewpoint. Then take in the Mercado Melchor Ocampo market for a lively shopping experience, complete with a Calle de Hambre where you’ll find all the fruits, vegetables, breads, cheese, and authentic Mexican street food you could want, along with souvenirs and handmade crafts. The cost is $1,500 MXN, lunch included.