Last week Ali and I had a small window to get away from town, and with my folks visiting we decided to visit a butterfly sanctuary. There are three main monarch butterfly sanctuaries that are driving distance from Zihuatanejo, the Sanctuary Sierra Chincua, the Biosphere Reserve in El Rosario and the Senguio Sanctuary. All of the sanctuaries are about 500km and 6 and a half hours from our home base in Zihuatanejo. We did not consider Senguio Sanctuary on this trip, and ultimately decided to visit Chincua over El Rosario. The butterfly season is generally November to March, with peak season starting in mid-January. The warmer it is the better likelihood you will see the monarch butterflies moving.

Monarch butterflies have a generally short lifespan. Eggs take three to eight days to hatch into caterpillars. There are then five stages of growth and molting and that takes an additional two to four weeks. The caterpillar then becomes a butterfly in the chrysalis stage, which usually takes 11 or 12 days. Butterflies are ready to breed again after four or five days, but the migrating butterflies don’t reach sexual maturity until after the winter season. Adults live two to five weeks during the breeding season, but the last generation of butterflies from North America migrate to Mexico and other places from about October to March. Monarch butterflies can fly at approximately 6 miles per hour, so a 5,000 mile trip to the Mexican state of Michoacan can take a bit of time. When the weather warms up again the monarch butterflies will breed and then begin the return trip to the US and Canada. It can take up to five generations of butterflies to return north.

We drove almost the entire way from Zihuatanejo to the sanctuary, spending one night in Angangueo, a town located about 20 minutes from both sanctuaries. It was a nice little town, but dinner options were limited and it was freezing at night. Our hotel cost 1,000 pesos per room per night, but had no heat in the rooms. We wore all of our clothes to bed.

Finding the town and the sanctuary wasn’t too difficult. As we closed in on the location there was a bit of road signage directing you.

Of the three sanctuaries, El Rosario is much bigger with three times as many butterflies as Chincua, but Chincua doesn’t have as much elevation in hiking and is less touristy. The fitbit said only 165 feet of total elevation was gained during our hike, but it seemed a little more than that. The Chincua sanctuary is located at about 9,000 feet above sea level. Our friends visited El Rosario with a tour group last month and did not see a butterfly. We almost decided to change our plans and visit El Rosario, too, when checking out of our hotel to head to the sanctuary the hotel staff tried to convince us that El Rosario was the better option. We’re happy that we stuck with our original plan.

We left the hotel at 9am and after a quick breakfast on the go we arrived at the sanctuary at 10am. We paid 60 pesos for parking plus 80 pesos each for our tickets. A young man at the entrance offered us a free pamphlet map for whatever tip we’d like to give. The pamphlet had clearly been passed around a tour bus a dozen times, but we still gave him 10 pesos and left it behind for someone else to use, or for it to be offered again. We were one of the first cars in the parking lot, and when we left I was surprised that we were still one of only a couple cars in the parking lot. Outside the area where you buy tickets there were a handful of guides that you can hire. None of the guides on the day we visited spoke English, so we went alone. The trail is fairly simple to navigate.

Early in the hike you’ll see horses available for rent and this will cut your hiking time in half. We walked and it took us about 45 minutes to an hour each way. You’ll want to wear good walking shoes, and for most of the morning it was quite chilly.

If everything works out then at end of the hike you’ll be able to see the trees in the distance with thousands or tens of thousands of butterflies on them. As we approached this area and the temperature started rising we began to see a butterfly here or there. We felt very fortunate that we were able to see the monarch butterflies. It was pretty cool to see so many butterflies, and it was more enjoyable because there were only a handful of people around. I think it’s definitely something that is better seen in person than in photos, but here are some photos anyway.

The Chincua sanctuary had plenty of restaurants and vendors selling merchandise. When we finished our hike we were swarmed by children offering to dust off our shoes for tips.

We really liked that Chincua was not busy at all. I think El Rosario is the more popular destination where most of the bus tours go. We didn’t see a single bus the 4 and a half hours we were there. Our lunch was about 500 pesos for 4 people. After eating lunch Ali decided to pay 100 pesos to ride the zip line. We briefly considered making a run to El Rosario before ultimately deciding to hit the road to Morelia. I am positive a trip to El Rosario will happen in the future.