Daytrips from Xcalak – Butterfly farm

Daytrips from Xcalak – Butterfly farm

Overview

I have been driving by this sign that says “Butterfly Farm” on the Cafetal road just 4 KM after the turn from 307 for a long time. I’ve always wondered what it was about. It is before the Rancho 5KM. They have now put up another sign saying that they have deer as well. So I finally decided to go check it out.

Driving in to the parking area, I was immediately led to a greenhouse that was alive with flying butterflies. There were large neon blue morpho butterflies, large owl butterflies as well as smaller colorful butterflies. There were feeding stations with bananas that attracted adults. It was kind of magical.

They also took me to the nursery. Some of the caterpillars are pushing 4-5 inches long. Others are bright green, and they have them at all stages of development. Then they have trays and trays of cocoons. Some camouflaged to look like leaves, some you can feel the butterfly moving around on the inside.

Finally they have a few relatively large pens with deer in them. At the time I went, they had the males separated and the females had babies. So they had several Bambi’s.

Our Visit

After you make the turn towards Mahahual off of 307 on the Cafetal Road, just after the 4KM mile marker on the right hand side you will see a sign for the Butterfly Farm. There is also a wooden sign for the deer (venados). Drive into the farm between the signs. The proprietors were really nice but don’t do much English.

I went after a couple of days after a rain, and this is in the jungle, so there were clouds of mosquitos. Definitely get a ton of mosquito repellent before you get out of the car. The ground also has a clay like mud that really stuck to the flip flops. But if you are interested in butterflies, they had a great number of specimens and is definitely worth 15-20 minutes to check out. They charged me $50 pesos or $2.50 USD.