This spring, I was lucky to have an essay I wrote published in Broad Street, titled “A Curious Migration.” The seeds for the essay, which was in part about milkweed, came from a blog post I wrote in July 2013. The town of Macheros, mentioned in the essay, is a special place, and I thought I’d share some photos of it here. I’m a lover of monarchs, for certain, but I’m also in awe of what my friends Ellen and Joel are doing to help their town while promoting monarch habitat conservation through their nonprofit organization Butterflies and Their People. If you’d like to donate to their cause, please visit their website. The organization raises money to hire local people as arborists in the reserve, who monitor the forests and monarch colonies, as well as provide a presence meant to deter illegal logging.
Looking down upon Macheros, 2015.
View of Macheros from the roof of the inn in 2018.
I’ve visited their inn three times—in 2015, 2016, and 2018. When I first visited, the inn was one building with only a couple of rooms. Now it’s two buildings and fourteen rooms, as well as a restaurant. A new restaurant building and a swimming pool are currently under construction. Most of Joel’s family is involved in the running of the inn and restaurant, as well as the guided tours to Cerro Pelon butterfly reserve and other reserves nearby.
Sometimes when I’ve been at Ellen and Joel’s, the saint from the church, San Isidro, goes visiting from house to house, accompanied by firecrackers. You can see him being paraded below towards the center of the photo, just above the wall. Photo taken in 2018.
View from rooftop patio in 2018.
Joel in a rare moment of sitting still, 2018.
The inn when I visited in 2015.
Inn and road facing center of Macheros in 2015
Ellen and Joel in 2015.