Visiting Mexico’s Firefly Sanctuary and the Ecotourism Question

Fifty kilometers east of Mexico City, the little village of Nanacamilpa welcomes visitors every summer evening to their now-infamous firefly sanctuary. Tonight I am one of those visitors, riding past the potato and corn fields into the pine forest, a sprinkle of raindrops blurring my eyesight.

I am not arriving to the firefly sanctuary in our Big Blue Bus, but on the back of a quad, with three police escorts.

I’m not quite sure how I got onto the back of this quad. A few hours before I wasn’t even sure whether or not I’d go on a night tour within the firefly sanctuary at all. We’d shown up at Piedra Canteada the afternoon before expecting to camp in the forest and witness a firefly spectacle from our campsite. The weather had been rainy, the dirt track a little too muddy for comfort, and so when the guards told us the exorbitant price just to camp, we turned right around and headed for a public parking lot we’d noticed at the edge of town.

Demoralized, we figured we’d spend the night and move on the next morning. But that evening, when bus after minibus passed us on their way up to the sanctuary, my curiosity got the better of me. I began googling how to visit the firefly sanctuary. It appeared we were smack in the middle of their short season, which lasts only from the end of June to late August. During those months, hundreds of thousands of fireflies flock to this forest to mate, illuminating the canopy of trees every evening. Visitors arrive independently at Piedra Canteada, join a guided tour at 8pm sharp (just before sunset) and wander out into the forest via one of the forty-odd hiking paths, where they spend a couple hours watching one of Nature’s best light shows.

You’d think I’d jump on the opportunity to witness such a spectacle, but I wanted to act conscientiously. Before engaging in ecotourism, I believe it’s important to ask oneself the question, does my visit help or hinder those involved? It seemed there was no doubt that my visit would help the locals – this poor logging community has managed to dig itself out of poverty since they began exploiting firefly tourism back in 2011. It seemed, too, that my visit was good for the forest – most of the town’s income is now earned through tourism, and while the forest is still logged, the community has preserved over 1,500 acres of it. The jury is still out as to the impact of tourism on the fireflies themselves, so I decided to go and see for myself.

The parking lot where we’ve spent the night is guarded by regional police officers. Bruno strikes up a conversation with them, asking if they know any tours I can join to get up to the forest that evening. We keep a strict bedtime for Phoenix, and Bruno had seen a pretty nice firefly display in Gabon back in the day, so we just need to get me from the parking lot to the forest, about 10km away.

The police officers don’t know of any tours that stop at the parking lot on their way up. “She can just hitch a ride with us,” they offer, then say a bunch more things in Spanish that Bruno doesn’t understand. He assumes they go up there every night to monitor the fireflies (and tourists) – I’m merely taking advantage of their nightly ride up.

That’s how I find myself on the back of a police quad, zooming past the fields and trees up into the firefly forest.

I expected the police officers to drop me off at the ticket stand and show me a meetup place for the drive back down. Imagine my surprise when I learn that my three police escorts are joining a firefly tour with me!

The officers guided me into the restaurant of the lodge, where hundreds of people were beginning to gather, eat, and drink hot beverages on this wet, already-chilly evening. They shook hands with an employee they obviously knew and asked him if there was an English-speaking guide for me for the tour. A tourist sat drinking coffee overheard them and asked me, in English, if she could help. She offered to be my translator, and the officers were very happy. Then they whisked me to a table for a cafessito, which ended up being four coffees (one for me, a non-coffee drinker), and four plates of tostadas.

No, gracias, I said. I’ve had dinner already.

Si, si, coma. Eat.

And so I ate. The tostada had cheese sprinkled onto what looked like frijoles (beans) and very pale avocado. It was only after biting into it and getting an unfamiliar explosion of flavor that I realized the avocado was actually chicken. As a vegan, the cheese was flexing, but the chicken was too much. I surreptitiously flicked chicken piece by chicken piece off my tostada as I munched. This was actually pretty easy to do since Mexican food is notoriously messy, and the officers probably just thought that, as a gringa. I was slightly messier than a Mexicano.

Meanwhile, Martha – as I learned my female police-officer driver/escort was called – was having a grand old time, snapping photos of dead animals mounted onto the walls, taking selfies with me, and laughing with her co-workers. It became clear to me that, tonight, we were all tourists.

Eight p.m. rolled around and people began to gather outside, to split into groups and to wander off to sections of the field with their guides. The groups were gigantic, and I was surprised at the amount of people here on a Monday evening. But, since over 50,000 tourists flock to the firefly sanctuary every season, I suppose it was just business as usual.

Our guide began to list off the rules and expected behaviors for the tour: walk slowly, no talking, and no lights of any kind. I had read this online, too – the lights from phones, headlamps and cameras distract the fireflies from the very important task of mating. Bruno had prepped me on how to take photos without flash, and I’d lugged his tripod and giant camera with me for the trip.

Two-by-two, we began a slow, short walk up one of the paths into the forest. It was probably 8:20pm, the sun had just set, and, as if on cue, the fireflies began to light up. At first we’d just spot one or two, then a couple more in another area. My camera was ready on the tripod, and once a few more fireflies began to light up around me, I set it up to take a photo.

Snap. The people around me all turned to look at me. Sin flash, they hissed. No flash. Confused, I looked, and sure enough, an ultraviolet green light lit up whenever I pressed the shutter. I tried covering the light with my fingers, but without it the camera wouldn’t take the photo. I didn’t know how to turn that little green light off , not did I have Bruno here to change the settings. I wouldn’t be able to take any photos. (Firefly photos in this blog are taken from the internet).

With the responsibility of taking photos out of the picture (pun intended!), I relaxed into the experience. Though the light show began slowly, it quickly reached an impressive peak – thousands of lights illuminating the ever-darkening forest around us, all seeming to beat as one rhythmic heart. Half-a-second lit, then half-a-second off, over and over again, desperately seeking to attract a mate in this once-in-their-lifetime opportunity.

The light effect was particularly cool when I unfocused my eyes so as to take in all the lights at once. Or if I looked at one particular dark point in front of me and then, suddenly, it was lit up for a brief moment by a passing firefly. There were so many of them all around me that this wasn’t hard to do.

Here I was witnessing something breathtaking, beautiful, and as old as time. But it was hard to really be in the moment and thoroughly enjoy it. Being in a group definitely minimized the experience for me. Every minute or so, our guide had us shuffle forward in the forest, so I wasn’t free to stay or wander as I wanted (I do completely understand the need for a guide in these situations). More than that, though, the group’s respect for this spectacle began to diminish over time. The silence and absence of cell-phones slowly turned into chatter and an occasional artificial light. There was only one guide for our group of 40, and he couldn’t be everywhere all at once, after all.

By the end of the 90-minute tour, as we reached the main path and coalesced with a few other arriving groups, the beautiful silence of the forest was punctuated with shouts and cries of bored tourists. There was even one guide who’d obviously named his group the Quesadillas, so we heard a bunch of loud “Quesadillas!” call-and-responses. In another group, a boy was wearing shoes that lit up in red and green every time you step on them, and seriously, that’s all you could see. At the lodge’s restaurant, hot chocolate served in single-use paper cups was being given away, and tourists not staying at the lodge were already driving home – car lights blaring – right through the same forest we’d just been told not to use cell phones in lest we distract the fireflies from their call to mate.

Maybe it’s because I had gone to the sanctuary with the express desire to witness how tourism was affecting the fireflies, but the errors being made by guides, tourists and the sanctuary itself seemed blaring. I had enjoyed the light show, but I left on the back of that police quad with a bit of a sour taste in my mouth. I had felt somehow guilty that we humans were infringing on this intimate ritual that fireflies – who only live a year – complete only once. I had felt helpless as we humans struggled to sidestep fireflies that had posed themselves on the ground in our path – we could see those that were lit up, but how many others do 50,000 tourists trample on each year? And most of all, I felt ashamed to be part of a species that can’t even respect a few simple rules for a couple of hours.

Don’t get me wrong – I am grateful to have witnessed the nighttime mating ritual that has become Nanacamilpa’s pride. It just didn’t feel like a communion with nature – more like a disruption of it. I get it – ecotourism is a tricky thing because you have to balance the needs of the local communities as well as the tourists with those of the environment and the animals. I just can’t help but feel that in the balance, nature usually loses.

Perhaps Piedra Canteada – which operates as a logging cooperative in the off-season – could limit tourist numbers, raising ticket prices to compensate. Perhaps they need smaller groups or more guides, so that rules can be better enforced. Perhaps they need to reduce the number of trails, and build platforms on the remaining ones, so that our footsteps tread on fewer fireflies.

I’m not educated in ecotourism enough to know what the answers are – or indeed if the problems I sensed are even actual problems in the grand scheme of things. If I write this post, it is with one goal in mind: a reminder to us all to be the best tourists we can be – to reflect on our impact, to tread as lightly as possibly, and to be respectful of every being – human and non-human – that we encounter.

As I put the finishes touches on this post, I receive a What’s Ap from Martha, the police-officer whose waist I hugged as we rode up and down the mountain.

Hola amiga como llegaron del viaje? Hello friend, how have you been getting on with your trip?

I may not be sure as to the impact of my visit on the fireflies, but one thing my new friend and I are sure of is this – my visit has had a positive impact on intercultural relations.