General Tour Information
Note: The information presented here is an abbreviated version of our formal General Information for Tours to Mexico: Colima and Jalisco. Its purpose is solely to give readers a sense of what might be involved if they took this tour. Although we do our best to make sure what follows here is completely accurate, it should not be used as a replacement for the formal document which will be sent to all tour registrants, and whose contents supersedes any information contained here.
ENTERING MEXICO: Mexico is now requiring a valid passport for entry by U.S. citizens. Citizens of other countries may need a visa and should check their nearest Mexican embassy. Your passport, as a general rule, should be valid for at least six months after the date the tour ends. Tourist cards are required and are obtained upon entry at the border customs.
MAP AND COUNTRY INFORMATION: You can view maps of Mexico in the University of Texas series here. Click on the map’s lower right corner to adjust size. You can review the U.S. Department of State background notes on Mexico here.
HEALTH: No specific inoculations are necessary, although up-to-date tetanus protection is always a good idea. Bottled water is now widely available in motels, restaurants and even the simplest stores. You can review the latest CDC advisories here.
PACE OF THE TOUR: As with all tours in the tropics, we’ll try to be in the field around dawn which means about 7:00 a.m. — remarkably late for a Neotropical tour because of local time zones! But don’t worry, birding sites range from 30 minutes’ to an hour or so’s drive from our hotels, so you won’t need to “sleep in”. The pace of each day varies somewhat with this tour: Three breakfasts are at our hotel, the rest are in the field at dawn. Six lunches are at restaurants while four are picnics in the field. All dinners are at restaurants. A late dawn means late sunset, and on a couple of evenings we’ll stay out relatively late for nightbirds; the unanimous consensus in such cases has been to go directly to dinner, without the usual hour before dinner. On both of these days there is the chance for an afternoon siesta, so we won’t be out all day before the late nights. Walking is mostly along roads and wide trails that are level to gently sloping, with the option for some short stretches of steeper gradients. On the last full day we have a five-hour or so ocean boat trip — and so far we’ve always been able to rent a boat with a toilet!
CLIMATE: Lowland Colima and Jalisco have a hot and variably humid climate. This is the dry season though, so rain would be exceptional except perhaps for locally generated afternoon showers on the volcanoes (which has happened only twice over the years). The early mornings on the volcanoes can be cool enough for a jacket and light gloves (or sometimes near freezing!) but things soon become warm to hot.
ACCOMMODATIONS: Our hotel where we start in Barra de Navidad is an all-inclusive resort hotel with an adjacent marina, and has all the usual tourist facilities. We stay at a motel in Ciudad Guzman, which is off the tourist track. It has been remodeled recently; rooms are comfortable, with phone and television. The hot water supply has been intermittent in the past but if you wait long enough it usually comes; the outdoor pool can be refreshing. In Colima City we stay at a modern Mexican motel with pool and the usual facilities. We end at the relaxing Hotel Marbella in Manzanillo, a large modern-style resort hotel with pool, two restaurants, and beach-front.
GENERAL INFORMATION & CONDITIONS OF WINGS TOURS: Please take a moment to read the WINGS General Information & Conditions. This section contains important information about how we conduct tours, e.g., what is included in the tour price, refund and cancellation policies, pace of the tours and other information that will help you prepare for the tour.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: A more complete General Information for Tours to Colima will be sent to each registrant on receipt of their booking. Final information with instructions for meeting the group, hotel addresses, etc., will be mailed about three weeks before trip departure. Other news will be communicated as necessary.
Updated: March 2008