Michoacan Archaeology Tour: Tingambato, Ihuatzio & Tzintzuntzan

Our day with Rodrigo was fantastic. He was so knowledgeable about the area and its history. Don’t hesitate- book this tour!

This is a great tour! We learned a lot and had a good time doing it. Rodrigo is an excellent guide. If you have any interest in archaeological sites or the history of the area I highly recommend this tour.

Rodrigo was our extremely knowledgeable guide with excellent English. This made it helpful in answering all our questions about the history of Michoacan, pre-colonial, and major leaders of Mexico. The reason for visiting was personal for my wife. She knew she had family from Morelia; however, more information popped up regarding her ties to the Purepecha and Otomi people of the area. It was interesting to find out how important the Purepecha people were and even more so than the Aztecs since they were never conquered by them. This was also the only tour which included all three ruin sites. We visited Tingambato first. A smaller site and less exposed but shrouded with a lot of mystery. The next was Ihuatzio. Here Rodrigo explained how the Purepecha temples combined with previous celestial beliefs. Also did you know it is here where the oldest "chac mool" (statue of a god lying on his back and holding a platform) was discovered? They speculate this is where they originated from and used by the other Indigenous groups like Maya and Aztecs. The last site was Tzintzintzan. This was a very important Purepecha city which ultimately made a "somewhat" truce with the Spanish after their conquer over the Aztecs. We ended with a delicious meal at a local restaurant for carnitas. Thank you Rodrigo. This review doesn't do justice for all you taught us! We highly recommend this tour and any other by Rodrigo.

Excellent all around, picked up at my airbnb, great car, started learning immediately, Rodrigo spoke clearly, I could jump in with any questions, considerate with speed of walking, talking so i could keep up. Extremely knowledgeable, very interesting, beautiful tour of some of the pre-hispanic history of this region. Highly recommended for people interested in this information.

Excellent tour. I have a passion for the prehispanic history of Mexico, and Rodrigo filled in many gaps in my knowledge in a friendly and entertaining way. Our tour was in Spanish, but Rodrigo's command of English was obvious. I would love to take another tour with him.

The tour was interesting and our guide, Rodrigo Rosales, was amazing. He is passionate about history and very knowledgeable. His English is perfect, and he kept us enthralled with his stories about the past and present Mexico. I would highly recommend him.

Excellent experience for those who are seeking to learn more about the history of Michoacán, especially for those who have roots in the region. Rodrigo is great! He is very knowledgeable and professional. Highly recommend

Rodrigo is a FANTASTIC tour guide! He knows so much about the history of these sites, and he will bring it alive for you. He is an engaging, enthusiastic, interesting conversationalist, and the sites themselves are unique in their own ways. I've traveled all over Mexico and have never seen anything quite like these ancient treasures.

I highly recommend this tour to anyone interested in history or archeology. All three sites were interesting and the time spent at each was just right. Rodrigo was the perfect guide--good at communicating before trip, extremely knowledgeable and willing and able to answer all my questions. Lunch was the best carnitas I have had.

This was a great tour. Rodrigo is a very knowledgeable, articulate, and friendly tour guide that brings a lot of great energy to his tours. He has obviously done a lot of study and preparation, and can answer any question that you throw at him.

I've always been intrigued by Purépecha culture, although my knowledge has been quite porous, but this tour helped me fill the missing gaps. Rodrigo is an incredible tour guide. He's very articulate & answered all my questions about the culture which I appreciate. Next time I'm around in Morelia I will absolutely book another one of Yei Tours

This tour was informative and fun. Our tour guide Rodrigo was very knowledgeable not just about the archeological sites, Michoacán's history but the greater area.

This tour was amazing!! I had so much fun hearing very intricate details about these sites. Every little detail was thought of and covered. I’ve never learned so much in one day before! I felt very comfortable and looked after as a solo female traveler. I wanted to research this Indigenous history on my own & quickly realized how difficult that would be. This tour took the headache out of attempting to organize that, and I learned more than if I read hundreds of articles myself. Rodrigo of Yei Tours was above and beyond wonderful. He problem solved an issue we encountered very quickly to ensure I was able to see everything. Not to mention having snacks/drinks at the perfect time. He was very knowledgeable with my millions of questions, and never tired of sharing more details. Don’t hesitate, just book! You’ll have an amazing time.

Amazing day learning about pre-colonial central Mexico!!! I highly recommend Rodrigo (of Yei Tours) for this 6-7 hour adventure into cultures few understand. Rodrigo was punctual, conversational, personal, informative, patient, and an expert in English and Spanish. What a day we had! He was so good we also hired Rodrigo for a Monarch Butterfly tour a couple days later.

This review is long overdue for me. Don’t let the three review total fool you on this tour— Yei Tours is a legitamate, professionally operating tourist organization. To further illustrate that point, I had a family friend from Mexico I was staying with call on my behalf to verify its legitimacy because I was skeptical at first. Rodrigo was very kind and agreed time to meet with us in person before I confirmed the tour. We met Rodrigo at his office to still verify that it was legit, haha, and then confirmed the tour. The office space was clean and professional. If you can’t tell, my family and friends were being protective because I was traveling solo and they wanted to make sure I was safe. The reason why I am telling you all of this is because you don’t have to speculate and go through all the steps I did see if it’s real. Yei Tours is a legit, safe and reliable organization to take a tour from. Rodrigo, my guide and founder of the company, studied extensively to become a guide and is licensed by the state to do so. Truly, I was being educated on this tour, not just guided. I wish I had recorded everything that was said because the history was so rich. I came to Michoacan in July to reconnect with my roots and family history. I wanted to learn more about the Purhepecha and how their legacy still lives today. I was traveing alone and felt a little anxious to go on a 9-hr tour by myself but when Rodrigo came and we got started, that anxiety disappeared. He was very professional and stayed true to the itinerary that is posted on this site. I felt as though nothing was lacking. Since it was just the two of us, my many questions about language, colonialism and traditions were addressed in great depth. If Rodrigo didn’t know the answer to my inquiries, he also was clear to say that he didn’t know. He was very honest, even though that not knowing didn’t happen much, haha. Rodrigo was on time, I paid the first half of the tour the day before and the last portion at the end of the tour and was very satisfied. I didn’t even feel as tired as I thought I would be after 9 hours of walking, chatting and learning. The scenery and the stories are incredible. I would highly reccomend this tour to anyone who wants to learn more about the people to whom this land belongs, their history and their living legacy. Any trip to Morelia or Michoacan would be incomplete without this tour. Thank you Rodrigo!

Great tour, was very educational and pretty interesting throughout the day. Our guide Rogelio was very talkative and kept the trip interesting. You can tell he is very passionate about the history of not just Michoacan, but all of Mexico and even Central and South America. As i said in the title, wear sunblock, maybe shades and a cap for the sun. And also take a snack because the lunch can be a bit later than you’d expect.

The tour was very good, we toured Tingambato, Iuatzio and Tzintzuntzan and finished by eating traditional michoacanas carnitas in a restaurant with a very rich taste much better than what in other states we are sold as michoacanas carnitas. Rodrigo the Guide is a super punctual person, friendly and with a wide knowledge of the culture of Michoacan, at all times attentive to the questions one asked him apart that has general historical knowledge that make the tour very enjoyable, highly recommended and in short I will contact him again for when I want to make the tour in the mere Morelia since for reasons of time I could not perform.

Rodrigo, is a nice, attentive and punctual person. The whole tour was full of interesting historical data, I definitely recommend that you take the tour of Archaeological Zones, it will allow you not only to know more of the purepecha culture, in turn, you will discover how the history of Mexico, is reconstructed a little here...