Mariposas Monarcas

When I was a kid I lived in a town called "Mariposa" in California. For those of you who don't know, Mariposa is the Spanish word for butterfly. The town was named as such because every year the Monarch Butterfly migration passed through the town and for a few weeks there were tons of butterflies (not just Monarchs, but mostly) flying around everywhere. It was beautiful beyond words.

Well, on Christmas Day this year I got to relive that. We woke up at 5:30 am (no small feat considering most Mexican Christmas Eve festivities go well past midnight) and drove out to Anguangueo, Michoacan where the Monarch sanctuaries are located. Along the way we drove through about 3-4 hours of scenic countryside in the heart of Mexico, including this town where we bought the single greatest pastries I've ever eaten in Mexico. Seriously. Usually I think that Mexican pastry tastes like rancid lard and sadness, but these Conchas and Trensas were other-worldly... easily rivaling the stuff I've eaten at the finest pastry shops in France and Italy. Mmmmm....

BTW, most small towns in Mexico look pretty much exactly like this, and smell like a mixture of roasting meat, gasoline, laundry detergent, livestock, cinnamon, and beer- a smell I've come to know well and to love.

 When we arrived at the sanctuary, I was surprised to see that there was actually signage, organize parking and a visitor's center. This is EXTREMELY rare, and was a very nice change of pace. There was even a public bathroom. Public bathrooms are always a big surprise when you're traveling internationally.

We picked up a guide in Anguangueo for a whopping 150 Pesos for the day. His services included guiding us through the non-scary parts of town, helping us find the sanctuary(which was no small feat in and of itself), and guiding us through the back country. He guided us for easily 5-6 hours for the U.S. equivalent of about $13. Wow. The back country itself was beautiful, and it took us easily 2-3 hours to hike down to the actual sanctuary.

Rodolfo also had tons of super useful and helpful information about the butterflies themselves which he shared with us along the way. He even told us how to tell the gender of the bugs just by looking at their wings. It was cool. This next picture is of him holding a male butterfly.

It was crazy. We were just wandering around the forest following our trusty guide for hours thinking "when the heck are we going to see some stinkin' butterflies!?!?" and then there they were. Millions of them. Just flying around everywhere, like I remembered.

 

The big clumps of brownish black leaves in the next photo are not actually leaves- they are millions of butterflies!

And all those little whitish specks behind Luis in the previous picture... you guessed it. More butterflies.

We were so tired out by the hike down we rented horses to take us back up. I know. We are total lightweights. In our defense, however, we had 4 kids aged 6-11 with us, and it was a REALLY steep climb with no paved paths or roads whatsoever. We're talking cliffs, ravines, stream beds, waterfalls- the works.

It took about an hour to get back on horseback. It was AWESOME! We paid about 60 pesos per person. That's exactly $5. Ummmm... yeah. Totally worth it.

After we got back to the visitors center, we were dirty (like head-to-toe dirt), freezing, and hungry. We gorged ourselves on hot food (quesadillas, steaks, nopales, beans, and hand-made, fresh blue-corn tortillas). We each downed a ton of water and soda, and then we loaded back into the Suburban warm, full, tired, and happy.

If you ever find yourself in Michoacan Mexico during the winter, it is well worth your while to make your way out to Anguangueo to see the butterflies. We payed about $20 each for the whole day, including guide, entrance fees, horses, and food. It was an amazing experience, the likes of which none of us will ever forget. I mean, seriously... horseback riding through a World Heritage sight on Christmas day? Awesome!