Primary destination for this trip: a visit to the wintering grounds of the Monarch butterflies, high up in the hills of Michoacan. It's a fair drive from Angangueo, through Ocampo and up into the hills to El Rosario. There are seven protected butterfly sanctuaries in the region here, two of them are open to the public. We've been traveling in Mexico for six days, heading into some pretty remote country.
This morning's excursion is only 45 minutes of topes and switchbacks before we are directed into a large, mostly empty, parking lot. No entrance gate in sight, but we follow a path into the forest, surrounded on both sides by little makeshift stands selling fruit, water, tacos and treats, along with a lot of souvenirs highlighting an obvious butterfly theme. They were all eager to see us, but we had further to go...
About 275 tortilla stands later, we finally emerged into a clearing and found ourselves at the real entrance to the Monarch Sanctuary. Now we were confronted by dozens of guides offering to escort us up the mountain, by foot or on horseback. We politely declined, we like to set our own pace.
It was about a 45 minute hike, lots of benches along the trail, which turned out to be really handy. At 3400 metres in altitude, you can get tuckered out pretty easily. Then, there they were, thousands and thousands of Monarchs, clinging to the trees, but taking flight when the sun emerged from behind the clouds. It was a pretty impressive experience, fascinating and humbling too. We spent most of the day up on that mountain, met a lot of Mexican schoolkids, had a memorable time.
