enero: A weekend in Michoacán

Sarah, Jenn, and I woke up on a cool January morning last Friday around 4:45am to travel in three buses and one taxi for over six hours… to go see some butterflies. But not just any butterflies, the monarch butterfly colonies that migrate from central Mexico to northern parts of United States and southern Canada near the Great Lakes. It is an incredible journey that takes five generations of butterflies to complete, and scientists still do not fully understand why. I hear it is one of the “Wonders of the World.”

So, we got up before dawn and went to the bus station in Cuernavaca to go to Mexico City. Due to some confusion, we waited at the wrong bus and missed ours. Oops! So we hopped on the next one but that meant that we were going to be pressed for time later. We got to Mexico City and hopped in a taxi with about 45 minutes to go from the southern bus station to the western one… and that meant going through Mexico City during rush hour traffic. Shoot. I sat up front and chatted with our driver, hoping to make friends and have him rooting for us to catch our next bus. We told him to hurry, and he did. He drove in the oncoming traffic lanes, nearly having to jump the sidewalk to avoid a collision, he flowed in and out of lanes with professional ease, and we made it to the western station with ten minutes to catch our bus. Hallelujah! We bought our tickets and hopped on board for a five hour trip to the little town of Angangeo, Michoacán.

Angangeo is a quaint, sleepy, rustic mountain village situated down the mountain from a couple of the monarch sanctuaries. It was also our humble home for the evening. We were welcomed to the area by a cold climate that surprised us all. I would guess that the temperatures floated in the 40’s, getting warmer during the day (and especially in the sun) and much colder at night. We stayed bundled and longed for the heating and fires that we have in the Midwest to cope with cold. Anyway, when we got there we dropped off our stuff at the very basic hostel and decided to trust some guy who offered to drive us up the mountain to the Rosario sanctuary. His truck had seen better days – there was no passenger door knob, the doors had a tendency to swing open, the passenger seat wobbled off its base and there was something clanking in the back… but he was a cool guy and got us up there safe and sound.



El Rosario is the more touristy of the sanctuaries that we visited, which had its advantages and disadvantages. One advantage is that the path to the colony was lined with signs and descriptions of the monarchs… which, of course, we didn’t stop to read. One disadvantage is that there is more destruction of the natural habitat and more people. We made the hike quickly, a pace set by our guide who by now is accustomed to the altitude and thin air at over 11,000 feet. We were all winded right away. But when we got to the colony, wow. I looked at the branches of the trees, hanging down almost vertically, weighed down by dry-looking clumps. I asked our guide if those were old cocoons and he informed me that those were the butterflies. What? A closer look and I saw that they were indeed the butterflies and the undersides of their wings are a brownish color instead of the brilliant orange that they wear on top. Thousands of butterflies in every clump, millions of butterflies in every colony. When the sun started to peek out from the clouds, the butterflies started flying around and occasionally landing on us or making a clumsy crash landing on small bushes near us.





All in all, the trip up to the colony and back down was much faster than we expected. So we hopped back in the trusty truck and made the descent to Angangeo. The town lacks a nightlife… or well, any life at all. We arrived a little after 6pm, walked around the small plaza and went into a couple tourist stores, bought some cereal and milk for dinner, one spoon, and went back to the hostel to pass Sarah’s Tupperware bowl and have something to eat. We sat and chatted a bit and then decided to go try to make something of Angangeo. We went and bought some sweet bread and went to one of the couple restaurants for some hot tea. The owner, Simon, has entertained and fed numerous tourists over the years and showed us his extensive collection of postcards sent from all over the world by the people who came to eat at his little restaurant. He liked practicing English with us, and we practiced our Spanish in response with him. Well, we were back at the hostel before 9pm and not sure what else to do with ourselves. Fortunately, we had been up and going since 5am so at least we were able to fall asleep pretty early and not worry too much about the lack of things to do.

We got up early on Saturday morning to go check out the other sanctuary, Cierra Chincua. We got a ride up the mountain to the base of the sanctuary and met up with our guide, Diego (guides are provided with entrance fee). We were joined by another American named George, an older doctor who was traveling around Mexico for awhile. Diego turned out to be an incredible guide with a wealth of information and flashcards and maps. I was quite impressed. George also proved to be a fun companion, he has lived an inspiring life full of lots of travel and great stories. The sanctuary also ended up being our favorite of the two. Although we were closer to the colony at El Rosario, the Chincua sanctuary was much more serene and untouched by tourism and the logging industry. We got some beautiful views down the mountain of the surrounding area and traveled a bit more of the area to see various parts and terrains of the sanctuary. Afterwards, George payed for our part of the tip and drove us in his rental car back down to Angangeo. We invited him to some lunch at the Restaurante Simon of some quesadillas. Then he hit the road and we picked up our stuff at the hostel to start the 6+ hour trip back home.





It was a fun escape from the city and life in our little corner of this globe. It was wonderful to reconnect with nature and grass and trees (non-existent in Cuernavaca) and I think Sarah especially was in heaven. This seemed like much more of a retreat than any of our volunteer retreats, and I had a great time witnessing one of Mother Earth's wonders.