November 21, 2023. Reserva de la Biósfera Santuario Mariposa Monarca
Tuesday was a very long day. At 8:30, we met Carlos, our guide, at a hotel near the Cathedral. His assistant was a young man named Pepe. Two other tourists from Tobasco joined us. They were Sebastian and his wife Alia. Our mission was to explore the Monarch Butterfly Reserve.
https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1290/
This reserve is over 138,000 acres and holds millions and perhaps billions of monarch butterflies as they migrate from Canada every fall. Thousands, possibly hundreds of thousands, of people go to the reserve, climb the hill, …er… mountain to see the butterflies. Since it’s never known exactly where the butterflies cluster, sometimes the hike up the hill, …er… mountain can be long and strenuous. This year, the hike was long and strenuous. I loved it.
After 3 hours of driving —a very nice drive through the hills and dells of Michoacán — we arrived. By the time we arrived, it was lunchtime but Carlos said it wasn’t good to hike on a full stomach. I thought it was worse to hike on an empty one. Fortunately, I had brought several protein bars and 2 bottles of water for the 3+ hours of hiking up the mountain.
Fortunately, (or unfortunately?), there were stairs up part of the mountain but since the butterflies were so far up the mountain, we ended up on dirt and rock trails. It was so nice to be in the forest again. Here are a few photos to start….
At a rest stop along the way
Find me at the top…
…one of my many martial arts moves…
Nope…not at the top yet…
Still working our way up…
Finally getting close.
At the top, we saw clusters of butterflies in the trees. They are kind of hard to discern in a photo, but they look like large brown clumps hanging from the branches. These are thousands of butterflies clustered together very tightly. As I watched, there was a noise of some kind and all of a sudden….whoosh!… the butterflies flew up en masse. I didn't get this photo or video but, believe me, it was impressive. You might need to zoom in to really see the butterfly clusters. I’ll try to insert a video, too. I didn't take the video.
And finally….How many white cows can one see on a mountain in Michoacán? (Michele took this photo.)
Down at the bottom of the mountain, we had lunch at a little outdoor place. I must say, they were the very best quesadillas I ate during the whole trip. The tortillas were hand made of blue corn and they were grilled without grease. Too bad I don’t have a photo.
After eating, we drove the 3-hours back to Morelia. We were sooooo tired!
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