In the last post, the great Christmas adventure, we went up to Nevado de Toluca looking for some snow (
nevado being "snowy" in Spanish). Alas, there was none. The mountains around us all appeared quite bare. Here are the legendary couple Itza (Iztaccíhuatl)and Popo (Popocatépetl) as seen from down the street from me on Christmas Day. Just after that, the weather turned nasty (for Mexico City) and despite it being the dry season, it proceeded to rain off and on for 10 days.
We emerged from the wet and cold to find our dry, brown volcanoes looking like this:
Today we went to the Monarch Butterfly Santuary near Valle de Bravo, and this required that we drive past Nevado de Toluca, who was finally living up to his name.
Though the Mexican state of Michoacán is famous for being the winter haven of the Monarch butterfly, this butterfly sanctuary is located in the state of Mexico, significantly closer to us and by far more secure with fewer drug cartels. A win-win all around. There were horses there to take us up into the sanctuary, and we couldn't pass up the chance to have some other legs climb those steep, muddy trails. We had ridden horses only once before in Iceland, and at that time, they were very strict about safety. I wasn't allowed to bring my camera bag (and especially not allowed to take pictures while riding), we had helmets, a brief lesson on guiding (steering? driving?) the horses, and were all made to learn how to check that our saddles were safely secured. Mexico is certainly not Iceland. We had no helmets of any kind, our horses were led for us, Nevara couldn't even reach her stirrups (causing me riding behind her no end of worry), and then there was Raul's experience. At one steep bit of trail, his horse started sliding back down, and I thought he was falling off of his horse, but actually, his saddle was sliding off, so Raul was squashed between the bank and his horse's rear end. He wasn't hurt, but we did make certain that everything was cinched up very very tightly from that point on.
The trail was littered with the bodies of dead butterflies, and we saw a few flitting about as we rode, but it wasn't too impressive. Then we came to a point in the trail where we all dismounted, and we four followed a guide on foot up another steep trail. There we found the Monarchs.
The trees were loaded with them, the branches bent under their weight.
We emerged from the wet and cold to find our dry, brown volcanoes looking like this:
Today we went to the Monarch Butterfly Santuary near Valle de Bravo, and this required that we drive past Nevado de Toluca, who was finally living up to his name.
Though the Mexican state of Michoacán is famous for being the winter haven of the Monarch butterfly, this butterfly sanctuary is located in the state of Mexico, significantly closer to us and by far more secure with fewer drug cartels. A win-win all around. There were horses there to take us up into the sanctuary, and we couldn't pass up the chance to have some other legs climb those steep, muddy trails. We had ridden horses only once before in Iceland, and at that time, they were very strict about safety. I wasn't allowed to bring my camera bag (and especially not allowed to take pictures while riding), we had helmets, a brief lesson on guiding (steering? driving?) the horses, and were all made to learn how to check that our saddles were safely secured. Mexico is certainly not Iceland. We had no helmets of any kind, our horses were led for us, Nevara couldn't even reach her stirrups (causing me riding behind her no end of worry), and then there was Raul's experience. At one steep bit of trail, his horse started sliding back down, and I thought he was falling off of his horse, but actually, his saddle was sliding off, so Raul was squashed between the bank and his horse's rear end. He wasn't hurt, but we did make certain that everything was cinched up very very tightly from that point on.
The trail was littered with the bodies of dead butterflies, and we saw a few flitting about as we rode, but it wasn't too impressive. Then we came to a point in the trail where we all dismounted, and we four followed a guide on foot up another steep trail. There we found the Monarchs.
The trees were loaded with them, the branches bent under their weight.
We were impressed with the quantity of them, truly it was amazing, and then the wind picked up. The butterflies were everywhere, landing on everything, blowing around like astonishing black and orange dust-devils. When we listened we could hear the sound of their wings flapping. It was truly exquisite, something that no camera could capture. We stood in awe for a long time before we headed back. Next month these delightful insects will begin their journey north again, back to the US and Canada. 
