Weekend trip #2: The butterflies of Michoacan

We decided our next trip here in Mexico would be to see the Monarch butterflies that migrate down to Mexico from the US every year. We had heard it was amazing, and the season was November - February or March. We want to go somewhere on the beach next month, so November seemed as good a time as any.

One book I had about Mexico said that Patzcuaro was a good jump off point for seeing butterflies and there seemed to be quite a few other things to see around there, so off we drove. It took us a little longer to get there than we anticipated, but we found the town center and the tourist office. They gave us pamphlets and Dave went to look for a hotel while I studied them. Much to my confusion, the pamphlet on the butterflies said the reserves we wanted to see were near a town called Zitacuaro about a 2 1/2 hour drive away. While we waited for Dave to return from getting a hotel, we were entertained by some dancers in the square.
(Above picture courtesy of the Patzcuaro tourist board)

When Dave got back, I told him my discovery. We decided that the butterflies were our main objective so we would set off in the morning and go to the closest reserve.

After settling into our hotel room we found some dinner and wandered around in Patzcuaro. I finally bought a Dia de la Muerte figurine that I've been wanting for a Halloween decoration. These dolls remind me so much of A Nightmare before Christmas, that I wonder if this is where Tim Burton got his inspiration.

When we got there, a car had gotten itself stuck in the entrance so Dave got out to help and one of the other good samaritans was a tour guide. He said that this reserve was still closed until November 19th, but one about 1 hour away was open. We had gone this far so....

By the time we got to the Rosario Butterfly Reserve it was about 1pm and we were really tired of driving and really hoping this was going to be worth it. As we drove up a group of boys tried to tell us in Spanish where to park. We didn't really understand and drove farther up the road to a dead end. After we turned around, the boys ran with the car till we found a spot. There were only about 5 other cars in the parking lot. An older man came over and told us that one boy would "watch" our car, and another would lead us up to the entrance. I'm not sure how much we needed the 10 year old security guard, but the tour guide was very helpful.

Watch and see.

After making it through a labyrinth of shantys and hornets, we said goodbye to our small guide, paid our entrance fee and were issued another guide, an older lady in her 60's or 70's.

She proceeded to lead us up approx. 715 stairs (thanks to Riley and Jane for the count) and then about another 1/2 mile of incline till we finally arrived at the famous butterflies. She was amazing as she carried Milli and held her hand at various times. Our guide said there were not so many butterflies right now, but see for yourself. What looks like leaves are not.Note: the butterflies the kids are holding were already dead. Promise.

We made our way back down, (uneventful except when Amelia had an "accident" in which she announced "I have some good news and some bad news, the good news is I'm done peeing, and bad news is my pants are all wet") and we were grateful to see that the hornets had gone to sleep. Now where to eat and sleep ourselves? It was about 5:30pm by now and getting dark fast. Dave wanted to find a hotel in Morelia, the capital of Michuacan. I wasn't too hip on driving in the dark. He won (since he was the one driving and I couldn't very well jump out of the car) and we drove to Morelia. Arrived 9:30 and settled in a Best Western at 11pm, exhausted.

Didn't want to leave for home too late, so we visited a Candy Museum and headed home.

The kids and their old-fashioned candy picks.

Three things I will especially remember on this trip.

1. Lots of driving
2. Millions of flying things, friendly and un-
3. Our first experience with being an attraction. At every little town or taco stand we stopped, we caused a stir. People would just stand around where we were and watch us. Especially this one little hamburger place, we were the only customers, and the owner's family just stood around our table and watched us eat. Kind of uncomfortable, but we hoped we left a good impression of Americans.

Playing Hooky

On Wednesday, the kid's school had what they called a "Spiritual Retreat" where the kids spent all day with a Catholic nun doing reflection, team building games and other activities with their class. Not that we are against that kind of thing, but most of the kids in Jane's class were not going and some had invited Jane and Riley to play that day instead of go. We thought about it and though we think the retreat might have been of some benefit, we decided making friends here would be more beneficial, especially for Riley who hasn't made very many friends so far. So I arranged for 3 of Jane's classmates to come over and swim and play most of the day. I think it was good for them both.

Here the kids had just finished making a gross "secret potion" out of various foods and other unmentionable things.

Halloween

My friend Laura talked me into hosting a Halloween party at our house for some of the kids friends. I usually get a little stressed out about kids parties but I thought it might be a good opportunity for the kids to see friends from school that they don't usually see. We planned a lot of games, but ended up only doing Pumpkin carving, a pinata and trick-or-treating due to it getting dark faster than we anticipated.

The kids had a blast and I'm glad we did it. Jane and Riley were both skeletons, Amelia was an angel and I bought a luchador mask for Charlie, but he never quite got it on.

Trick-or-treating was interesting. There is one neighborhood here with large amounts of Americans and Canadians, so we went there. Here when you get to the door of a house with lights on, the kids pound on the door and yell "Queremos Halloween"; we want Halloween. I mentioned to Dave that it seemed rather demanding, but he pointed out that ours is rather threatening. Even still, I have to admit when the group of about 30 Mexican kids came to our door and yelled it, I felt a bit threatened.

We ended up with a yard full of paper from the pinata, stomachs full of candy (minus the ones with chili) and a house full of happy kids. Not a bad Halloween.

Dia de la Muerte

For the past few weeks the parents of the students at Jane and Riley's school have been meeting to discuss and plan for Pantheon Loyola, the Day of the Dead celebration at the school. This celebration is very important to some of the catholics in Mexico, for some more than Christmas. For others it's just a tradition. On November 2nd, people crowd the cemeteries (pantheons) to leave flowers, gifts and food for the deceased. The school plans this celebration every year and the students prepare a tumba (tomb or crypt) to represent a famous person. In the past they've done musicians, actors, etc. This year they focused on Mexican heroes, mostly from the Revolution.

Anyway, here is the tumba from Jane's group:

Riley's group:

Also the parents of each grade got together and did a stand to tell about various states in Northern Mexico.

3rd grade (tercero) did Nuevo Leon:

4th grade (cuarto) did Sonora:

We worked on each of these stands and tombs for many hours (mostly the parents) and on the day of the event (Thursday) lots of parents spent all day at the school getting ready. I was able to help only a little on each one, but was glad to get to know some other parents.

At the actual event, Jane's group was supposed to sit by the tomb and pretend to be the mourning family of the deceased. That lasted for about un momento. There was food and halloween junk for sale and I finally got one of my favorite Mexican foods, tamales.

Jane got her hair painted pink.

The high school students designed and made a picture out of colored sawdust for the ground in front of the stands. I saw them working on it and it was painstaking. They would get a handful of the sawdust and press it into a stencil they had made. Then when the stencil or section was done, they would spray it with water and put a board over it to stand on and press down. The finished artwork was probably 5 X 15 meters in size.

The whole festival was very labor intensive, but I gained an appreciation for Mexicans ability to work hard and talk a lot.