Butterflies

We had to work on Thursday and Friday, so Ed and Lynn took the Turibus up to the pyramids and then went to the Anthropology museum.

Saturday, we packed up some snacks and headed out to Piedra Herrada. Even though it doesn't look like it from my pictures, there were tons of butterflies in big clusters on the trees that would all take off at the same time with each gust of wind, and it was just a magical as always!

What was not so magical were the caballitos, especially for Autumn. My "guide" wouldn't hold the reins, so I was in charge of my own little horse which meant that I had to pay a slight amount of attention to keeping it from walking off the cliff! We all made it up and down, safe and sound.

When we got to Mexico City, we drove over to the Ciudadela Artesania, which is the arts and crafts "mall". After about an hour of shopping, there was a huge hail/rain storm, which immediately flooded the whole place in ice water since the "roof" is basically a pile of tarps, pieces of plastic and metal sheeting and other assorted garbage. Luckily, we made it back to the car without getting totally soaked. On the way home, we stopped at Villa Maria for our last dinner together.

The next morning we had a fantastic breakfast in the sun at Ivoire before we had to drop Ed and Lynn off at the airport. It was a great visit, and we had a ton of fun! 

 Autumn and Lynn mounting up!

 Look at all the pony tails!

 It was pretty cold today, and the butterflies were mostly in their oyamel tree clusters.

 More cluster-cam!

 Clusterific!

 Hibernating fun

 Say Monarch!

 Flying about

 View of the forest...reminds me of home!

 Autumn pretending to be happy to be back on the horse-ito

Our 35 peso roses (about $2.75!)

We bought them off a pickup truck!

Thanks for the great time!
See you soon!

Visit Day 7: Piedra Herrada

For the last day of my mom's visit, we drove out to Piedra Herrada to see the Monarch butterfly sanctuary.  We had planned on getting McBreakfast, but it turned out that the it had been closed by the health department! Oh whoa to me!

Anyway, we got some takeout from a little bakery and were on our way. It was a beautiful drive, and after a few mishaps with the GPS, we arrived. We rented the caballitos (little horses) which was much better and faster than walking. There were millions of butterflies, and it was just as amazing as the last time I went. I'm even excited to go again with Autumn's dad and Lynn in a few weeks.

We hit horrible traffic on the way home and had to give up on a last day shopping excursion. We met up with Autumn and had a fantastic last dinner at Dulcinea.

 One positive outcome of the French sending an emperor to rule Mexico in the 1800's?

Pastries!

 Looks like Colville!

Entrance to the sanctuary

Chrissy is excited!

 Mom and Rich must feel right at home, but I think their horses are about twice the size of these little guys

I don't know about Ruth, but it's been about 20 years since I was on a horse

 Can you spot the butterflies?

 There's one!

 More!

 and more!

 Hibernating clusters

 Closeup

 Our guide decided to put a bunch of possibly dead butterflies on Chris's head, which was weird...

 Hola Sr. Mariposa Monarcha

 It really was amazing up there.

 Eek, and also a little creepy, like Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds"

They're watching you!

 Hasta luego little horse-ito!

 Cactus forests on the way home.

Back in Mexico City...

...and stuck in traffic!

Thank you all for coming! We had such a fun time with you. See you again next summer and maybe in India!!

Piedra Herrada: Monarch Butterflies

VIDEO BLOG!


40 million butterflies!

Piedra Herrada: Monarch Butterflies

The second magical stop of our whirlwind tour of Estado de Mexico was at the Butterfly Sanctuary in Pieda Herrada. We arrived around noon and were given a brief lecture on the monarch butterflies before hiking up the mountain. It turns out that most butterflies live for only about one month, but the generation of monarch butterflies born in the fall each year in the US and Canada live for about six months! This enables them to make the 4,000+ mile flight to Mexico to hibernate each winter. They are attracted by the alkaline nature of the Oyamel forests here (some kind of fir / pine tree native to Mexico) that makes the butterflies poisonous to predators during hibernation.

Anyway, we opted not to ride the weird "caballitos" aka little horses that looked like they were half donkey, and take a slow hike up to the top. It was a really nice day, and the terrain and vegetation reminded us a lot of eastern Washington. The only drawback was the thick DUST when the "horses" went by. The long walk was worth it once we got to the top and saw the, literally, millions of butterflies. It was pretty amazing.

 Entrance to the sanctuary...I resisted the urge to yell "SANCTUARY" in a Quasimodo impression...but it was hard!

 Lupine wildflowers...just like in Washington!

 Our first butter-friend!

For being bright orange, the butterflies were surprisingly camouflaged in this forest.

 Wait a minute...those aren't leaves...

 Every inch of the trees at the top of our climb were just coated in a thick layer of monarchs

 Hola butterfly king!

 This almost reminded me of a scene from Hitchcock's "The Birds"!

 More clusters of monarchs on the Oyamel trees

 Butter-iffic!

 To quote Johnathan, "Re-donk-u-lous!"

 Someone was excited!

 The "caballitos"

There were so many flying down to the nearby river for a drink, that the police were out to direct traffic. We had to drive about 10 MPH to avoid mass murder!