Monarch Butterflies

This weekend (and yes I do work during the week) I went to see the winter home for the monarch butterflies in the Monarch Reserve in the state of Michoacán (part is also in the state of Mexico). The theme of this weekend was different modes of transport. I started off Saturday morning on a city bus to Puebla’s bus station, followed by a long distance bus to one of Mexico City’s bus stations. We then used the metro to switch bus stations, hopped on another long distance bus (trip was a little longer than expected due to a flat tire) to arrive in the city of Zitacuaro in Michocán. From there we grabbed groceries for the cabin and hopped in a combi (basically a mini-bus) until we reached the state line with Mexico. From there we had to take a taxi to get to the cabins. However, we were a little late and were informed by the cab driver that he was probably the last taxi we were going to see for a while, which meant we had an interesting lesson on how to fit 9 people in 1 taxi (hence the following photo).

We finally got to the cabin, spent the night, and then headed out the next morning on horses to see the butterflies. The end of February is the best time to see them because they have recovered from their long migration and are ready to head back to the US and Canada. They mate right before they start the spring migration, the males die, and the females migrate and lay their eggs. After about 2 hours on the horses, crossing back into the state of Michocán (the butterflies tend to move a fair amount this time of year and some had already headed back), we arrived.

Literally everywhere you looked was orange with monarchs, the sky, the trees, and the ground (dead males). It sounded like it was a windy day, but the noise was actually the beating of the wings. There’s not too much that can be said about it, it’s pretty hard to describe or capture in pictures, but imagine a windy fall day where all the leaves have changed colors and are swirling in the air, but substitute butterflies for leaves.

So after the magical butterfly experience, we got to repeat the horse-taxi-combi-bus-metro-bus-bus route to return. When we got to the combi leg of the journey, the combi arrived pretty much full, but had to get back to Zitacuaro to catch the bus, so we piled in, there were people on laps with people on their laps and arms and legs everywhere.