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Guanajuato & El Rosario Monarch Butterfly Sanctuary


Monarch Butterflies

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Morrill Trailer Park is on the edge of Guanajuato, as you enter from the direction of Dolores Hidalgo, and just down from the Panorámica. We found it quite easily and, even though it has only a few sites, there was room for us. There was a small group of very friendly campers and we had another panoramic view of the colourful houses in that part of the city. We had decided to stay 2 nights there in order to go into the city again and visit the museums that interested us - they had been closed on Monday. So Wednesday morning we walked down into the city - 'down' being the operative word. The road is incredibly steep, windy, cobble stoned and narrow. We had to get off the road every time a car came up or down and had to listen for them because often they could not be seen until they were almost there. We were relieved to reach the bottom, but then had a long walk through one of Guanajuato's famous tunnels to reach the centre - quite an experience. We were a little nervous about the tunnels because everybody said you don't want to drive in Guanajuato with your rig! We watched a lot of the local buses though, which seemed to be around the same width and height as we are, and they drove into the tunnels all the time.
By the time we arrived it was lunchtime, and we tried out a fixed menu for 30 Pesos at a local eating place. The women were most helpful in our choices as we wanted food without meat and without garlic. I can't say that it was the best food I've ever eaten but it was simple and filling and very cheap. We are out of the habit of eating out but I think it is probably important to get into it again, as it is an important part of the experience of Mexico, to partake of its amazing, and mostly tasty, variety of food.
After lunch we visited the Museo del Pueblo de Guanajuato. This had interested us from the description in our Footprints guide because it has a collection of miniatures, and they were truly amazing. Tiny figures and objects, with incredible detail. The museum is housed in a beautiful old mansion and, as well as the miniatures downstairs, it has a reconstructed chapel (Capilla Barroca) upstairs, which houses 3 murals by José Chávez Morado depicting three periods of social struggle in Mexico. There are also some paintings which weren't really to our taste, but the rooms housing them were really something.
Our next stop was the Museo Iconográfico del Quijote. This museum is also housed in an old Spanish mansion and has over 800 pieces of art inspired by the Cervantes character, Don Quixote. There were a couple of beautiful glass pieces produced by Venetian artists and some other quite amazing sculptures. The paintings were numerous and, as usual with artwork, some appealed and some didn't. It seems that if you are an artist and want a piece of your work on public display, then you had best do a piece depicting this character and you are almost ensured of a place on the wall... We spent the rest of the afternoon wandering the streets nearby and happened upon Calle Del Potrero, which seems to be a typical street in the city and as such had a certificate of protection posted. More amazing colours to be seen side by side, as well as interesting windows, doorways and streetlights.
Our only disappointment was that the Juarez Theatre wasn't open for visitors because there was to be a performance. We had seen a photo and the inside looked to be spectacular. Here's what we missed. As we are constantly reminding ourselves, you can't see everything. We took a taxi back up to the campground - neither of us even contemplated walking that road up.
On Thursday we planned to drive to see the monarch butterflies at their sanctuary in the state of Michoacán. We were a bit slow getting going, but were not really worried as we had heard that it was only about a 3½ hour trip from San Miguel and so thought it shouldn't be much longer from Guanajuato. This turned out to be a very wrong assumption - and I guess that the trip would have taken us longer from San Miguel than predicted. We finally left the campground at about 11.30 and took the Panorámica, which encircles the city and gives amazing views of it. Unfortunately it is not necessarily the quickest way out of the city. We also took a wrong turn (the driver wasn't really listening to the navigator, I think) and ended up off the Panorámica and on a narrow, but main road into the centre. To get out of town in the direction we needed to go we had to take a tunnel - there was no other option. We were a bit nervous about it but we fitted fine and the line of cars behind us by the time we reached the other end weren't even terribly impatient with us. We exited the tunnel right beside the Mega where we had wanted to do some shopping anyway. We finally left Guanajuato at around 2.00 and headed toward the sanctuary.
We did make a few short stops along the way but it was close to 7 hours later that we drove into the parking lot of the El Rosario Monarch Butterfly Sanctuary [Link contains more about this amazing migration - the sanctuary will become UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2008!]. The last part of the journey was particularly difficult as we were doing it in the dark, which makes it more difficult to avoid pot-holes and to see the topes. And the road leading up to the sanctuary, made from paving bricks and cobblestones, has plenty of both. But it was quiet and we did sleep quite well to prepare us for the trek up the hill the next morning to see the butterflies.
We had been told that the path was mostly concrete stairs until you get quite close to the top. Somehow everybody forgot to tell us of the very rough terrain you have to pass over first, as you walk between souvenir and food stalls before reaching the entrance to the sanctuary. It took us almost an hour and a half to reach the top of the concrete stairs (from the car park - including numerous stops to catch our breath or take photos) and because the track looked fairly rough from there on, we decided that was far enough. Juergen's knee is always a consideration in these things and we decided we'd pushed his luck far enough for one day! We could see the colour of what must have been quite a lot of butterflies in the pine trees around where we were standing. Most people had gone on ahead and we were there alone. As we watched the forest silently the butterflies began to rise from the trees. It was a magnificent sight and you could even hear the noise of their wings as large groups of them took flight. At that point we were glad we had made the effort to come. We had seen a few along the path on the way up, but this was what we had really come for. We stayed in this spot for almost half an hour, just awe-struck by the sight we were witnessing.
As we started on our way down, the sun came through the trees onto the path and the edges, and we were once again rewarded with a flurry of activity. Anywhere there were flowers, there were crowds of monarchs either resting and feeding or fluttering around. This activity followed us all the way down the hill. At one point we spotted hundreds of them drinking from a very small stream. When we reached the car park again, there were many of them flying around that area too. We had been concerned that maybe we had left it too late to come here but it was actually to our advantage that they are on the move already, because it meant that we got to see them over a greater area, even though we may not have seen them in the numbers that you might experience if you walked right to the top in January or February.
After resting a while we decided to travel on, with Pátzcuaro our aim. We thought that if we didn't make it by a reasonable time, then we would just look for a Pemex to spend the night. I don't think I have explained about the Pemex stations yet. Pemex is short for Petróleos Mexicanos and all petrol stations in Mexico are Pemex. Therefore the price is controlled and there is no need to constantly be on the lookout for the cheapest diesel - although it does rob Juergen of one of his favourite past-times! It is also possible to sleep in Pemex stations if the workers are amenable to it. If the station is open 24 hours it also makes it a fairly secure place to stop. The down-side of course is that these stations are usually on busy roads and there is plenty of truck traffic in Mexico. We haven't tried it yet, but we keep it in the back of our minds for the time we might need to.
We made relatively good time on the journey, even though we took the advice of some fellow travellers in Guanajuato, who suggested taking the scenic route from Ciudad Hidalgo to Morelia instead of the more northerly 4-lane highway. This particular route passes through 70 kilometres of spectacular mountain scenery. You drive through rainforest and then up into the heights of "Mil Cumbres" which translates as 1000 peaks. Some of the views available are stunning. It took us more than 2 hours to drive these 70 kilometres, but it was certainly worth it. When we arrived in Morelia, it was after 6.00 and we were both feeling tired. But we knew that Pátzcuaro was only 50 kilometres away and the road was a 4-lane highway, so we swapped drivers again and after having the usual problems with finding the right signs and backtracking a bit, I was driving towards Pátzcuaro. We arrived at the campground around 7.30 and were relieved to have completed 2 very strenuous days of driving, but were also appreciative of the incredible sightseeing experiences we had had.


 
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