After spending a lot of time on the internet, we decided to take a tour to see the Monarch Butterflies. The trip to Morelia is some distance and so it turned out that we stayed two nights in Morelia. The tour included a walking tour of historic Morelia with a wonderful informative guide. Morelia is so beautiful. There are over 1000 buildings which are on the Unesco Heritage list and the ones we saw on our walking tour were well kept up baroque buildings with a great history. There are many squares and wide boulevards. The city is a planned city because they wanted it to be the capital of Michoacan State. 62 spanish noble familites were directed by the queen of Spain to come and settle the city. Of course, they were given lots of land and indian servants (slaves) as incentive. Anyway, it is about 6500 feet in altitude and the air is beautiful and clean. The people are beautiful too. There is a large university so there are many young people. There are the standard beautiful, ornate, golden cathedrals and churches.
Our trip to find the where the butterflies come to overwinter, mate, lay their eggs and to die, was all up hill. Up hill in the van (14 of us) up hill after we got to the parking lot and more up hill to 11,000 feet elevation, where the butterflies COVERED the trees. The sun came out for a while and the butterflies warmed up and started flying around. An amazing sight. We were lucky to see it because the clouds came back and it cooled down and the butterflies settled down on the branches of the huge fir trees again. You have probably seen all of this on the Discovery Channel but in person it is magnificent.
Now, I have to confess that the altitude did bother me as it always does. Maybe it is those many years of smoking or maybe it is the fact that I was born and have lived at sea level. (It could not have anything to do with my advanced age.) So, I took a horse up the mountain and Pete walked. Going straight up hill on a horse which was led by a Tarascan Indian young man was also a work out. Then I was going to walk down but on the way down I slipped on soft sand which was like ice. Didn't hurt myself but I was very dizzy for a few minutes and all of the tour guides thought that the horse was a better way for me to go down. So on the horse I got again. Well, going straight down the mountain on the horse was a workout. I made it but those horse riding muscles are a bit sore today if I sit very long.
We stayed two nights in Morelia and came home last evening (Sun. Feb 10). Our friends here has expected that we would be very hungry and had dinner for us.
Now I will get a lovely photo from Pete and talk to you again soon.
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