Everyone should see the southern-most "hibernation" grounds for the Monarch Butterfly sometime in their lifetime.

I was expecting thousands of butterflies and what I saw were tens of thousands of the beautiful orange and yellow and black insects. For those who are not knowledgeable about this insects habits (like me), the Monarch has a very unusual life-cycle...even for a butterfly. The entire life-cycle of a cluster of Monarchs spans four generations and a year. Even though the average lifespan of an adult Monarch is only a few weeks every fourth generation produces butterflies that migrate from their summer feeding grounds (where that individual was born) all the way back to the "family" cluster area, in this case a sanctuary near Ocampo, Mexico. Sometimes they will even return to the same tree that their great-great grandparents left a year earlier. Once back to the cluster area, they hang around until its time to fly back north (like all the way to Texas) and then they mate, the males die and the females migrate back. To do this, the females have to extend their lifespan from a couple of weeks to 6-8 months! Combine this behavior with the typical life-cycle of any butterfly (e,g,, egg-caterpillar-chrysalis-butterfly) and you have one amazing animal.

Sue and I traveled by bus from Barra de Navidad, Jal, Mexico, where we left the boat in the hotel marina, to Morelia, Mexico. [ETN, first-class, about $250US each round- trip] This is a 10 hour bus ride. The back-up bus driver sleeps in a cubby under the bus just forward of your luggage! Because this was an overnight trip and we knew we wouldn't sleep very well, we decide to stay in a hotel in Morelia for a day before we took our tour up to see the butterflies. Morelia may be the largest city in Mexico that no one in the US has never heard of. It has a population of 1.2 million (granted, 1/3 of them are students) and a lot of beautiful and historic buildings including a Roman-style aqueduct. We stayed at the Hotel Solidad which was very nice with good food and right in the middle of the historic area near the cathedral. The last caused some negative comments from our fellow travelers since the cathedral has the habit of ringing its beautiful bells at all hours of the day and night. Sue and I slept right through it. Sightseeing in Morelia included many of the beautiful churches including one, Guadalupe, that was we decorated with gold leaf throughout. We were in Morelia on a Saturday and that appears to be a favorite day for Quinceanera celebrations. In Spanish tradition this is a coming of age party which a young lady turns 15...it involves a beautiful ball gown with her her brothers and other male friends dressed in color-coordinated costumes of her choosing. That it also includes a party, thrown by her father, and lots of dancing, should go without saying. Since the event includes a blessing by the priest, Sue and I say one group at the Guadalupe Church (with the boys dressed as old-time soldiers). We then saw this group and four others taking pictures (professional photographers) in the nearby park.

To get to the Monarch conservatory, we traveled 3 hours by van with 10 other visitors from Morelia. [Tour was with Michmex Guides. Our guide was Carlos and Sue really like the fact that he responded quickly by email. cboy1502@gmail.com website www.mmg.com.mx -- about $50US each ] We then hiked strenuously for an hour to reach the peak of a mountain at about 7000 feet. For us flat-landers it was a trial, but well worth the effort when we got there. When we were about 15 minutes from the top we began to see Monarchs, usually grouped around wet ground finding water. When we arrived we saw flying Monarchs, ones on the ground, dead Monarch by the hundreds along the trail and then many many Monarchs in the trees in their "clusters". There were so many in the pine trees that they darkened the limbs and the clusters resembled large bee hives. Craig was convinced that they must have killed the limb because it had no leaves left that we could see. I have to tell you that even though there were about 100 other people standing and looking, when we reached the top, everyone spoke in a whisper. The sight was awe inspiring.

The return home was uneventful. We got back to Morelia about 8 in the evening and boarded our bus for Barra (with a transfer in Manzanillo). We got home about 8 am this morning after a reasonably good sleep in the bus's reclining seats.