MatTag Sailabout

Visiting the Butterflies, Part 1

It was already dusk when our bus drove into the small mountain town of Angangueo in Michoacán. Glen and I were the only tourists to stretch down with our bags from the high bus step onto the sloped, cobblestone road. Before we could even look around, locals from the bus had dispersed into side streets and homes. A large, brown-haired man walked up to us.

“Are you here to see the monarcas?” he asked in Spanish, directing our attention to his safari-ready SUV truck. “I can drive you up to the sanctuary tomorrow and bring you back,” he said, or something close to that. I could not understand everything he was saying, but Glen and I understood the gist of his simpler sentences.

He also wanted us to check into a certain hotel, but I already had set up a room somewhere else. “Have you paid anything for your room yet?” he asked. “No,” I answered.

He scoffed (really!), announcing that I could bale on my word and take his ostensibly better offer. After three tries he abandoned his efforts to win us to his hotel, re-funneling his energy into the offer for our trip to the butterfly reserve the following day. “Five-hundred pesos, round trip,” he said, “and I will wait for you. I will watch over you.”

I was cordial, but firm: I did not want to make a commitment about our plan for the next day. It was nearly dark by then. He was wearing a heavy brown coat; we were underdressed for the high altitude cold. Angangueo, formerly a mining town, is perched in a canyon at about 7,800 feet. The man, who was overbearing but not threatening, escorted us up the street to our small hotel, through a dozen or more talkative middle-aged men on the sidewalks. A few wayward comments were tossed lightly at us, the odd non-locals on the street. As we walked up the road, our high-tech-sandaled feet pressed against stones laid some 220 years ago. The cracked sign hanging above the door to our hotel was splotched with mud dust.

At our hotel, the husband and wife proprietor were waiting with a young man, probably in his early 30s. Rosa smiled and shook my hand. She acknowledged that I had called her the morning before and that she had contacted the young man because they do not speak any English. I got the impression that Rosa and her husband had been waiting for us since that conversation, which I had rehearsed twice in the company of my LaRousse Spanish-English Dictionary. Five or six rooms skirted the small courtyard, which was contiguous with the spaces occupied by Rosa’s family. There were no other visitors evident.

The young man introduced himself. “Hi, my name is Da’veed. I am a guide for the butterfly reserve,” he said in clear English. After talking briefly with our street escort, David clarified that the man accompanying us was offering to drive us to and from the butterfly sanctuary, but not to guide us to the butterflies. His price for this service, which we knew, was $500 pesos (~$50 US). What we did not know— that David shared—was that we could get to and from where the brown-haired man offered to take us by bus for $12 pesos ($1) each.

Since the collapse of the mining industry the primary source of revenue for Angangueo, home to about 5,000 people, is tourism. Recently the town has suffered two severe blows. In the past decade Mexico’s drug trade has slammed tourism countrywide, but especially in Michoacán where there have been overt shoot-outs among cartels in a few cities. Who wants to vacation with the fear of nearby trafficking and drug wars, let alone a stray bullet or two? As if that weren’t enough for this humble, on-the-edge (literally and figuratively) mountain town, 13 months ago Angangueo experienced an unprecedented mudslide that took out many homes and killed 35 people, leaving the town with major cleanup, rebuilding, and emotional healing ahead.

These assaults may explain why Glen and I were the only white people on the street in Angangueo that night and the steep competition between the two men to escort us to the Biosphere Reserve. These are lean times in Angangueo.
After our education on the transportation options for our upcoming tour, David asked me to explain to the man (in my 2nd grade Spanish) that we would prefer to take the bus. Our escort had come in to the entry patio of our hotel with us and was sitting forlornly on a folding chair, elbows on his knees, nearly blocking the narrow entry to the laundry area and patio of our meager hotel. He held his hat in his hands.

While David translated back and forth between me and the brown-haired man, there had been a third man interacting with David and gesturing to us. He had trotted close to David’s side from the beginning, interjecting rapid sentences that I could not follow. During the diplomacy with the SUV chauffer, this third, more slight man stood a few inches away from David’s left elbow and interrupted David with animated exposes that neither Glen nor I could understand. We did understand maybe %40-60 of what David was saying when he spoke in Spanish.
The side man acted as if he were a bit drunk and he seemed to me to speak with a slur, but then I could not understand his Spanish at all. David calmly tolerated, rather than rebuffed him, but he also never addressed him directly.

Then, after a fourth flurry of disruptive activity, from my periphery I saw Rosa gesture toward David’s sidekick, her hands held low beside her smock apron, but fluttering outward almost like a mother plover feigning a broken wing. She succeeded in whisking the sidekick off to another room or the street. Later, I wondered if the innocuous sidekick might have been the son of the owners, and perhaps a young man with a learning disability. David’s steady tact in letting this man express himself up to a point, but not to the point that he scared us off, was admirable.

Back to our interaction with the gentle hawker on the chair: David noted to me in low, rapid English that he wanted me to convey the news that we had decided to take the bus to the reserve, rather than ride up and down in the man’s SUV, which was still parked in the street up where he had met us earlier. David said that if he told the man that outcome, the man would not believe him. While I spoke with the man on the chair, David and the other family members left the room. Then, the man stood up and quietly left; I felt sad about not being able to involve him.

Glen and I carried our backpacks and one small bag up the short flight of chipped steps to our bare-bulb, simple room, set our bags down inside, and locked the door behind ourselves. We were both hungry and David had offered to escort us to a restaurant. Through our nuanced social dance, we were still assessing David. Glen felt comfortable with him, too. We followed David from the hotel and back out onto the street.

David walked us up between two towering cathedrals, toward what was the only restaurant still open and serving food. Why are there two churches right across the street from each other?” I asked, as I bent my head up to look at the carved bell towers on either side of us.

“One was beelt for the poor people and one was built for the reech people,” he answered, in his slight accent. He then went on to explain more about the architecture of the fancier one. The Inmaculada Concepcíon was constructed by a wealthy family as a miniature Notre Dame de Paris complete with its Gothic tower. I later read that, although their clocks face one another, they often project different times.

We wound our way up a narrow sidewalk to the small taco shop David had mentioned. There, a young husband and wife, surrounded by fresh foods, chopped meat and chorizo, and a stack of today’s tortillas, were making three types of tacos at a sizzling, free-standing grill. Their tiny, bright-eyed daughter and one or two other children were there too, helping with clearing or serving, or just being part of the family and visiting with patrons, whom they seemed to know as neighbors.

Five bright tables filled the available space and were set with trays of fresh red and green salsa, chopped onions, cilantro, and guacamole. Here, ‘fresh’ means made from ingredients picked that day or the day before. I don’t think I have mentioned that Michoacán is considered the avocado capital of Mexico, if not the world. No meal is complete without sliced fresh ‘aguacate’ or a fresh batch of guacamole. A bit of history about this vitamin E loaded, vegetarian butter (that we learned from our friend Bernard): In the ___ culture/s, young girls were kept indoors during the harvest of avocados from the low-spreading regal trees, because the dangling pairs of ripening fruit resemble a man’s private anatomy (check it out – some do!). This is the same reason the Aztec word for avocado translates as ‘balls.’ [CHECK]

“Is this okay?” David asked, as we stepped tentatively onto the edge of the open restaurant, which accessed the street from an opening the size of a single-car garage, a taco stand with a covered seating area recessed into a building instead of out on the street. David seemed concerned that the tiny, plain locale might not suit our tastes.
“This is great,” Glen said seconds before I could respond. We consulted briefly and Glen ordered ‘bistek’ tacos and a quesada in Spanish for us. I offloaded my backpack and climbed in to the only remaining, sunshine yellow table flanked by painted benches.
A striking North American woman with long, thick white hair was at the table next to ours finishing a meal with a group of four locals. She and David greeted each other warmly. He told me and Glen that she was a teacher from Ohio and that he had been her guide and translator a few years ago. “She brings students and families here to visit the butterflies,” he added. I knew that I wanted to meet her.

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On Mar 15, 2011, at 6:14 PM (Beth):
Mon, March 14, 2011

As I write, Glen and I are jostling along on a second-class bus between Morelia and Zitacuaro. I scooped him up from his last day at the Mexican school, just after he finished giving a talk on Alaska (photo) -- in Spanish.

We are on our way to a monarch butterfly sanctuary about 7 hours from Patzcuaro and near the border between the states of Michoacán and Mexico (the state in which Mexico City resides). The pressure around my upper abdomen from a hidden passport/money belt beneath my shirt reminds me that there are security risks traveling in Mexico, especially without Jim to round out our family triad.

This afternoon we will arrive in Angangueo, a small town where we reserved a hotel room for tonight for $350 pesos/nt (~$33 US). Then, tomorrow we will take a short bus drive to the sanctuary. With a local guide, we will hike up along the mountain about 2 hours -- up to more than 9,000 ft -- with the hope of seeing one of the world's largest aggregations of Monarch butterflies. Starting in November, millions of monarch butterflies aggregate here. Their journey from the Great Lakes region south to central Mexico spans 4-5 generations and some 4,500 miles. How does that work? How did this system evolve? By now, most females have already mated, in preparation for their journey north.

Our bus is now picking up speed, lurching through curves and sudden decelerations for 'topas' (Sp? = speed bumps). It is on the uncomfortable side of warm. I am going to close here to avoid getting bus sick. Instead, I'll look out at the dry, pine, eucalyptus, and nopal cactus-studded terrain, alternating with evenly tilled rows of the next season's nubile crops, and clusters of partially constructed brick homes.

It is odd to be on this remote natural history journey with Japan's tragic situation as the world's back drop.

Beth

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Mar 11, 2011, at 7:05 AM,(Beth):

Jim and I have decided that Glen and I will stay at my uncle's townhouse in Patzcuaro for an extra 2 weeks, until March 23, so that we can continue to make progress with our Spanish and homeschooling, and (for me) guitar lessons. Jim is motivated to return to Port Townsend to continue working on preparing Ijsselmeer for our voyage south, which we will start around June.

Although none of us like the idea of splitting up, we have made several good connections here and feel very comfortable and safe with our simple routine. We think that this extra time will make a detectable difference in language progress for Glen and me, and that that will translate into a better and safer voyage on Ijsselmeer.

I've added a few photos of our 2nd to last day with Jim here. We visited Santa Clara del Cobre, a nearby town that currently and historically specializes in making beautiful bowls, vases, and other useful and artistic items from copper, and the last morning waiting for Jim's taxi at my Uncle's house in Patzcuaro. There is still so much that we all would like to do, but we are also looking forward to being back together in the Pacific Northwest as well.

Jim returns to Ijsselmeer in Port Townsend today (Friday) after arriving in Seattle late last night. (I will be checking with him on about any issues with the Japan tsunami and whether there might be (any literal) repercussions there.)

We have had a wonderful two months here.

Beth