The Heart of Mexico

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I love water, I really do, so leaving the coast was not an easy thing to do... but some of the things I have looked forward to the most in Mexico are in the heart of the country, so we really had no choice 😊

Uruapan

First stop on our way inland was the city of Uruapan that is best known for its proximity to the Volcan Paricutin which erupted suddenly on Feb 20th 1943. A farmer was out in his field when the ground started spurting steam and ash. He tried to cover the holes but quickly realised his task was futile and fled. Within a year the volcano had risen to 410 meters and covered three villages and most of the church of San Juan. Luckily the lava flowed slowly enough for the inhabitants to all flee with their possessions. The volcano kept growing until 1952 and still to this day fumes every day, although you can now climb it.

We thought it sounded really interesting with the church towers sticking up out of the middle of a lava field, and were hoping to be able to climb the volcano too. However, it had been raining heavily for the last two days, and we were not too keen on an 8-hour hike in pouring rain, so decided to leave the decision until we were there and could assess the situation. Either way we would see the church…
The climb can also be done on horseback, and whether you walk or ride, you need a guide as you make your way through avocado plantations and forest… We weren’t too keen on the hard wooden saddles the book promised but would have paid for a guide, if it hadn’t still been raining when we got to Angahuan village where the walk begins. Instead we had to politely turn down quite a few offers from potential guides as we walked towards the church.

I’ve never seen such lava as what we were surrounded by as we came down the hill Angahuan is on and the forest opened up to fields of ragged, black rocks. It’s as if the lava had flowed slowly, half cooled, but been pushed together and broken apart by the force of more lava from behind. We walked on a path through the lava, and suddenly the church towers were sticking up out of the black rocks in the middle of it all.

The two towers and the altar at the back of the church somehow survived the onflow of lava and it’s still considered a holy site by Catholics. The altar was full of colourful flowers and votive offerings and candles, even though you had to squeeze through a tiny crevice to get to it. Very interesting site, indeed.

Uruapan itself doesn’t seem too interesting. It has a nice big Plaza Mayor with a couple of beautiful churches. We mainly stayed there to get laundry done, and managed to squeeze in a walk through the National Park that is situated in the middle of the town. It is quite manicured and water is the main feature of the park, running through the middle in the form of a river and down the sides in various waterfalls and man-made streams. It’s lush and green and very pretty, though, and we really enjoyed our walk. The bridge over the waterfall at the top of the park, was just stunning as the water flowed into a clear turquoise pool… A nice start to the day before we caught a 2 ½ hour bus to Morelia.

Morelia

According to the LP, Morelia is the coolest place you’ve never been… Well, I’ve been there, and I agree it’s a pretty cool place. I wasn’t too impressed at first, when the taxi driver who’d claimed he knew our hotel, dropped us off in the middle of a street because he’d suddenly gone blank… Don’t get me started!!! We ended up walking around with our backpacks for a while (thank goodness for wheels!), before we found a hostel that had room for us. Luckily it turned out to be one of the better places we’ve stayed in for a while: Hostel Allende - and for ‘only’ M$220 a night including a simple breakfast.
We spent some time walking around the colonial city, looking at beautiful plazas, buildings, courtyards, and the city’s aqueducts dating back from the late 1700s, that stretch for miles.

We took some time researching the Reserva de Mariposas Monarcas, as we’d seen on the news that the terrible rains had caused flooding and mudslides in the area around the reserve, which had completely destroyed the village recommended as the starting point for excursions to the reserves. That meant either taking a day trip from Morelia for M$500 each, and not being able to go on to Mexico City straight away, or not going. Eventually, by studying a more detailed map we got at the tourist office, and asking around for options with the travel agents, we found a way to do it ourselves. We would take a bus early the next morning to Tlalpujahua (not in the LP), and take a bus or taxi from there.

We then struck up a conversation with a couple who had arrived on bicycles at the same time as us, and had gone around to all the same hostels as us. We were pretty sure we’d seen them in Manzanillo as well… ordering vegetarian food in the exact same way I had just ordered before they arrived 😊 It turned out that Tracy and James were on a 2-year round-the-world bicycle tour. They had started down through Europe, Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, India, up through South East Asia to China, Japan and Korea where they’d caught a boat to Manzanillo. Now they were making their way down to Oaxaca and then back up the east coast to New York where they were hoping to get on a boat back to England. We had dinner in a cheap taco place (M$5 for a taco, M$15 for a lovely fried egg sandwich (torta)) and then went for drinks at Balcones del Angel, a rooftop bar with a view of the lit cathedral and five-dollar cocktails. It was nice to be social and go for a drink for once 😊 If only we didn’t have to get up so early…

Tlalpujahua & the Reserva Mariposa Monarca

After a start-stop-start-stop second class bus ride via the back-roads from Morelia, we arrived on the dusty plaza of Tlalpujahua (Twal-poo-haa-waa - yeah, it took me a while to learn to pronounce too). We quickly found a respectable hotel, room with a balcony, for reasonable money, and got ready to go to the reserve. We were hoping the buses would be running from this side of the reserve, even if they weren’t running to and from Angangueo (the destroyed village) which would have meant that we could have gone there for around 30 pesos pr person, and thus afforded to go both the afternoon we arrived and maybe also the next morning. The butterflies are most active in the middle of the day when the sun is warmest; then they fly down from the branches they otherwise cluster on to warm up in the sun on the forest floor and fly around you in the air in their thousands. Unfortunately, it wasn’t a completely cloud-free day, and as it was already midday and a taxi was 130-150 pesos ($15) each way, we decided to wait till the next day when there was a better weather forecast.

This gave us time to check out the Sunday market in Tlalpujahua which completely fills up the streets around the church. You are surrounded by people with big shopping bags full of purchases and constantly being asked by little girls if you want to buy matches or scrubbing brushes, while you walk around and look at the fresh produce, shoelaces, terracotta pottery, bread, clothes, kitchenware, candied fruits and honey, and pretty much anything else you can think of.
We then walked out of town along a dirt road towards another half buried church we’d read about online: Las Ruinas del Santuario de Nuestra Señora del Carmen. A mudslide in 1937 covered most of the church, apart from its tower, and most of the village, which is now rebuilt up the hill on safer ground. It was a very peaceful place, with a church tower sticking up out of the ground in the middle of a grassy field, being kept down by grazing sheep. Local families were sitting in shady spots nearby with picnic food.

The next day we caught a taxi out to the Butterfly Reserve: Sierra Chincua, and walked the 1.5km from the road up to the entrance (M$30), and then another hour or so into the forest up the hill. We avoided getting a guide (again), but even though we were there early there were a few other tourists with guides leading the way. We were quite excited when we started seeing the first solitary flutterbys, and were wasting precious camera memory on taking photos of almost all the ones we came by, not fully realising yet, just how many we were going to see. We eventually came to a lovely sun-filled spot on the path, and it was absolutely covered in beautiful orange and black Monarchs that all flittered around in the air as we delicately tried to step past them. A little further on there was a beam across the path stopping us from disturbing the innermost parts of the butterflies’ sanctuary. The fir trees all around us had strange cone-like shapes hanging off of them, that we soon realised were actually clusters of butterflies all clinging together for warmth. As it got warmer, the butterflies that had all covered the sun-lit path started flying around in the air, and the tree trunks and leaves all around us were soon covered in butterflies soaking up the sun. We sat down in the sun and just watched them for a while, and it was just magical! I was wearing my mint-green hoodie, and pretty soon I too was covered in butterflies. You may from now on call my Butterfly-Girl, thank you very much 😊

When we first arrived there was a couple from Chicago with their guide who was picking up butterflies, in what looked like quite a brutal way. I suppose some people think it doesn’t matter as there are millions of them. But butterflies are actually not as fluttery as some people think. If they are sitting calmly, you can more often than not get them to climb onto your finger if you slowly place your finger in front of and touching its front legs. Again, just call me Butterfly-Girl 😉

After a quick hike back and a bite of lunch (quesadillas) we started walking back with a vague plan of walking/hitching a ride to somewhere we could catch a bus to Tlalpujahua as there were no taxis around. We’d only walked a little while, though, when the couple from Chicago drove past and they were very kind to stop and give us a lift some of the way towards Tlalpujahua. Or so they said, because when they actually let us out we were on the main road through/by Tlalpujahua. Very lovely people, and not only did it save us money, it also allowed us time to catch a 3.30 bus to Mexico City…

Love,
Kristine

PS: Pictures of the butterflies are on page 2 - sorry, too many things to show you again 😊

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Photos

Uruapan National Park
There were a lot of beatiful spots in this very landscaped park, that nonetheless is a wonder being situated in the middle of the city

A cloudy day at the Paricutin Volcano
There's a half buried church in this picture... Where's Wally???

Templo San Juan, Paricutin
Volcan Paricutin erupted from the middle of a flat fieldon Feb 20, 1943. Within a year the volcano was 410m high and its lava had flooded 3 villages.

Palacio Clavijero courtyard in Morelia
The coolest place you've never been according to the LP

Colonial buildings in Morelia
All the shops including 7-eleven and KFC have traditional gold signs, which look beautiful, but sometimes make it hard finding the shop you're looking for (not that I'd ever go to KFC, but you know what I mean)

Las ruinas de la Iglesia de Carmen
in 1937 a mudslide also buried this church and much of the village...