Volcanoes and Butterflies

Another adventure-filled weekend! Jemina, Bruno and I woke up bright and early on Saturday to go to Nevado de Toluca. It’s a dormant volcano about an hour away from Toluca and the area is considered a national park. The last time it erupted the lava formed a “bellybutton” over the opening so it looks like a mountain with a lagoon on each side all inside of a giant crater. It’s SUPER busy on the weekends and even more so in the winter when it’s covered in snow. The wait to get to the entrance by car was more than an hour. We drove up as far as we could then started our 5-hour walking journey. It took about an hour to get from the car to the edge of the crater. It’s especially difficult to breathe because the altitude is so high that there’s a lack of oxygen. It’s 4,300 meters above sea level. And cold. I wore two long sleeve shirts, a jacket, two pairs of pants, two pairs of socks, a hat and gloves. And that’s when the sun is out.

Once we got to the edge, we decided that we were going to descend to check out the lagoons. The trek down the edge of the crater was so steep. Definitely not handicapped friendly. We took some pictures at the Moon Lagoon (it’s the smaller one of the two), ate lunch and hiked through the snow around the bellybutton to the other one. There was only snow on one side of the inside of the crater because the sun had melted it on the other side. The Sun Lagoon is bigger but simpler. We decided to climb up another way that is easier and next to the Sun Lagoon. I was relieved when we got back up to the edge of the crater because that meant no more uphill climbing! We made the hour-long descend to the car, taking bets on how long it would take. Jemina won. We drove half way down and stopped for food since we were craving elote (corn on the cob with mayo, cheese and chili powder). We also had soup and tacos. Then we drove back to Toluca.

On Sunday Bruno and I went to a butterfly reserve to see monarch butterflies about an hour and a half away from Toluca on the way to Valle de Bravo. More climbing up mountains. Yay. It was a walk in the park compared to Saturday though. The reserve was cool. There were vendors, restaurants, a zip line, and the option of riding horses up the mountain. We opted to walk because we hadn’t walked all weekend. When we got up as far as we could we were able to see millions of butterflies all huddled together on tree branches. They were in the shape of beehives. It was relatively cold so they were trying to stay warm, huddles together. When the sun was out, they would fly. You can only see this in certain places at certain times of the year and pictures don’t do it justice. There were a lot of dead butterflies on the ground that people would pick up to take pictures with. But no one was allowed to take them with because every year the monarchs come back to look for them. We learned how to identify male and female butterflies. The black veins on a male butter are thinner and there are two dark circles, one on each wing. The females have thicker veins and no circles. We took lots of pictures then headed back down the mountain to good ‘ol Toluca.