Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
My reason for visiting Angangueo was to visit the Monarch Butterfly Sanctuary nearby and so I only stayed here for two nights- Wednesday 12th and Thursday 13th March 2008.
Wednesday was pretty much just a day spent on 3 buses. I caught the first bus to Morelia at 8.10am, then within 30 minutes I was on the next bus to San Felipe, and another 10 minutes later i was in a collectivo headed for Angangueo where I arrived around 3.45pm, knackered. The buses here are fantastic, they seem to be running all the time. The first bus was first class, and I was excited to be given complimentary sandwiches and a drink, although the jalopeno that was hidden in one of the sarnies was a bit of a shocker. In San Felipe I was shown by the food seller from the bus where to wait for the collectivo (there are no signs for bus stops here so you just have to wing it) and he then tried to sell me on the idea of a taxi which I refused. A woman even came over and got her son to offer me a lift in English. I'm such a cynic, so I declined this offer as well. The collectivo made me giggle though, it was full, and so I had the sweaty, awkward experience of stuffing my backpack in to the foot well of the front seat and then climbing on top of it to get in. I just about did it, but unfortunately closing the door would have meant breaking my right leg, and I need that for the rest of the trip. So my backpack was thankfully moved to the back of the collectivo. Don't know why it couldn't go there in the first place really. That night I just walked up the hill to the shop, stocked up on food and chilled out at the hotel. There really wasn't anything else to do here.
Thursday was butterfly day. I had a knock on the door at 7.50am and blearly eyed was asked if i wanted to go along with the group that were just leaving for the sanctuary- I´d been asking the hotel about buses the day before. I declined in favour of returning to bed and got up later that morning to get a bus to the sanctuary. It was a bumpy back road all the way, and reminded me a little of the Batopilas road, in a blind corners sort of way, but no where near the same scale. It took around 45 minutes to get there, then I was deposited in the middle of nowhere and walked 5 minutes to the entrance of the sanctuary. To get to the butterflies you have to climb, and I have never felt so unfit in my life. Angangueo is at the highest altitude of any place I've visited on this trip- 2980 metres according to the bible (lonely planet). It was actually painful climbing the steps, especially with my guide, who must've been all of 16 and practically running up the steps. I could see his eyes rolling as I said 'un momento' every five minutes. What made me laugh though was the overweight mexican guy that came down the stairs, took a look at me sitting on the bench guzzling water and then gave my guide a definate good luck look. Charming! I doubt he was any better on the way up! Anyway, there were a lot of school children on trips that day, so it was pretty noisy in an otherwise beautiful and traquil place. The butterflies were everywhere, even in the town, it was just that the closer you got to the sanctuary the more there were. I did film about 40 seconds on my camera to show you all, but i haven't yet figured out yet how the video upload works. I will do my best. For now though, I'm running out of time so must go before I lose all this text. I'll write again soon.
Take care, Sarah xxxxxxxx
- comments