My Mexico City chapter is about to come to a hectic close. But I'm pretty sure that in Mexico City, that's how it must be. In the past week I've returned from Oaxaca; gone to the dentist; drunk free wine at a friend's art opening; worked from home in a plastic chair and developed back problems; interviewed an indie band on the day of their D. F. debut while strongly regretting my choice of outfit; and made significant headway into packing by matching up all of my stray socks. And so, Mexico City, this is our fond and frenzied farewell before I move onto a greener, quieter, and probably boring-er place.
I only wish I had taken more time during this past week to remember to buy clean water. With no water at home and me being busy, I wound up having no choice but to hydrate myself with lots of coffee, or eating a cucumber before bed, or squeezing the daylights out of an orange this afternoon while on a huge failure of a hike (see below).
Butterfly sanctuary? more like CEMETERY.
The hike was through the famous El Rosario Monarch butterfly reserve in the mountains of Michoacán. Supposedly on a sunny day (i.e. every day in Mexico, or so I thought) you can see "rivers of butterflies" there. So my friends and I excitedly made the four-hour drive, only to watch the sky mysteriously darken as we pulled into the parking lot. Two hours later, we were huffing and puffing (and squeezing oranges for dear life) after a 100% uphill climb.
We found ourselves in a massive butterfly dormitory, staring up at cloudy skies and gazillions of passed-out butterflies. They clung to tall pine branches by the thousands, heavy as bananas but about as exciting as dry leaves. We then realized that they were bracing themselves for a hailstorm, which would proceed to appear out of nowhere. Before we knew it we could see our breath, and were pelted with ice all the shrieking, arm-flailing way down. The highlight was when I wiped out in the mud, and the elderly Mexican woman who caught me then scolded me for running downhill.
