Mariposas Monarcas and Nevado Toluca

This weekend we went to see the monarch butterflies of Michoacan at a national park and the next day we were going to hike the 4th highest volcano in Mexico, Nevado Toluca.

It took 4 hours to drive to the butterfly reserve from Cuernavaca. I tried to sleep on the way but it was impossible because the road was so windy and bumpy. I think about 3 people were throwing up on the way because they got so carsick. Kate, you would have been very very sick.

We had the option of riding a horse or walking the 3 kilometers to where the butterflies currently were. I chose to walk and we walked with a guide up hill through trails in the woods. It was very beautiful and reminded me of Colorado. We finally got to the place where thousands and thousands of butterflies rest. It was pretty amazing to see because you could just look at a tree and not see the tree because it was orange due to the fact that so many butterflies were covering it! There were also a lot of dead butterfly wings and dead butterflies on the ground and supposedly this is how the butterflies tell where to stop the next year due to the presence of these wings.

After seeing the butterflies for a while we walked back down but I pretty much ran because I had to pee so badly. We ate lunch after that the cooks here had made for us and we brought. It was a lunch of three different kinds of empanadas! One of them was spinach and cheese, another of poblano peppers and corn and the other of champinones or mushrooms. My favorite was definitely the poblano peppers one.

So I have figured out that my new favorite food is poblano pepper.

Don Victor, the cook who makes dinner for us here makes the most delicious, rico thing ever which is cooked poblano peppers in cream. I asked him how he prepared it and he told me that you just sautee some onions and garlic in butter, add some cream and the fresh sliced poblanos and simmer/cook them for while. We have had this dish twice and the first time was with chicken it as well, which was also quite divine.

Only 9 of us were going on from the butterfly reserve to the volcano so we left in a different car. There were 14 of us and we were pretty squished. We drove to Toluca, the capital city of the state of Mexico. We were trying to hurry to get there before 6 PM because we wanted to visit the largest stained glass piece of art in the middle of Toluca. We arrived at 5:40 and ran through the rain to the building. It is so beautiful and made of all stained glass artwork that portrays a fight between darkness and light, good and evil. Inside of it is a botanical garden.

Then we went to our hotel called Hotel Colonial right in downtown Toluca. After putting our things away we went to look for a place to eat breakfast the next morning before our hike up the volcano. We found a place listed in my guidebook and decided that it would be good to eat there the next morning. Then we all wanted something sweet, specifically chocolate. So we found a cafe where we sat down around 8 PM. I ordered a hot chocolate which was the traditional Mexican hot chocolate with chile and cinnamon. It was so so so good! They also brought us pan dulce. One of the people I was with, Sarah ordered flaming strawberries and the other ordered cheesecake. The flaming strawberries were quite the spectacle of the restaurant. We couldn't stop laughing the whole time while our very attractive waiter prepared them hahahha.

The next morning we went to the restaurant we scoped out the night before for breakfast, however they were not open when they said they were going to be and we were on a schedule so we decided to go to the only place open which is called Vips. It is pretty much a Mexican Dennys. I thought it was going to be disappointing but it was not. I ordered some eggs and other things, not really knowing what I was going to get. I got an egg over easy on top of a cactus leaf with salsa, queso fresco, poblanos, corn and bread. It was so good! I also got canteloupe. I was satisfied.

We left for the volcano around 9:30 and arrived at 11 AM.

We were a lot closer to the top of the volcano than I wanted because I wanted to hike for a while but we ended up hiking for 3 hours total. The volcano is over 15,000 feet tall, the fourth largest in Mexico. At the top of the volcano are two lakes separated by a large hill. Me and my friend Rebecca walked to the top and then around both lakes and then up to the top of a ridge. It was incredibly and breathtaking and quite cold, which I wans't used to after Cuernavaca being so warm all the time. We left the volcano around 4 PM and returned at 7 PM.

The next day was Valentine's day and I bought a Ghiradelli brownie mix from the Superama and borrowed an egg and oil from the cooks here. I shared them with everyone here and saved some for myself for dessert after dinner. Then I went with Rebecca and Sarah to an abarrote, or convenience store and bought Oreo ice cream. When I got back I ate my brownie with the ice cream. A brownie had never tasted so good. The desserts here just aren't the same.

Palacio Cortes, Diego Rivera Mural

Last week we went to Palacio Cortes which, as you can probably tell by its name, was Hernan Cortes's palace which he built here in Cuernavaca over an indigenous ceremonial site. I dislike Cortes almost more than Ronald Reagan by the way.

It is located on the central square in Cuernavaca called the Zocalo.

It is now a museum which houses a Diego Rivera mural.

The mural is called "A History of Morelos: Conquest and Revolution." The conquest of course refers to when Cortes came in 1519 and the revolution is that which occurred in 1910 with Emiliano Zapata. The mural is really more about the conquest though with just a few references to the revolution thrown in. The bigger portrayal of the conquest is purposeful in that it shows how much of an impact that conquest had on the lives of people today in Mexico.

The mural is amazing and stretches the length of a hallway. It starts on the right end and works its way to the left. It portrays fighting among indigenous peoples and the conquistadores. It portrays sacrifices by the Aztecs, destruction of nature, torturing of indigenous, the Spanish taking gold, jewels, and food from the natives. It shows the Spanish forcing the natives to labor to build Catholic churches upon their ceremonial centers. It shows the horror of the conquest.

I really like Diego River's art.

There are a few representations of Zapata and the Revolution of 1910 which you can see in one of the pictures of the man and the woman opposite each other on one of the beams in the hallway.