Dia Cuatro

Wednesday shaped up to be a wonderful day. First of all, I was feeling in great shape and had fully rebounded. Second of all, it was ADVENTURE DAY! Which meant no work whatsoever, and isn't that why we came down here? To screw around? 

A little known fact about Valle de Bravo (where we are) is that it is the spot where monarch butterflies spend the winter from November to March before beginning their migration back up through the U.S. and Canada. The next year, a different generation of butterflies return to this same spot in the mountains, even though they aren't guided by any older butterflies who already know the way. One of life's little mysteries. 

For our ADVENTURE DAY our whole group went up the mountain by taxi and then transferred to horses, which led us about 45 minutes further up the steep hill. Each of us had a Mexican guide (who spoke no English) walking with us to make sure our horse was tame, but I looked back and Fermin had left me ("mi corazon!") so Palomo the white stallion and I were on our own. As we moved higher up the mountain, the air got colder (we are already well over a mile high) and we started to see a few monarchs here and there. Nothing to write home about though. Finally they told us to stop talking, and we walked through a clearing and saw this:

The video is a little bumpy and sort of crappy in general but just focus on orange...wherever there's orange, there's one (or 50) monarchs.

For those of you that know about my thing with animals in multiples, I was a little worried at first that I would get grossed out by thousands of butterflies. However, I'm not sure how well the video conveys it, but this was by far one of the most amazing things I've seen in years. I actually even teared up (big surprise right?)...it was like we'd been transported to magical forest. I'd wager to say it was worth the entire effort that it took to get down here, to this city, to that mountain, to that clearing. Incredible!!!