Visting El Rosario
February 12, 2018
Dear friends:
Today we rejoiced at seeing the sky shining blue and the sun’s rays showering our mountains early in the morning after a couple of weeks of cloudy and chilly days.
At the sanctuary facilities, we bought our tickets, planning to ride horses to make our way up, allowing us to enjoy different scenery along the uphill path.
The caravan of horses went up until we reached the large meadow Llano de los Conejos, at which, to our surprise, Monarchs were not overflying in search of nectar and sun in spite of the wonderful sunny day. Any day now, the meadow will get carpeted all in orange and golden-brown, I can tell you!
The guides would talk about many things along the way, but would intentionally not us that all of a sudden, half-way up the hill, we would be caught by surprise with a wonderful performance of Monarchs flying downhill.
We were paralyzed at suddenly seeing waves and waves of orange butterflies flying around everywhere, nectaring upon the blossoming wildflowers, landing on small streams with crystalline water flowing from the mountain. They could even crash into us visitors everywhere! The total silence allowed us all to live an indescribable experience. The orange-gold concert kept going on and on.
The walk continued up-trail. Guides continued talking about this and that - but never announcing that the best was coming in only minutes at reaching the Colony.
Now, the photos taken today will just keep you speechless. My own capacity of expression might not be enough, but better said, not necessary to try to describe what the photos reflect by themselves.
The first great event minutes after arriving, a very first couple of butterflies mating, was caught by a man’s camera lens. There we all crept around to silently watch! The guides assured us that flirting had really started among them, and that maybe a scarce mating activity could have been happening already since days or even weeks ago, but simply hidden to the guides or visitors’ eyes!
A few of the Monarchs around are starting to look faded orange and a few others with their wings tattered, or even torn apart within the bushes, but really scarce perishing in total up to now.
Twenty or more Oyamel firs majestically held the weight of enormous clusters - wonderful copper-gold and dark brown. The beauty was overwhelming, and could make anyone in the spectator’s group just cry silently. About 8 Oyamels were either lightly or intensely painted beautiful light-brown orange in their branches, with either a small or average population scattered on them.
Turning each others’ eyes around and seeing many kind eyes and silent responses to one’s own, made us feel, I can assure, one of the most wonderful moments of life’s divine contemplation.
How long did we visitors stay in the colony? Hard to say. One’s awareness of existence draws a sort of a bordering line right there in the midst; your mind goes blank and your sense of contemplation just takes over in yourself, in your whole being, until you decide it is time to abandon the site, regain to the world’s life and come back to it with a totally renewed appreciation of one’s existence.
Estela Romero
Journey North's Local Reporter
Angangueo, Michoacán, México
