Estela Romero with her daughter.

Directly from the monarch's winter home in Mexico, Estela Romero sends these notes:

Dear Friends from Journey North:

29 octubre

It seems that today was the first day that butterflies "officially appeared"! Mr. Germán Medina was at "El Cerrito" --the small forest where butterflies make a halt before climbing up to the Sanctuaries--and could see small groups of 5, 10-20 butterflies flying around. and in town, we could see exactly the same quantities and distribution overflying us. So the big arrival will take place over the days to come now. The raining seasons seems to be over now. Since yesterday, and after very cloudy, windy and rainy weeks, we have deep blue sky and sunny days. We do have very icy cold mornings and evenings, though.

25 de octubre

Apart from the two Monarchs we saw overflying our area last week, there are still no Monarchs arriving formally. Yesterday, Mr. Germán Medina came after a visit to "El Cerrito." El Cerrito is the first place we see the monarchs settle once they arrive to the region and before they go up to the Sanctuaries. He says that there are no Monarch there on the trees. We continue to have clouds and medium-heavy rain every as "spectrum" of hurricanes affecting the Pacific Coast. So it may still take some days before the monarchs appear.

Next weekend, we are celebrating our Patron Saint in town "San Simón", it is a religious fest where processions, services and some live typical classical Mexican music (beautiful music) in the evenings take place. Firework, typical Mexican food and candies are sold too.

Many, many years ago, when the town was founded (in the late 1600's --1690--), the mining town was not called Angangueo, but "Real de San Simón". Angangueo was an Hacienda about 5 km.away from town, and none knows when and why the name Real de San Simón disappeared and the name Angangueo was taken for both Hacienda and town. For us, the word "Real", is given to a mining place, town or village, and most of them from the ones existing in our country, take the name of a Catholic Saint after.

Next week we will be celebrating our "Death's Day" which is a National Festivity. Then I will tell you about what I could get for you of this in town. In between I will make contact if there is any news of the Monarch's arrival.

23 de octubre

I was with Germán this morning asking him about any news of the monarchs' arrival, but he tells me that he thinks that there are still not an important amount arriving. However, I feel very anxious about it because the "official date of arrival" is almost here and other people also tell me that Monarchs are not yet here.
So, Germán promised me that he would personally go to "El Cerrito", --where they settle on arriving-- and he will come and tell me tomorrow. I am sure there must be some groups already here, maybe not so numerous, because we've had inestable weather, in this moment, since yesterday, we are having a Hurricane passing by, after some days the last one had gone away, so for two or three days more it will be foggy, windy and rainy, which might delay arrival a little bit. I will contact you depending on the news Germán gets

18 octubre

"The very first monarchs seem to be arriving! Yes, it seems to be that it is so!" announced Estela Romero. "Today, my youngest brother saw a Monarch flying at the yard of our house!" Today the television also reported the first manadas of Monarchs arriving to overwinter with us!

More...

12 octubre
One more week, and no butterfly at sight. It seems that it will continue raining for some more days, and this might be a reason not to have any sign yet. I asked a couple of people coming from up the mountains and Mr. German Medina but they have no news either.
The town is very, very quiet. People directly involved in the butterfly season, are preparing themselves manufacturing crafts, a restaurant owner reopened his restaurant one week ago, seems to be. Children at school know now that the time is coming closer to receive your letters and we are all happy that they will arrive days earlier than in former years.

5 octubre

I am not in Angangueo for several days. I'm writing from a city about 200 km away called, Querètaro, which is the capital city of the State of Querètaro. I phoned Germàn Medina to hear about any possible news about Monarchs seen. He told me there is still no sign of them!

28 de septiembre

No big news here. It seems as if the rainy season will be over in three to four weeks now. We start to have some sunny mornings.

21 de septiembre

We have no Monarch butterflies in sight yet. The whole region around Angangueo is having heavy rain, but we are lucky that we are not heavily hit by hurricanes as people are on the coast. Temperatures are ranging from 10 and sometimes reaching 20 Celcious degrees when it gets sunny.

14 de septiembre

Up to now, there are no signs of Monarchs here. Actually today I was asking some people coming from el Rosario about the monarchs' return. They say it is still too soon to see any; they say that perhaps in a couple or weeks or even a little more. Germán Medina is also continuing to see after the monarchs' arrival. I will let you know!

7 de septiembre

Up to now, nobody has seen any butterflies here. It is raining really hard, as we hadn't seen in some years anymore. It is most of the times cloudy, and very rainy, but not cold at all.

Angangueo, MIC

Latitude: 19.6 Longitude: -100.3

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