Friday, 16 December 2011

Bravo for the butterflies

The main reason for visiting Valle de Bravo was to see the great spectacle of the overwintering monarch butterflies.


Fuelling up for butterfly watching


cute street dog hanging out in hope by the taco stand


Fiona conducts a business deal in the middle of the road - with so many monarchs flying about people crept along in their cars with their hazard lights on


Bee on unidentified scat


Our guide in his hiking gear - practising his Spanish Ralph accidentally told the guide he was horny rather than hot, comically this was when Fiona was lagging far behind due to the altitude. However, he did keep a healthy distance ahead of us for the rest of the trail.................


arty overhead butterfly shot on the approach to the over wintering site


ditto


cadavers strewn along the path - hopefully not due to being stepped on by other tourists


After a bit of an uphill hike we got there


although altitude was not Fionas best friend........


It was almost impossible to get a real feel for how many butterflies were covering the trees, it was amazing just standing there listening to the rustling of them - until the traffic noise cut in again! 


Sexing a butterfly is quite easy with Monarchs



Note the butterfly corpses on Fiona's shoulder


quite a lot of butterflies - its weird to think we saw their relatives up in Canada, it's been four genrations since they were last here a year ago


more butterflies





The plaza outside our guesthouse


Fi checking out the town


Relaxing after the hike


Mmmmm Horchata, its delicious


Elaborate xmas display


Hotel complete with christmas pinyata


Migraine inducing xmas decorations can be found everywhere in Mexico


Contrary to this picture I haven't just woken up or been dragged through a hedge - I am in fact eating the diet friendly stewed sweetcorn with mayo and cheese. I wonder what the heart attack rate in Mexico is?


Cactus salad - yum


These two dogs were mates and were so cool, but the meany Fiona refused to give them the remains of our cactus salad despite their pleas.

The Last night in /valle de /bravo was quite a long one for us as industrail strength fireworks were being set of:f untila round 2am. This was lucky as it gave us 2 and a half hours sleep before the marching band started at 4:27am with a firework accompanyment - this was to mark the begininng of the virgin de Guadaloupe celebrations.

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