Teotihuacan and Monarchs

The last couple of days have been fun, but have involved a lot of driving. We rented a car and left Mexico City on Wednesday morning, and let me tell you, driving in Mexico City is not for the faint of heart! Signs are sporadic, one-way streets are all over the place, there are no lanes, stop lights and signs are merely suggestions… I am so thankful for Selso’s expert driving!

Wednesday we headed to Teotihuacan, an ancient city which dates back to the 2nd century B.C. The site contains two pyramids, the pyramid of the sun and the pyramid of the moon. I couldn’t make it all they way up the higher of the two (I’m afraid of heights) but the kids and Selso managed to scale the 213 foot pyramid.

Not much is known about the people who inhabited Teotihuacan but the Aztecs found the site deserted and believed it had been built by giants. We were also able to tour the Palace of Quetzalpapalotl which contained multiple rooms decorated with murals of a jaguar and parrots.

We attempted to go around Mexico City on our way southwest to the city of Toluca, but unfortunately (see above) we ended up back in the city and had to drive through some decidedly unpleasant areas. We were in the slums, and it was quite disturbing to see how many people live. We finally made it out of the city (no small task) and to Toluca, where we crashed for the night.

Today we drove about three hours northwest to see the winter home of the monarch butterflies. We drove through the countryside (much of it looked like central California, with its rolling brown hills) until we reached the parking lot. From here we hiked approximately a mile up the hill in a high altitude. I won’t lie, more than once, we all wondered what had possessed us to make this journey. And then…

The butterflies. They really did take our breath away. The trees were laden with the beautiful orange butterflies. The sky was littered with them and several even landed on Davis and me. It was quite magical.