We left Patzcuaro on for a 3 or 4 hour casual and scenic drive thru the beautiful countryside to San Felipe. But first we had manoeuvre our drive thru Morelia and then find Hwg 126. Well, we got on the periferico ( ring road ) which we thought would not be busy on a Sunday morning because we all know Mexicans go to church. Well, I’m here to tell you ,many of them played hooky on this Sunday. As an aside, a guide who was showing us a few churches ask if we knew why so many Mexicans go to church. We assumed it was because they where good Catholics. He said No.. It is because they are “scared” as to what would happen if the did not go. However , once on the periferico we where looking for hwy 126 but in Mx style they must have run out of those signs so the used MX 15D as a substitute, which we did not realize soon enough. Once we did realized we had missed the road we needed ,we now had to turn around which meant a U-turn on a 6 lane street but we had the light in our favour and I guess the cops where in church.
We finally decide that hwy 15 D was the correct road so we headed for San Felipe. We stopped for fuel along the way and we ask the attendant for the best road to take. I suggested a route but he no, “road no good” , go thru Marvato so I took his advise . Well, most of the road was good except the 1st 10 KM which was under construct so this was really slow going. The road really needed re-construction but they are building it into a 4 lane hwy so when any of you folks are this area it will be 4 lanes.
We arrived in San Felipe in the early afternoon and found our camp site which was a Dry camping but grassed area at a hotel which we knew from our travel bible. However, the entrance was gated as per normal but the entrance was also narrow and the walls where built out to the street so there was no way I could turn right hence i had to drive a few miles down the road so i could U-turn and attack the entrance from the left, which i did successfully.
The butterflies are not actually in San Felipe; this is the closes camping area for our rig, so after we setup we decide to check out the route. The first town that we needed to find was Ocampo which was 15 KM up a mountain on a windy road, albeit paved but narrow. The direction from the Hotel owner was that Ocampo was a 10 or 15 min drive and when you enter the town take the 1st right and follow the signs. Although i never notice it, but I assume the Hotel owner has a Rocket ship that she uses when she goes to Ocampo because it took us over 1/2 an hour because we had to negotiate several small towns and their topes. However, we found Ocampo and followed the sign for a few miles in the direction of the butterfly area . This road is most interesting because is two lanes wide but only the travel area is concrete and the area between the travel lanes is cobble stone. i very much doubt that this road will every wear our and i assume the maintenance is very low. According to the book this road is only 11 KM, mostly up hill but driving this road seemed much longer. This road took us thru several small towns and the area was littered with small farms. What amazed us was that we were well over 7000 ft and the farm land was above us. After travel about 10 KM we reached the area that was damaged by the rain which caused a river to overflow its’ banks and wash out the road along with several homes. However by this time the mud had been cleared but the roads where in bad condition and a make-shift bridge was in place for us to cross. The ditch was only about 2 ft deep so i figured , even if it collapsed I could still get thru so i challenged it with a problem.
This is the bridge I had to cross
This is near the end of the road to the Butterflies and it was washed out during a 4 day rain storm a month earlier. Incidentally we picked up an old man and 2 older ladies along the way and gave them a ride ( about 5 KM ) right to the end of the road. Mexicans always right in the truck box so you can imagine what the ride was like
We finally reached the parking area and we where the only ones there which was not to encouraging. The parking attendant was fluent in Spanish, but no English; we on the other hand are fluent in English but no Spanish so he was of little help. Then luckily i seen a lady, who looked like a Gringo walking down the mountain road so i ask her for some assistance. Lucky for us she spoke English, Spanish and her mother tongue was French. Unfortunately she advised us that the butterflies would not be available this day because it was cloudy and they will not leave the trees unless it is sunny and warm and the next day did not appear to be promising. As we later learned she had traveled over many miles of rough terrain in an old Van only to learn that the butterflies would not flying this day. She also advised us that she was going to walk 11 KM to Ocampo to catch a bus, one of three, I might add that would eventually get her to Mexico city. While she carried on down the road we pondered our next move because we had spend 2 days just to get to see the butterflies and we hated to leave this adventure without its’ conclusion. After several minutes, we accepted failure and decided to return another day and another year. On the way down the mountain and after we carefully crossed this newly constructed bridge, we picked up the French lady from Montreal that we met early and headed down the 30 KM of mountain road. Since this trek would take the biggest part of an hour we drummed up a conversation with the lady whose age i would guess was north on 40. She was a world traveller and was not afraid to travel alone as we learned during the conversation. Since her “butterfly” trip was also a failure she was now on her way to MX City to meet up with a partner and then to fly home. She had to catch a bus in a city about 5 KM from our camp site so we said we would take her to the bus terminal, which of course neither of us knew where it was. Since she speaks Spanish ( also French and English) we stopped on the street to ask directions and luckily we where told to turn left and continue and we would see it. After 10 block we begin to question her Spanish, so we ask direction again but with the same results; continue on, so we did. We then drove through some of the worst slum areas you could imagine and this was right in the city. Most of the homes where poorly constructed shack. Anyway we reached the bus depot and bid farewell to the French lady. But this drive just shows that Mexico still has the lowest of the lower class who have to exist day to day.
The next day we headed for San Miguel Allende and of course is another story.
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