{"id":1016,"date":"2021-12-22T04:35:42","date_gmt":"2021-12-22T04:35:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/donniemeals.net\/?p=1016"},"modified":"2024-06-09T09:45:11","modified_gmt":"2024-06-09T14:45:11","slug":"acrobats-and-butterflies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/donniemeals.net\/index.php\/2021\/12\/22\/acrobats-and-butterflies\/","title":{"rendered":"Acrobats and Butterflies"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n \t<\/i> Read Time:<\/span>5 Minute, 8 Second <\/div>\n\n <\/div>\n

Dec 13<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A hotel room that is two story, bedroom upstairs, seating room below.  Sounds cool, right?  Yeah, so did we.  Welcome to Morelia, where if you need to go to the restroom in the middle of the night be prepared for alot of groping.  What they got wrong was the placement of the TV and the bathroom.  From the sitting room you can watch the bathroom and visa versa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is the capitol of Michoac\u00e1n, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Beautiful cathedrals and cobblestone streets.  Once we settled the bathroom\/TV paradox we walked down the street to their aqueduct and \u201cThe Steet for Lovers\u201d.  That\u2019s a narrow walking alley with no supervision.  Add a movie and you\u2019ve got a drive-in theater.  No one watches the movie.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Gazpacho vendor<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Dec 14<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sharon had heard of the latest Morelia craze; Gazpacho. No, it is not cold soup.  It\u2019s finely diced fruit heaped high in a cup that you add chamoy, cheese, orange juice, salty lucas, and lord knows what else. We opted for just some lime juice.  That said it was a great way to start the morning.  Gazpacho in hand we walked towards the Morelia Candy Market. Stall after stall of diabetes just waiting to introduce itself.  Still, we bought a fair amount for an upcoming new years eve party in Acapulco.  And for some odd reason we stumbled across a bike parts store with great prices on bike seats.  So we bought a couple of those too!  Candy and bike seats.  Yep.  If you\u2019re gonna eat Mexican candies you better get your butt on that bike and work it off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dec 15<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was another gazpacho morning. We gazpacho\u2019d towards the Morelia Zoo.  After a number of blocks we opted to catch a collectivo (bus) to whatever location in the city.  When it comes to collectivos you need to look at their windshield as it approaches.  If you don\u2019t see a location near where you want to go, you wait for the next one.  For us it\u2019s a great way to rub elbows with the locals.  Literally, elbows and other body parts weather you want to or not.  One guy got to know me a little too well but Sharon seemed to be really enjoying the ride.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Riding a not-so-crowded “collectivo”.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n
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Guacamole, chicharon and blue chips. Don’t knock it till you try it.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

We stayed on the bus quite a while and ended up at Morelia\u2019s ritzy mall atop a steep hill overlooking the city.  We\u2019re not mall people.  However, we got to look at lots of stuff we had no intention of spending pesos on.  We did get some nice refreshing cocktails at one of the mall\u2019s restaurants.  It was new, quite posh and best of all served 3oz shots along with fancy purple chicharon with guacamole and blue chips.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We taxied back to centro.  Earlier we purchased tickets to what looked like a fancy shmancy show.  This was a first for us.  It was a fusion of traditional Mexican Christmas songs with stunning live music and Cirque de Soleil type acrobatics.  !Fabuloso!  Simply flawless singing and performing.    <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Protest aftermath<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Gazpacho breakfast day three.  Let\u2019s be as lazy as our breakfast selections.  Walk around a bit and watch the protest of the day.  Today it was teachers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dec 17<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We got up SUPER early, like 5:30am, to find morning coffee.  Why?  It\u2019s another first for us.  We actually booked a private tour to see the sanctuary of the monarch butterflies.  Our guide Rodrigo picked us up at 6:30 for the 3 hour drive to far east Michoac\u00e1n.  After the drive it was a good hour hike into the mountains.  Along the trail there was a fair amount of ice from the previous night\u2019s sleet storm.  Rodrigo was an awesome guide and plenty chatty.  He knew plenty of history and had knowledge of flora and fauna.  Have a question?  He had an answer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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All of the ash looking blobs are clusters of thousands\/millions of butterflies.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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At one point we had to stop.  You can only get so close to the massive clusters of butterflies.  Then you look down at the trail.  It\u2019s littered with thousands of butterflies that didn\u2019t make it to the butterfly herd before they got too cold and wet.  Rodrigo, Sharon and I turned our hike into a rescue mission, one by one placing the butterflies on nearby branches.  We felt like our hike made everything sustainable.  But the hike back?  That sucked.  90% uphill.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Back in town, Sharon and I had a delightful dinner on the square at a place called Lu that Rodrigo suggested.  We later went back to the two-story hotel room but returned to the streets around 10pm.  It was a great little walk as we witnessed the city winding down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dec 18<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We exited Morelia early and made our way to Puebla.  The drive was a highlight of traffic jams and crashed 18 wheelers.  We\u2019ve seen a number of ghastly big rig crash sites on this journey.  Once we settled in Puebla we taxied to centro and mingled with the locals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Me and the boys hanging out in Puebla. I thought I’d look taller.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Dec 19<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After breakfast we drove back into centro.  This city\u2019s central downtown is a frantic buzz of activity.  The markets spill into the streets for many blocks.  Thankfully we parked well away from the district.  Most of this day we walked the markets of meat, fish and veggies.  I\u2019ll make a separate posting of photos from that later.  It won\u2019t be for the faint of heart.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Dec 13 A hotel room that is two story, bedroom upstairs, seating room below.  Sounds cool, right?  Yeah, so did we.  Welcome to Morelia, where if you need to go to the restroom in the middle of the night be prepared for alot of groping.  What they got wrong was Continue Reading<\/i><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":986,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1016","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/donniemeals.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/mall.jpg?fit=864%2C648&ssl=1","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/donniemeals.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1016","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/donniemeals.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/donniemeals.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/donniemeals.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/donniemeals.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1016"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/donniemeals.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1016\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1624,"href":"https:\/\/donniemeals.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1016\/revisions\/1624"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/donniemeals.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/986"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/donniemeals.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1016"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/donniemeals.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1016"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/donniemeals.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1016"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}