February 16, 2018 - Pemex to Tula, Mexico

Last night was a short night even though we stopped driving by 6:30pm. We opted to stay at the Pemex truck stop and it was a HUGE mistake. Even with earplugs in, it was SO NOISY! To make it worse, the gas station attendant started knocking on our door at 6am to let us know he was going off—duty and wanted to collect his tip for watching our RV all night. Tobey gave him about $30 pesos and he was on his way. Some of the Pemex stations are quieter, but this one was located right on the toll road. We will definitely think twice before staying at one again.

We stopped down the road for breakfast before continuing to El Rosario Butterfly Sanctuary. Several signs indicated we should go a different direction than our Google maps wanted us to go, so we decided to follow the signs. We had quite an elevation gain and drove through a pine forest. There were several small lumber yards where the pine boards were stacked for drying. The air smelled good.As we made our final approach to the sanctuary, we paid a $50 entrance fee to access the road to the sanctuary parking lot. Admission to the sanctuary was $50 pesos per person, plus a tip for the mandatory guide ($100 pesos). Our guide didn’t speak any English so that was disappointing. English-speaking guides were sharing information about the Monarch butterfly migration, the area, etc. Oh well, next time.

We walked at least 3km UP the mountain to the area to where the butterflies migrated. There are over 600 stairs and we climbed to about 11,000 feet in elevation! I needed several stops on the way up to catch my breath!It was well worth the climb and hard to describe how amazing it was. The pine trees looked brown from a distance and it was only as we got closer in our approach that we could tell that they were covered in Monarch butterflies! We read that Monarch butterflies can travel as far as 80 miles per day on their 1800 mile migration from the US! https://www.tripsavvy.com/mexicos-monarch-butterfly-reserves-1588943During our descent back down the mountain we stopped to see some beautiful yellow bushes. The guide told me these were a type of butterfly, but I’m not sure. Could possibly be a moth.Like all good attractions, you are deposited into the gift shops at the end. The final area was full of artisan shops and gift shops. We chatted with this lady and she showed us how she weaves baskets from the pine needles. The baskets were beautiful and one of them found its way into our backpack for the trip home for a reasonable price. We had lunch at one of the small restaurants lining the parking area. Tobey had carne asada and I had mole chicken. They were okay, but nothing spectacular.

After lunch we decided to take the road our Google maps had directed us on. It was a 9.8km road and didn’t look too terrible as we initially departed. This road quickly deteriorated and we bumped along ruts, one lane, cobblestones, and topes (speed bumps) for 45 minutes! We saw a woman and her daughter and they were walking and Tobey offered them a ride into Agangueo. They were happy for the ride which saved them a lot of time, even though we were slow. She directed us to the bank where she was headed and then we had to navigate our way though many narrow-narrow-narrow streets to get out of town! I’m not great with Google maps and Google maps is terrible with tiny streets in Mexico! We were both frustrated and happy to get back on the toll road!

We did stop ON the toll road at one of the stands selling strawberries. We paid $60 pesos for this basket ($3.25 USD). They are tasty!We continued on the toll road to the Tula, Mexico exit. Once again, I messed up the directions and we ended up the “Centro” – center of town! Fortunately, a policewoman was directing traffic and we did a 180 turn in the middle of the intersection while she stopped traffic and got us going in the right direction. Yikes. We did have to drive about 5km through the city to get to the Tula Archeological site where we are camped just outside of the gates. There is another RV with a couple from Germany camped next to us. Hopefully we will get a better night’s sleep before our journey tomorrow.