Wings And a Prayer
Every fall, nearly 250 million monarch butterflies fly across the continent to search out the same modest piece of land in Mexico. The travelers who follow them are often searching, as well.

By Leigh Ann Henion
Sunday, March 30, 2008

THE MAN SITTING NEXT TO ME ON THIS FLIGHT IS HAVING A SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCE. Actually, he's remembering a spiritual experience, but the wild, alert expression on his face is evocative of someone giving religious testimony. His memory has been sparked by my confession that I am headed to the Mexican state of Michoacan to see millions of monarch butterflies congregate in its mountains. He says: "I saw the butterflies migrating once. I was out skeet shooting, and all of a sudden there they were. It was the most amazing thing I'd ever seen. They looked like a cloud. There were so many they cast a shadow on the land. My buddies and I put our guns down to watch them pass."

As if shaken from a dream, he then looks at me and says, "I bet they were headed down to where you're going." I'm quite sure they were.

Nearly the entire monarch population of eastern Canada and the United States migrates to Mexico's Transverse Neovolcanic Belt to wait out winter. Their needs are so specific that almost all of the approximately 250 million monarchs that make the pilgrimage each year can be found in a small, mountainous swath of land in Michoacan and, to a lesser extent, the state of Mexico.

After touching down at the marble-floored airport in Morelia, Michoacan, it's a 30-minute drive to the Hotel de la Soledad. I have been traveling for 12 hours, but I am still restless. I leave the 250-year-old hotel and take a short walk around the city, passing an assortment of sidewalk cafes and upscale bars. As I near Morelia's grand baroque cathedral, I run into Paul Justice, my fleece-clad tour guide. He's taking a walk to kill time before going back to the airport to pick up the last of our tour group. "It's going to be a good group," he says. "It always is."

Paul and his wife, Warna, founded Rocamar Tours in 2001, after Paul's early retirement from the Canadian building industry. This second career allows them to share their love of nature with fellow travel enthusiasts. Paul and Warna spend half the year in Canada and the other half in Mexico tracking the migratory patterns of butterflies, hawks and turtles. In this way, their lives reflect the natural cycle of the wildlife they follow.

Paul believes that people who gravitate toward migratory tourism are often seeking some sort of life transition or spiritual awakening. But sometimes the experience touches even the most resistant tourist. On this corner in Morelia, where cast-iron street lamps on the sides of cantera stone buildings cast a warm glow, Paul tells me about a burly, gruff construction worker who came on a tour a few years ago with his wife. Remembering the man, Paul crosses his arms and laughs. "He told me: 'I'm just here for my wife. I'm not into insects.'"

When the man's group went to one of the sanctuaries, Paul noticed the man walk off by himself. When Paul approached him to make sure he wasn't suffering from altitude sickness, Paul realized the traveler had tears in his eyes. Paul remembers, "When he noticed I'd seen him, he told me, 'Don't you dare tell anyone about this.'"

Paul also recalls a woman who went on a Rocamar tour to find proof that a higher power was looking out for her. The day she visited one of the sanctuaries, a cascade of butterflies moved from the trees and covered her entire body.

"There were hundreds. They were all over her," Paul says. "I couldn't believe it. I'd never seen anything like it. The woman was overwhelmed, but she had her sign."

Paul checks his watch, mindful that he still has tourists to transport. As I turn to head back to the hotel, an illuminated window display catches my eye. It features a sheet of artesian glass depicting four monarchs rising to meet an elementary image of the sun.

JUDY AND DONALD MATTHEWS ARE IN MEXICO celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary, accompanied by their son, Dan, a second-grade teacher with a penchant for Hawaiian shirts. Judy and Donald almost didn't make it to Michoacan to see the monarchs this season. Dan explains that his father is coping with an early stage of Alzheimer's disease, and that his mother needs an aluminum walking cane because of her developing Parkinson's disease. "It was looking like we couldn't come on this tour until next year, but it was important that we come now," Dan says. "This might be their last chance."

Judy and Donald are hobby naturalists from Ballston Lake, N.Y. They've spent the last 15 years working as volunteers for Monarch Watch, an educational outreach program of the University of Kansas that focuses on tracking monarchs and conserving their habitat. They have a garden they cultivate with plants that other people might try to eradicate from their manicured lawns and are especially careful to nurture their milkweed, which the monarchs depend on. This is where the monarchs lay their eggs, and the Matthewses are thrilled to think that some of the butterflies in Mexico could have started their journey on the underside of a leaf in their garden.

Judy and Donald tag monarchs with tiny stickers to assist Monarch Watch in tracking the species' movements, but none of the Matthewses' marked butterflies have ever been retrieved. Monarch Watch would have called them, Judy explains. This is something Donald seems to have never considered before. He reflects on this fact and softly whispers, "Poor little guys."

NO BUTTERFLY SPECIES MIGRATES MORE MAJESTICALLY THAN THE MONARCH, known to scientists as Danaus plexippus. These migrants, weighing less than half an ounce, move through thunderstorms and gale-force winds as they fly across the continent, traveling up to 3,000 miles to reach Mexico from their respective homes.

The butterflies heading south are four to five generations removed from the butterflies that left the mountains of Mexico last spring. A monarch's life span is only two to six weeks in the summer months, but the generation born in late fall lives for seven to eight months. This generation is responsible for carrying on the species' migratory legacy.

Depending on conditions, monarchs fly an average of 40 to 100 miles a day. They are believed to catch natural updrafts, which they ride for great distances. It takes a monarch about two months to reach its ancestral Mexican homeland from Washington.

The monarchs' arrival and departure weeks are the best time to see them in action during their November-to-March stay in Mexico. It is now mid-November. In another two weeks, the monarchs will be less active as they huddle together to brace for winter.

Despite recent research leading scientists to speculate that the sun plays a role in the butterflies' navigation, it is unknown how monarchs make the many decisions necessary to stay alive as they choose their moments of passage in high-stakes situations such as crossing the Great Lakes. It is also a mystery how they find their way back to the very specific spots where they gather in Mexico's mountains in concentrations of millions per acre. They always return to the same vicinity and often to the very same tree their ancestors left the year before. Scientists believe the butterflies mark the trees in some way, but they do not know how. The monarchs' mystique is part of their appeal.

ROCAMAR TOURS CAPS THE NUMBER OF PEOPLE IT TAKES INTO THE MONARCH SANCTUARIES AT 20, but our small group is still too large for Paul's spacious van, so some of us ride with a hired driver, Francisco "Paco" Buenueva. His last name roughly translates as "good, new." It's a nice name for a guide to have on a quest centered on metamorphosis. As we drive out of Morelia, we roll past fields of dried cornstalk and small towns where sherbet-colored church spires are the only things cresting wheat-colored crops.

It is nearly a three-hour drive from Morelia to Sierra Chincua, the first of two sanctuaries we'll visit. We skirt Lago de Cuitzeo, which seems to go on forever. We pass small villages where green, turquoise and yellow boats idle empty next to cinder-block houses. A lone fisherman in a bright blue boat is out in pursuit of lunch. He is joined by flocks of white pelicans that fly off as we drive by.

As we approach our destination, the fields become as level and flat as any I've ever seen, making the mountains behind them look as though they were placed there as an afterthought. When we reach the sanctuary parking lot, we are besieged by a group of men in ten-gallon hats and teenagers wearing headphones. They are shouting: "Caballo! Caballo! Caballo!"

"You need a horse," the local cowboys, or vaqueros, tell me over and over again in Spanish. One of them grabs my elbow, and I feel crowded. I make my way over to a small horse with a silent owner. He tells me the horse is "tranquilo." Calm. Tranquil. I'm nervous about riding a horse, so tranquilo is a welcome word. Tentatively perched, I start to climb.

Halfway up the mountain, after a few jolts inspired by particularly rocky sections of path, I decide to dismount my horse and return him to the vaqueros who have come along for the walk. The pass is fairly steep, but I live in the Appalachian Mountains, and I've climbed tough terrain before. "I can handle this," I think to myself.

After nearly 30 minutes, I reach the end of the horse trail. The weather has pushed the butterflies down the mountain, so we don't have very far to go. But the walk from where the horses stop leaves a bit of a challenge for some of the group members, including Judy, who is flanked by her husband and son as she negotiates a footpath cluttered with tree roots.

Suddenly, I see a flash of orange above me. There's one monarch. Then two. Then three. When I see Paul motioning for us to stop, indicating that we've reached our destination, I'm surprised. I don't know what I'd been expecting, but I hadn't been expecting this. He's standing in a clearing the size of a standard bedroom, which is filled with 40 or so people staring into the trunks of the forest ahead.

At first, I don't notice that the tree trunks are exaggerated in size, that there are millions of butterflies, wings folded, clinging to the bark. They look like bark themselves. But then the butterflies come into view. They are hanging from low-lying branches like heavy, dark bags. The monarchs are only in the trees to the right of the clearing, which is surrounded by a yellow rope. Behind the rope are two men in straw hats with long machetes strapped to their belts. They are here to ensure that this small area remains the domain of monarchs.

As I stare out into the ghostly, silvery clumps of the butterflies' undersides, my enthusiasm begins to deflate. We've come all this way to watch butterflies sleep? Above us, the day's darkest clouds intercept the sun's warmth. The monarchs holding onto the forest's oyamel trees look like distant shadows. It is too cold for them to leave the trees, the ritual that makes the migration so spectacular to witness. The trampled wings of fallen butterflies litter the forest floor as a reminder of what will happen if they fly off under the wrong conditions.

A few butterflies, maybe the last of those just arriving to Mexico, flutter down to us, but soon they are all tucked away, colors hidden. They are stone still, and we are, unexpectedly and disappointingly, unmoved.

Almost everyone else has gone except for the Matthewses and Janet Elfant, a solo traveler from Philadelphia who has befriended the family. I make my way over to Judy, who is perched on a log next to a collection of broken wings.

Together, we look out over the silent forest and oscillate our eyes between the clumps of butterflies and the sky. In the distance, I see a small patch of blue amid the darkness. "I think the sun is coming out," I say, and I point to our right.

"Yes, I think it might," she says, "I can see it!"

Beside her, I notice Dan shaking his head, a nonbeliever. He touches his mother's arm to lead her away. As Dan and Janet help Judy down the path leading to the horses, I follow, turning every so often to look at the butterflies hanging dormant in the trees. Thunder rumbles in the distance.

Suddenly, Judy stops. "Wait!" she shouts. "Do you hear that? I can hear them. It's the butterflies!" She is having trouble moving, so she doesn't turn around, but she closes her eyes for a moment as we all pause to listen.

Dan places a hand on his mother's back and says, "That's just the wind blowing the leaves." And so it is.

AS I WANDER AROUND THE MAKESHIFT VILLAGE AT THE BOTTOM OF THE MOUNTAIN, I am still mourning the day's absence of light and life when I hear someone call my name from inside one of the rough-hewn wooden buildings. It's Bill McCormick and his daughter, Terri Piel, from Odessa, Tex. "Get on in here," they shout. They claim they're having one of the best meals of their life, and their invitation makes me realize I am ravenous.

On this mist-cloaked mountain, on this utterly unsatisfying day, I find solace in a quesadilla filled with yellow squash blossoms. A woman standing next to a wood fire covered with a sheet of scrap metal is working culinary magic. Bill takes a swig of honey- and cinnamon-laced coffee and says, "This place should be written up in the AAA."

The rest of the group files into the room negotiating earthen floor as uneven as this mountainous land. As our blood sugar rises, so do our spirits.

I proclaim, "Tomorrow the butterflies will fly!"

Bill says, "Now that's optimism!"

His daughter says, "Sure is!"

"I like it!" Judy declares.

After we've had our fill, off we go to overnight in Zitacuaro, a small city with a festive character quite different from Morelia's formal, colonial charm. If Morelia is conservative Catholicism, Zitacuaro is a down-home, hand-waving, speaking-in-tongues revival. Its streets are streaked with the juices of fruits we don't know what to call by name. Candy is sold from wheel-barrows. Markets don't sell tourist trinkets; they sell chicken corpses doused in ice. We wander the peddler-filled streets until late in the evening when we meet up to swap stories at dinner.

Our conversation is varied, until Janet makes an odd observation. "Why haven't I seen many cats in Mexico?" she asks Paul, who shrugs.

One of the women on the far side of the table answers, "Maybe there's some folklore against cats."

Janet considers this, and says, "Maybe it's because cats kill butterflies."

I tell the group an old wives' tale I've heard about not allowing cats into bedrooms because it was believed the soul left the body in the form of a moth during sleep, and a cat might kill the soul as it tried to return. This seems to alter the tone of the conversation, and it leads to Janet's reason for coming to see the butterflies.

She says, "I'm here because I lost my son."

On the day Janet learned her 19-year-old son died, less than five years ago, she was sitting out on her deck when a strange butterfly appeared. It was a shade she'd never seen before, and it stayed with her on the deck all day. She says: "I knew it was him. I knew it was my son telling me he was okay. Ever since then, I've just had a thing for butterflies."

The group is silent. She continues: "When you lose a child, you've got to look for life where you can find it. Butter-flies are a symbol for something. We know what it is, but we don't know how to put it into words. They're life and death and the cycle." She pauses for a moment, then says, "They're hope."

Paul, visibly moved, says, "We'll have a lively day tomorrow."

Janet gives him a weak smile and assures him, "Really, just being here is enough." The way she says it makes it sound almost believable.

THE PATH TO THE EL CAPULIN MONARCH SANCTUARY is hidden between a white house and a wooden hut surrounded by banana trees and grazing sheep. It is not a place you would easily find on your own unless you were a butterfly, and maybe not even then. Here, just outside the village of Macheros, monarchs live at the top of Cerro Pelon, or Bald Mountain, a dormant volcano.

The scramble for horses here is not as frantic as it was yesterday at Sierra Chincua. The vaqueros in Macheros simply stand by their horses waiting for us to choose one. I approach a milky tan horse with a black mane speckled gray. She is short, what I've been hoping for. Her name is Flor.

As Flor and I climb, the brush gets dense, the path steep. I begin to wonder just how far up we're going, so I ask a nearby vaquero who's accompanying us on horseback, "How much longer do we have to ride?"

"Two," he says.

"Two minutes?" I ask, hopefully.

"Two hours," he replies, amused. I resolve not to ask any more questions I don't really want the answer to.

Somehow, Flor and I begin to take the lead, but it's not long before we reach a point in the path where Flor refuses to climb. I look up and see a stretch of unearthed cantera stone so precipitous that the trail appears to have a switchback pattern, as if we're being asked to crawl up a downhill ski slope.

Paco is riding behind me. "Andale!" I hear him shout. Let's go.

"Andale," I say to Flor, and she begins to move.

I lean forward until my body is pressed against the hard horn of my saddle. The trail is so coarse, so difficult to negotiate, that Flor is starting to sweat. I can see the hair on her neck begin to clump. To our right is an endless green chasm. If I was nervous before, I am absolutely fearful now.

"Everything is okay," I tell Flor softly. "Todo esta bien." I repeat this as a mantra to placate her, to placate myself. The path is narrowing. My shoes scrape against stone and tree trunks. I can hear horses clamoring behind me, but I cannot turn to look at them.

Finally, we reach the top of Cerro Pelon. The sun is coming out just as I dismount Flor. When I first see the butterflies, there are more than a dozen at once, and my enthusiasm grows with their numbers.

To see 100 butterflies against a blue sky is fantastic. Seeing 1 million monarchs swerving and flitting and soaring above you, and realizing there are more in the trees waiting for the right moment to open their wings, feels like nothing short of a miracle.

Paco calls out and instructs me to cup my hands behind my ears. He says, "Escuche." Listen. And, as we stand there together, I can hear the butterflies. Their wings against the air sound like a light rainstorm falling on a verdant forest. Some of the monarchs are missing part of their brilliant orange appendages, their wings like flags tattered and torn after a battle. Monarchs are valued for their beauty, but what I find most beautiful about them is that they are survivors.

At this sanctuary, there is no rope, and there are no machetes. We have free rein over this small area. Only three colonized trees are visible from where we've dismounted, though there are more butterflies resting in the understory. I am standing under a tree filled with monarchs when a cloud passes to reveal more sunlight. Bunches of butterflies above me begin to let go of the branches they've been clinging to and pour into the sky; they brush against my face and fall into my hair. The cascading monarchs make the tree branches look like ever-expanding arms reaching down to embrace me. They are live orange confetti setting the sky ablaze.

In the thicket, I can just make out Janet sitting against a tree trunk. Her face is tilted toward the sky. In her hand she holds a butterfly that's batting its wings to prepare for flight. The males will die here, but the female monarchs will move north in spring. There they will lay their eggs, and the cycle will start anew.

Emerging from the woods, I find Dan lying on a patch of open ground, playfully calling out for the butterflies to cover him. I look down and notice that the monarchs are casting a shadow on the earth.

As I overlook the surreal mountaintop scene, Dan says: "Think of how many days we take for granted in our lives, but this is one day we will never forget. We will never be able to take this for granted."

To our right, millions of butterflies glide over the abyss.

Leigh Ann Henion, a freelance writer, last wrote for the Magazine about the World's Longest Yard Sale. She can be reached at lahenion@gmail.