Available Light Photographics - Mexico 2010: On the Road in Michoacan

Mexico's a pretty large and diverse country, a warm respite from Canadian winters, but its culture and history offer a great deal more than that. This year's quest was to explore a new region of the counry, so we set out on a journey to visit the butterflies, the wintering grounds of the Monarchs, las mariposas monarcas, as they're known to the locals. Our destination was the Central Highlands of ol' Mexico, high up in the Sierra Madre, in the state of Michoacán.

We spent two weeks there, late January to early February. For both Lisa and I, it was new territory: a lot of really winding, twisty mountain roads, lots of towns with names that were difficult to pronounce, difficult to spell, difficult to remember and difficult to find: places like Patzcuaro, Tzintzuntzan and Tlalpujahua...

You know, it's hard to find a decent roadmap in Mexico. Thankfully, those friendly neighbourhood Pemex stations were relatively easy to find, and always helpful. It was a road less travelled all right, but a lot of interesting and friendly folks along the way. We made a lot of new friends, found the butterflies, and had a memorable adventure. It was all quite comfortable and engaging, good coffee and some fine tequila to take the chill off at night.