After 3 days in Mexico City I was ready to leave. Whilst I loved the city and was utterly overwhelmed with its richness in history and culture I kinda wasn´t really in the mood! I was itching to see something other than a giant city... after all I´ve just left one behind.

When I first decided to take this trip I knew I wanted to visit the Monarch Butterfly Sanctuary west of Mexico City. Even though the rest of my trip will take place east of MC I was willing to make a detour for it. The hostel I was staying in had been a great place to meet other travellers but I wanted to meet some locals too. Following the success I had with Couchsurfing in Canada I decided to give it another go here in Mexico. I contacted a couple of people in Morelia which is another city fairly near the butterflies. I had previously made a rule to myself that I would only approach girls and gay men as I figured I´d feel more safe! However, hosts who met this criteria appeared to be thin on the ground for my chosen destination so I decided to take a chance with a couple of guys who sounded nice and had good references. Jose got straight back to me and offered me a place for a few nights at his parents place. I arranged everything with him and checked out my hostel and headed for the bus station. Away from the security of other English speaking travellers I was a little nervous but excited at the prospect of getting a deeper insight into Mexican life.

Thanks to a small amount of swotting on my Michel Thomas spanish CDs I successfully bought my bus tickets, found the correct gate and boarded the bus for Morelia. I´m totally impressed with Mexican transport. The buses are clean comfortable and frequent. The 1st class buses aren´t hugely cheap but they´re spacious and even show movies... mind you I wasn´t really in the mood for Alien Resurrection at 7.30am!!

I arrived at Morelia bus station and called Jose... he picked me up from the bus station... I had armed myself with a couple of addresses of hostels and hotels in case at any point I felt that I wasn´t comfortable with the situation. To my relief Jose was completely polite and friendly and we got along straight away. He gave me a key to his place, showed me my room and took me to a nearby market for lunch before going off to uni. He´s right in the centre of town so I went out to look around. Morelia is a pretty colonial town. You feel very much as though you could be in Spain. It didn´t take long to orientate myself around the centre of town and realise that although it´s incredibly nice, there´s not a huge amount to do!

I had contacted a second couchsurfer in Morelia who could not host me but offered to show me around. I met up with him and his friend. He had lived in the states and spoke perfect English so there were no problems there. They took me up the mountain to look down on the city which was very beautiful... I told them that I wanted to visit the butterflies and they offered to drive me there on Thursday provided I baked a cake for them! I was starting to regret saying that I made good cakes on my couchsurfing profile!!!

Valentines day I met Jose´s dad and sister for a hot mexican breakfast. His dad spoke no english but told Jose that I must be Mexican, not a Brit, ´cause of the way I gobbled up my breakfast... you know me when presented with tasty food!! I spent the rest of the day with Jose and his funny friend! We went up into the mountains to a beautiful lake and bathed in hot springs! It was bliss! I felt totally spoiled as this was a place where clearly few English speaking tourist get to hear about. We had the place almost to ourselves. The minerals in the water made my skin feel like silk and I swear the cuts on my hand from being clumsy in Toronto practically healed in front of my eyes!

That evening, we stayed in at Jose´s and were joined by a couple of his friends. They were musicians and serenaded me with Mexican classics while I chugged on tequila and fizz!! I really don´t like the stuff usually but I figured it was rude not to!

So I woke up today with great excitement I it was the day I was going to finally see the butterflies. I went to a call box and phoned my other couchsurfing friend as arranged... but there was no reply. I called again periodically throughout the morning... nothing. Finally about midday he answered sleepily and said he needed to call his friend to check it was still ok. So I called back again a while later... still no news... he told me to try him in an hour... I did... no answer... I started to realise it wasn´t going to happen! I had even badgered my sister and my friend Jess for cake recipes and had them in my bag all prepared! I also knew it was far too late for me to take the bus as you have to leave very early from Morelia and catch about 4 second class buses... after spending most of the day going back and forth from the phone box to the internet cafe I started to feel a little sorry for myself! I hadn´t planned to spend so long in Morelia and now I was going to have to spend another day if I was going to see the butterflies... Then after a quick chat with one of the torontonians, I was sharply reminded that it didn´t bloody matter... just go do it anyway! So I cheered up, cut my losses and had another stroll around the sunny city...

So this is my last evening with Jose. I better get off here and spend the evening with him. He´s even going to give me a lift to the bus station at the crack of dawn tomorrow! I´m a little nervous at heading into rural mexico on my own with my limited Spanish but I know I´ll get by... and I´ll be driven by the desire to finally see these damn butterflies!

Speak to you soon with news of my journey to see the Monarchs...

xxx