Jungle sex, froggy-style...

Latest Observer column published today, seems I have managed to smarten up my act a little so there was little editing of this effort compared to the immasculation of my previous missive. All they did was crop my gag about amphibious carnal activity (no great loss to literature it has to be said). As always you can read the 'offical' version on the Guardian website here. The original text is cut and pasted below along with some relevant pics and a nice little video clip of thousands of Monacrch butterflies taking to the air. Sweet.

24th Observer column

We were sat in the bus station at Zihuatanejo on Mexico’s Pacific coast when a guy selling tiny handmade artificial roses approached us. ‘Hello honeymooners!’ he grinned as we groaned. ‘You know how I know?’ he continued unabashed ‘because she looks happy and you look tired!’. It was not the first time we’d heard this line in the touristy town. I smiled agonizingly, Fi just looked weary.

A series of buses of ever diminishing size and roadworthiness took us up into the Michoacán mountains and the linear little village of Angangueo, strung out along the side of a high valley. We’d come to see the over-wintering grounds of the Monarch butterfly, where millions of ‘mariposas’ gather in the cool, mist shrouded pine forests after a monumental migration from as far north as Canada. An impressive travelling feat in itself the journey is made even more astounding when you find out the butterflies that return from one season to the next are the great, great grandchildren of those that left the previous year.

After a wheezy climb through the thin high altitude atmosphere we were treated to one of nature’s great spectacles. The branches of the pines bent heavily with the sheer weight of butterflies, encrusting the trees like incongruous dead brown leaves amongst the green needles. As the sun warmed up the slumbering insects took to the air in a whirling cloud of fluttering bright orange Lepidoptera. The sound of a billion tiny wing beats surrounded us, butterflies flitting past our ears with a breathy, half-heard whisper. It was a truly magical, meditative experience.



Below the reserve souvenir sellers hawked all manner of mariposa memorabilia from jigsaws to lapel badges. Many stalls also sold toy wooden logging trucks. Ironic in that the biggest threat to the butterflies is the ongoing deforestation of the unique arboreal habitat they have been returning to for countless millennia.

From Angangueo another multiple-bus journey took us to Oaxaca where a heady mix of Mexico’s indigenous peoples live, nearly a third of the country’s ethnic groups, and the cultural melting pot leads to a riot of colour and cultural diversity. The highlight for us, amongst the cobbled streets and haughty colonial architecture was the commercial chaos of the Mercado de Abastos. Probably our favourite market in the world from the many we have visited on four continents over the last eleven months.

Fiery shafts of sunlight poured through the haphazard corrugated zinc roof of the vast bazaar and into the hot, shady, aromatic space below. Fist-sized spring onions, black, sticky tubs of mole, fly-blown meat stalls, sugary sweet-sour tamarind balls and curious unctions for local traditional beliefs seized our attention – including one potent potion cryptically called ‘The lucky hunchback’. For back pain perhaps? I even tried ‘chapulines’ the region’s popular fried grasshopper delicacy – crispy bugs with an oddly blood-like flavour. Not entirely unpleasant but unlikely to feature on my list of top global bar snacks.

Scurrying through the dark passages between tables literally groaning with fresh produce we stumbled on a Mexican one-man band amongst the fruit and vegetables. Playing an unlikely instrumental combination of drum kit and saxophone the grizzled old dude was bashing out a rhythm beatnik style on his bass and tom-toms. This he interspersed with funky saxophone noodling and bursts of hoarse song. We were mesmerised. As were the wee market kids. His rendition being complicated by having to use one hand to fend off unwanted percussive additions to the performance by the gaggle of giggling children darting in to beat his drum. Free-form market jazz. You don’t get that in Wal-Mart.

From the mountains of Oaxaca and San Cristobal de las Casas we travelled to our final Mexican destination, the hippy haven of El Panchan near the Mayan ruins of Palenque, where the clientele sported more dreadlocks than a Rastafarian convention. The rainforest lived up to its name as we enjoyed a persistent 28-hour deluge, watching nervously as the small stream next to our jungle cabana crept steadily higher up its banks towards us.

The unfamiliar noises of the setting took some getting used to. Chirruping insects, hooting birds and the guttural rumbling roar of howler monkeys, more dinosaur than primate and how you’d imagine the cry of souls in purgatory might sound, were distinctly un-nerving. Awakening one morning to the weird burble of some wooing amphibian Fi mistook it for people in the next cabana having sex. Froggy-style, obviously.