Tropicallvr

In late June 06 I went with my sister to visit my dad in Mexico. He lives on the coast, but we flew into Guadalajara, Jalisco, which is inland at a higher elevation. It is super hot and humid on the coast, so we thought we'd check out the mountains where it is alot cooler. We headed south east on the maxipista toll road towards Michoacan, and got hit by giant hail balls. Finally we ended up in Patzcuaro, Michoacan(7,200 ft) a nice colonial lake town just east of the state's major town, Morelia. It was raining cats, and dogs, and it was really cold. We had to got to the local market, and buy knock off jeans and sweaters. Bob was stocked on his new leve's(not levi's). Anyways there weren't many tourists, and the locals seemed kind stuck up by Mexican standards. Also the prices were higher than most other parts of Mexico.

Anyways I spotted a post card with Ensete's and waterfalls so I asked the lady selling them where the park was. The next morning we headed west higher into the mountains. There were still some original native hut's that were on tall post well off the ground, and they looked like little mini swiss chalets made of pine, which was abundent in the area. They also used to sleep with big hairless dogs in the winter time to keep warm, but I wasn't fortunate enough to see one. We drove higher and higher through an endless sea of avocado trees, and the ocassional avocado seedling nursery. When we stopped there appeared to be a native avocado groving wild that had small black fruit, but I'm allergic, so couldn't give it a taste.
After we drove through town, and arrived at the park in Uruapan it was apparent that not many tourists can to this part of the country. The park was teeming with local day trippers, and guarded by machine gun, and uzi. Being a federal park it needed federal protection, by federales, which seemed kinda absurd at the time, but makes sense now since it was probally the towns water source. The park was basically a jungle with no obvious gardeners, and it seemed to reseed itself with alocasia, chamarodorea, Ensete, and small running bamboos(clumpers too). I've tried to find the exact elevation, but having trouble. Definatly 1,000 ft higher than Patzcuaro, which is listed on another site at 7,200 ft.Anyways here's some pics.


A guy had just cleaned up this one with a machete when we got there. Picture is my pops(Bob), being a little annoyed after a federale made him put out his smoke.

These were all at or over 30 feet, and made a huge impression on me. The picture doesn't do it justice, and I wish I had had a wide angle lens.


There was a nice river running through the steep park, and there was even a fish hatchery near the top.

This thing was off a huge one that was blooming at head level, and it was about head size.

A couple in a shady area.

Some more from above

Finally a shot of Alocasia macroz above a water fall. Most of the plants in the park were nonnative except for the abundent Chamodorea palms(not pictured).