6/22/25 In search of fireflies

Budget cuts suck. Both in my personal life and in my professional this is a time of financial retrenchment and in both spaces, it sucks.

Leo has been losing his tiny little mind over a squirrel who hangs out in the peach tree. In fairness, I also have complicated feelings regarding this squirrel as it has taken the majority of the peaches or just tried a bite and let them drop and splatter all over the patio. This has brought back all sorts of stored foot breaking trauma and a weird concern that my entire life’s theme is going to be about adversarial relationships with squirrels. Admittedly, I’d aspired to more. But this squirrel. He taunts us. He sits in a relatively low branch, peach in mouth, and kuks on down at us – that is a legit squirrel noise name, google it (actually do, there’s a fascinating array of squirrel noises with unanticipatable names). In turn, Leo exercises his range of dog noises, from a low whine to an almost Husky like moan/talk situation. All in all, mornings around here are not particularly peaceful these days.

The week was busy at work and I really didn’t get out to do much. However, this weekend the hiking group headed back out to the Matlatzinca community where we’d visited butterflies to see luciérnagas- fireflies, enjoy a sunrise hike and just generally relax in nature.

This weekend resembled Oregon. Grey skies and cloudy. A bit more mist factor outside of the city. We stayed in a “resort” of sorts at the edge of the village. 2km of unpaved, bumpy and narrow road past the main village. Power is solar only, there is no heat, water is from a nearby spring. There is no cell reception. But you’re surrounded by lush green pine forests, an expanse of grass and a flowing creek that apparently houses some trout.

The town is situated in a valley outside of Toluca, a little over a 100km outside Mexico City’s center. This is the last Matlatzinca community in the world, numbering just 1200 individuals. It’s one of the most endangered languages here in Mexico. The people are subsistence farmers and we saw field after field of potatos, succession plantings of corn, squash & beans. Sheep roam free range. Skinny horses are blocked in by tall corn mazes. Goats bounce about.

We arrived early afternoon to our cabin, unloaded and explored the grounds for a bit before lunch, mostly a large open space with thick vibrantly green grass, a few boulders bordering a creek. The site has two window filled cabins that sleep 10 each dormitory style and a large central area which hosts a dining room, a covered outdoor kitchen with a wood fired stove, oven and comal. Steps from the kitchen lead down to a level of bar style seating and then finally to a large, covered stone patio with a firepit, connected to the left is a cabin built for two. Pine trees rise up on the hill in front of the buildings as well as the one extending behind them. Brilliantly red millipedes milled underfoot and were especially plentiful on the rocks. A light mist coated us and wispy clouds played through the mini peaks and valleys, ducking in and out of the trees branches.

We sat down to a lunch of a veggie patty of sorts stuffed with quelites in a brilliant brick red guajillo sauce, rice, a fantastic green salsa, and of course fresh tortillas. Alongside a lemon agua fresca and unsweetened cafe de olla. After lunch we got ready for our temazcal, aka put swimsuits on under our clothes.

Temazcales are a prehispanic sweat lodge found all over Mexico that are especially near and dear to the Matlatzinca. Virtually every family has a temazcal at their house. They are used for washing, healing, and are commonly used for childbirth. If you google it, you’ll probably see an igloo shaped clay building with a small opening, resembling a pizza oven of sorts and the fundamental concept isn’t very different.

We arrived at the abuela’s home and were led past some chickens and a cow to a small attached building. The temazcal was square and squat, built of bricks, inside a hut. We went inside the hut housing the temazcal, stripped down to swimsuits (traditionally we’d be nude) and crawled into the temazcal. The 5 of us lined the walls, along with our local guide Moni, and the abuela, who tended a small stove of hot rocks, occassionally dousing them with an herb scented water to increase steam and heat. She’s a healer in her community with knowledge passed down from generations of Matlatzinca women, rich in commune with the earth, and what it offers.

The abuela incanted blessings in Matlatzinca. We each shared our intention, things to heal, things to let go of, gratitude. We sang songs. We were beaten with bundles of damp herbs the aroma of which filled the air. Our bodies were massaged by the abuela who pronounced that my ovaries were in fine health and was ominously silent on other ovaries. We received her blessing and another herbal thrashing. The steam rose. We did breathing exercises to intake herbs and expel illness. It’s dark and cozy in a temazcal with the ceiling only an inch or two above my head when seated, the floor is thick with woven blankets. We sat in child’s pose and meditated. We lay on our backs, feet extended up to rest upon the ceiling. The hour and a half passed swiftly. One by one, we slowly exited and sat in a small corner of the hut while warm water was poured over our bodies so that the heat would stay with us longer.

Infinitely relaxed and slightly dizzy, we hopped in the car and bumped our way back to the cabins.

As it began to darken, we piled on our rain gear and went in search of fireflies. We followed the rutted dirt road up past the property and veered off onto a narrow trail. It was like fairyland. Or maybe like being high on mushrooms. Small dots of light flicked through the trees, the ferns and down on the soft ground, a light mist dusted our faces. It was silent beyond the occassional chirp from a firefly. We stood, entranced, for maybe 30 minutes watching lights flicker about us and then began our trek back. We stopped in a grassy opening and Moni took one of the headlamps set to red light and clasped it with her fingers blocking most of the light. Fireflies began to descend around us, like we were in a bubble of fireflies. They landed on our shoulders, in our hair, along raincoats and they just stayed, no more than 10 on each of us, and they kept on shining their little lights even when we began moving again.

There are more than 2000 species of firefly globally and these were some kind of them. Brighter lights belong to the male trying to attract their mate, fainter lights to the female (note: this distinction was fully lost on me). I realized I somehow always thought they were bumblebee shaped with a glowing butt, but in fact these at least are a narrow, skinny bug. We trekked back to the cabins, fireflies hanging on and then settled into a dinner of tacos dorados around the fire.

Loaded up on blankets and settled into our beds on the early side to be ready to leave at 4am for a sunrise hike. Needless to say, I had to read before and sleeping in strange places isn’t my strong suit, so I had a very restless night of very little sleep.

And 3:45am comes quick. We all got ready quickly, the cabins are largely windows which provides an amazing view, but also very little protection from the cold. It was cloudy and gently raining when we headed out in the dark. I’ve never hiked in the morning dark before, it’s so quiet and slightly terrifying before the birds come out. We walked largely in sleepy silence following our headlamps through sharply crisp air. The light began to appear about an hour into our walk and the trail accordingly narrowed and grew steeper. Fuzzy outlines of trees appeared coated in morning mist and further up we went. We reached our view point, which apparently generally offers a pretty stunning vista of Nevado de Toluca, the 4th highest peak in Mexico, but this morning afforded us a dense cloud cover. The clearing was speckled with these nearly translucent white flowers that apparently only grow here and we were advised to try not to step on them, which in some places was indeed a challenge. A quick rest and a quick snack later, we ascended to our final point of Peña Blanca, hitting just shy of 11,000ft. The last stretch was quite the up hill scramble. And this small group was comprised of Liz (ya know the mountain climber), Adam (the other mountain climber), Liz’s niece Jackie (mountain climber in training), Michelle (does energy work to enhance top performing athletes) , Moni (this is her home) and then me. Needless to say, I was the weakest link. But I made it, step by fucking step, I got there.

The view at the top was cold and a bit harsh. Clouds ruined the “sunrise” element of our trek. But it had a wilder beauty with the mist rolling through, the rocks rocked and brightness even of the trees was dulled. It felt peacefully desolate.

The way back down was both quicker and cheerier with downhill energy and significantly more light. We noticed flowers, mushrooms and plants that we hadn’t before. Moni broke off a branch of one small tree/large shrub that smelled overwhelmingly like marijuana and advised that we put a stalk behind our ear to combat altitude sickness and firmly instructed us not to eat it. Further down the trail she gathered branches of a wild mint. Later she cut a stalk from a plant, stripped it over its leaves and handed it over for us to take a bite. The smell resembled celery, the stalk was thin walled and hollow inside with a pleasant crunch. By the time we approached the cabin, her arms were filled with plants.

We returned to a hearty breakfast of beans, eggs, quesadilla and deliciously pica red salsa. Then we crashed for an hour or two before setting off for Mexico City and further torturing Liz’s poor car who we all seem to pretend is a jeep. The rain was constant the whole drive back, Michelle and I bought overly sugared coffees at the Oxxo (think 7/11) and were accosted by someone either trying to convert us or get our money to convert others. Neither of our Spanish was good enough to make the distinction. And then because rain, we crawled back into the city.

After the over 3 hour, 115km drive, I picked up a very clean and a very happy Leo from his daycare. Due to the rain, Uber had given up delivering food, so I had pasta with butter and cheese and a lot of chili flake. It was intensely satisfying. Bed was early.

This is Leo’s favorite toy. If you’ve been on the phone with me lately, you’ve likely heard it squeaking in the background.

Also, I failed at tacos this week. But I’ve got some plans.