Thursday 17^th November

After a leisurely breakfast we went with Jesús, the hotel manager, for a walk round to the nearby river where we saw some awesome Taxodium mucronatum again.  Then he showed us a Guano cave that was a little bit of a drive away along the riverside.  Saw a wild form of papaya – maybe a reverted escapee but very pretty – with smaller fruits than cultivated plants and less intricately lobed leaves.  Also a cute little sub-shrubby Euphorbia/poinsettia of some sort.

Returned to the hotel to find Rich and RL waiting for us.  After a quick debrief of the trip so far we headed off to Parque El Troncones.  We drove by the side of the river, crossing it a few times through some pretty deep fords, along a deteriorating dirt track studded with boulders for the best part of 45 minutes, passing through the most amazing forest of quercus, taxodium and Sabal mexicana – looking totally magnificent in the shaded location.  Then we started gaining altitude, took what was a wrong turn and saw a beautiful specimen of Dasylirion berlandieri heavy with seed.  

We turned around and headed back to the correct road – where Richard pointed out to us a few treasures such as a possibly new species of hesperaloe, Chamaedorea radicalis growing alongside Beschorneria septentrionalis and assorted ferns in a drippingly damp cliff face - not what you where you would expect to see succulents.  

Darkness intervened and we turned back, our headlights illuminating the eerie taxodium forest on the way through then back to Victoria for our overnight stay.

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