Thursday 10^th November

Game plan for the day was to head for another volcano and examine the lower slopes – this time Malinché.  We started up the obvious route shown on the map, but quickly became disorientated.  We spoke, as far as our limited Spanish would allow, to a couple of young guys walking nearby and managed to convey our intentions to them – they offered to show us the way.  About half way up it finally got through as to what we were hoping to try and our hopes were dashed – no through road on this side of the mountain.

A quick about turn, with thanks and a few pesos changing hands, left us headed away from Malinché and onwards Northeast in the general direction of Xalapa (Ha-LA-pa).  We passed a rather picturesque lake, Laguna Totolcingo, and then, a couple of kilometres on just passed Zacatepec, stopped to look at some rather interesting hillside plants.  My first glimpse of Nolina parviflora, one of the stars of this landscape, together with Dasylirion acrotriche var acrotriche, Yucca sp (looks like filifera, but is too far south?) and Agave salmiana.  

Nolina parviflora                                                      Dasylirion acrotriche var acrotriche

We hung around taking pics etc for a while, then headed off towards Xalapa via Las Vigas – the type locality for Agave atrovirens var mirabilis and one of the plants high on our wish list to see.  

As we got higher a dense fog started to roll up into the hills which made it impossible to see much further than a few metres ahead.  We saw a couple of young plants used in some roadside hedging, but nothing very impressive.  Also passed the type locality for Agave  polyacantha var xalapensis, which we could just about make out from the road.  

So we abandoned hope of botanising for the day and headed to Xalapa - a really cute colonial town where we found a good hotel and ate splendidly.

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