Thursday 8th November
A good breakfast at the restaurant next
to the one we ate at last night – must remember for next time, it is the one on
the right!
Set off and headed south. Stopped briefly As Mark wanted to look at
some pines. I got bored after about 5
seconds so had a wander and sitting there in the woods were a large population
of the same trunkless Nolina
sp we had seen yesterday. There were a healthy scattering of dasylirions and yuccas.
Several Yucca carnerosana,
in particular, making a decent population in the semi-shade of this pine wood
and we had seen it in similar conditions over the last couple of days. Stark contrast to the vast open sun scorched
plains where this species is usually to be seen.
There was also an agave we had seen earlier in the trip that I had taken
to be Agave striata but growing in
the shade. I have seen this on previous
trips but always in the sun. Having had
a better look at it I doubt this and suspect it might be Agave tenuifolia – but some way further north than it has been
found before. Difficult to be sure. When I returned home I sent pictures to my
Belgian friend and agave expert, Jos Van Roosbroek and he confirmed my
suspicions.
There were also a large number of cacti enjoying the shade of the woods
woods – including Echinocereus, Mammilaria, Opuntia, Cylindropuntia,
Tephrocactus and Ferocactus.
And this nice mahonia.
Further along we stopped again to look at yet another attractive
population of Agave gentryi scattered
through some woods and spilling out into the road cut.
We turned east towards Aramberri and through there towards General
Zaragoza. A short way along we stopped again
to take a look at some striking Brahea that were dangling tantalisingly over
the edge of the road cut together with a particularly glaucous agave.
Driving through General Zaragoza we took the road out of town and headed
for the large mountains ahead of us. The
road soon changed to a dirt track that quickly deteriorated in quality and size
as it got higher! After about an hour
or so of bumping along this road we stopped to investigate a promising looking
canyon. There were a few scattered plants
of Nolina hibernica, the ubiquitous Agave gentryi, a Dasylirion quadrangulatum, a rather striking Mahonia and, to my
surprise, a large colony of Agave mitis. I don’t know if it has been seen this far
north before – this site was around 2200m altitude.
Pressing onwards the road slowly began to improve as the gradient smoothed
out and I was back in my comfort zone again.
A few km on and there was a large population of Agave gentryi on both sides of the road. I was also surprised to see plants that
appeared to be Agave montana mixed in
with them, even though we were still at fairly low altitude at around
2200m. There were also a couple of
plants that, for my money, showed every sign of being intergrades between Agave gentryi and A. montana.
Then we pushed on – we had a lot of ground to cover as our aim was to make
it to Miquihuana. It was evident that we
wouldn’t make it anywhere near nightfall and I didn’t like the prospect of
driving along these poor quality roads too much in the dark. A couple of km on and we reached Ejido
Refugio – and the end of the road! I
decided to plumb in the SatNav to see what was going on and it seems we had
taken the wrong road out of General Zaragoza.
So we had to go back along that vertiginous stretch of road again then
back to General Zaragoza where we decided to spend the night. A basic but spotlessly clean hotel – Hotel
Olivia – and a decent meal at restaurante Ramirez.
2nd/3rd,
4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th,
9th,
10th,
11th,
12th,
13th,
14th,
15th/16th,