Wednesday 7th November

Our last excellent breakfast at the hotel. The usual maid/cook was evidently off as an extremely elderly lady appeared to be in charge. Slooooow but bigger portions and tastier food.

Eventually we got on the road, heading south down MEX57 then turning east into the mountains. After a few kilometres we stopped near a place called Jamé and wandered up a logging trail.

We saw some nice plants, including a decent sized population of some particularly handsome variations of Agave gentryi. Some, like this one in quite deep shade, were nearly toothless, some were quite glaucous, some had really wide leaves.

There was an exceptionally fine-looking species of the perennial Psacalium that can be seen in woodland throughout Mexico – these leaves were gorgeous. Also a small and stunningly glaucous Eryngium sp.

Stopping again further up the road we saw a nice colony of Agave lophantha and another trunkless clumping Nolina sp. This one was evidently different to the first we encountered a few days ago near Guanajuato – more robust with curlier leaf tips.

A few kilometres further on and the road deteriorated rather as we followed the river valley and not the higher passes as we’d hoped. Then we spotted a large colony of Yucca linearifolia – not sure anyone has been passed these before. They are more accessible in terms of distance from road and, from my perspective, no nasty slopes to negotiate.

Seeing more populations of this absolutely beautiful yucca has convinced me of how closely related it is to Yucca queretaroensis. It inhabits similar steep sided hillsides and looks almost identical – it is only when close up you can see the flattened leaves. It has the same suckering habit and is also apparently similarly shy of flowering with no sign of recent activity in this direction.

After an hour or so enjoying the yuccas we hit the road again as time was passing. The going was slow along a poor track although we passed through some magnicifent scenery.

We reached Rayones, some 55km later, as darkness fell, only to discover it wasn’t really a suitable place for a stop-over. So Mark did some heroic driving through clouds of dust from a lorry we were following in pitch black along a bumpy mountain-side track until we got to Galeana 20-odd km later. I’d stayed here before at the cheap and cheerful Hotel Jardin Colonial. Dinner in town was hearty.

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