The Cactus Trip Diaries

Prologue:

Regular Diary readers will have noticed a gap between my flight to the US on 3 February and today.

Just as I was about to take up my squat outside the admin office at the Desert Inn – the only place where you can pick up a wifi signal – the generator shut down for the day. Without electricity to power our laptops or the internet router we took breakfast and hit Mex 1 for a day in the Desert.

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S2205 was at km 195 and was just an early morning legs stretch in an area that I had photographed extensively in 2008. Plants photographed this time: Senecio sp. Ferocactus sp. Mammillaria dioica fa. Echinocereus engelmannii, Fouquieria columnaris, F. diguetii, Pachycereus (Lophocereus) schottii, Cylindropuntia sp. and a Solinaceae sp. in flower and in fruit

S2206 was a short comfort break where I spotted some nice Ferocactus sp.

All the above plants were seen again at S2207. A lovely blue sky with windswept clouds enhance the mainly scenic pictures taken.

S2208 was a specific stop to see Dudleya gatesii. To me the plants looked very similar to D. cultrata that we had seen yesterday – more reading to do and no doubt seeing these plants in flower will help. There were lots of Agave shawii around but my eye was caught by two plants that had exceptionally fierce large teeth along the leaves and the single spine tip of the leave was twisted like a corkscrew. Very nice plants!

We arrived in Guerrero Negro in time for a drive to the lighthouse (S2209). In 2008 Alain and I did this in the morning and were entertained by huge flocks of migrating birds – geese, ducks and a range of waders. As we were here almost exactly at the same dates as in 2008, I was expecting a similar spectacle, but I was disappointed, particularly as the light was not good for photography of the few birds that were within camera reach.