The Cactus Trip Diaries

Greetings from Mision Santa Maria, San Quintin.

Yes, I know, we were going to be at Catavina BUT

I had managed to obtain another 20 or so Echinocereus lindsayi locations. Looked very exciting, then looking at traffic on MEX1, what had been a quiet road had turned into the USA in mobile villages heading south. As you know, Catavina can be sensitive to block bookings, so we wanted to get there earlyish with the option to pull through to San Quintin if need be.

We kept the number of morning stops down to essential leg stretch & toilet stops (S3016 and S3017) and although as we pulled over, they looked unpromising, we saw some nice and interesting plants. For a start there was a Dudleya that I will have to find a name for. Also found were nice large clumps of Echinocereus maritimus. There was a pencil Chola that was showing signs of growth and shyly had put out some nice but small yellow flowers; very nice and delicate for a plant that will its spines in your leg if you get too close. It never ceases to amaze me that when you stop at the least likely for cacti places, you end up with a real treasure trove of plants.

We found the turning to the ‘new’ E. lindsayi track but in less than half a k.m. it became clear that this road was not for our little Kia. A heavy-duty 4×4 may be, and better with two cars in case one needs to be pulled out by the other. We did not fancy a 5 km walk, in the heat so turned round. In the words of Arnie: I’ll be back.

As a result we got to Cataviña much too early to check in, and so headed straight to the Mision hotel in Santa Maria, with certain wifi, to catch up on some diaries.

Dudleya anthonyi day tomorrow with lunch at the Old Mill, but as we know, plans can change!