The Cactus Trip Diaries

We opened the curtains of our room at the Desert Inn at Loreto early in the morning and watched another beautiful sunrise, framed by palm trees as a little dot on the horizon became a huge cruise liner. It dropped anchor as close to the shore as it dared. What was that scraping noise? Must have been the noise of the chain as the anchors went down. (S3407).

Around 11 a.m. we could all do with a leg stretch (S3408) and although we failed to spot Feros from the car at 100 kph, they soon appeared in their ones and twos once we walked into the desert. According to the distribution map in Nigel Taylor’s 1984 Bradleya article, we were now in Ferocactus peninsulae subspecies townsendianus country. While the books claim that this taxon is in the group that has hollow fruits from which the seeds escape through a pore created when the ripe fruit drops off the plant, the plant that we examined had a fruit that came off the plant easily but did not (yet?) have the pore and contained its seed in a very juicy mucilage. You just can’t trust cacti to read the books and live up to their descriptions!

We headed north at Ciudad Insurgentes and stopped at a small roadside chapel that are so common in Latin America. This one was a bit more sinister, judging by the art work:

Have a nice day!

We carried on to Puerto Adolpho Lopez Mateos, which people had recommended to us for a whale watching trip. We had planned to do this from San Ignacio but with all the upheaval with the fire there we had resigned ourselves to do this on the way home. As the opportunity was there and the price was right – a whole boat for the three of us without all the waiting, we jumped at the chance. The boat ride made a nice change after the hours spent in the car but the number of whales spotted was rather low. I guess that we’ve been spoilt by previous trips. Jonathan however was very pleased.