The Cactus Trip Diaries

Ian persuaded us to stay in Puebla to help him celebrate his birthday. Alain asked me about the Dutch / Belgian tradition where the Birthday boy buys the first round to thank his friends for turning up. All I had to say was: Ian buy a drink?

The proposed restaurant had very loud music blaring right at us. Alain, Chris and I both have hearing difficulties and hated the environment so that we moved to another venue after the first round of drinks. Unfortunately, once we had sat down, this venue too turned out to need loud music to entertain the guests, plus, they ran out of food.

Here are excerpts of plants seen quoting from Ian’s missive for the 14th:

‘Today was always going to be mostly a driving day. The first cactus stop was where I’d found a clumping

Mammillaria growing 15 foot up on a Cephalocereus last year. It was still there though looking a bit more shrunken. An opportunity for the others to get more Cephalocereus shots including a seedling.

 

Before going to the restaurants we had posed for a group photo by an evacuation sign which was only held on by sticky tape. The lovely girl at reception had kindly taken the group picture. Unfortunately the sign had fallen down and broken when we were having the picture taken and when we returned she was quite distraught as her boss was demanding we pay for it (I think she was going to be charged herself but also felt bad asking us to pay). I did offer to tape it back up but no, a new sign is needed. Typical Mexico where most things are broken or heath Robinson efforts but in this case it has to be perfect.’

There is no rule that says that I have to write the diaries for today.

It was a great day and I took a lot more images (with a total of six stops) than so far, so I must be feeling better, although by no means 100%.

We tried the dashcam out yesterday – the old one we used in Baja in 2016 and I was a little disappointed with how grainy the movies looked. Today we swapped over to the new one and it is MUCH better! The old one kept cutting out – poor connection I guess – as the power cable is one of four plugged into the dashboard, for mobile phones, SatNavs and iPods as well. Tomorrow I will put it in a higher position as today we have the bottom thirds of the screen looking at the windscreen wipers.

Tonight Jonathan discovered that my anti virus software, AVG was blocking access to my Blog, presumably to protect me from the WordPress hackers. There are still other issues to resolve about browsers, so for now pkcactus.info stays asleep. I can’t get into Facebook either, but that is no great shame.

From: Ian Woolnough: excerpts from ‘Monday around Metztitlan’.
‘… we headed off to a location we had gone last year, above the laguna de Metztitlan. At first we were unsure it was the right road as rather than a graded track the road was now concrete. We were here in March and apparently between March and June they had concreted the whole road at the cost of squillions and for the benefit of 130 people. The Stenocactus were in flower but looking tatty and we decided against climbing down … A bit further along we had an explore turning up a 20 headed Ferocactus glaucescens a couple of Mammillaria species and lots of big Coryphantha clavata. There was also the red flowering Ferocactus in bud. Further along again on a rocky bluff there were some large Ferocactus histrix, Dolicothele longimamma and some small Mammillaria compressa types. Retracing our steps we stopped for a wall with Ferocactus growing in it and there were also flat clumps of a nice deep purple flowered Mammillaria.

Our car then made stops for Cephalocereus senilis and Echinocactus platyacanhus carpeting the hillsides. I’ve been feeling a bit feverish and coughy today again so hope I’m not relapsing as the others seem to have.’

PK protests: I did not relapse! I had not got over the cold in the first place! Old folks just take longer to recover!

Greetings from the only Hotel according to Alain – La Quinta Espanol in Metztitlan, for two nights. Last year no wifi, this year …. fingers crossed. The trip down the Barranca de Metztitlan was very dramatic. I set up my dashcam and while I was irritated by the continuous wobbly connection, it seems that I have gained 209 MOV files some of which look very good.

Nice clumps of Mams, some Feros and some caudiciforms – Fouquieria fasciculatus I believe, but wifi not strong enough to send images to Eunice to confirm.

I was fine until around midday, when I hit another brickwall – remember Baja 2013, Angie? – weak as a piece of string.Dinner (rib eye) in 15 minutes if I’m strong enough to chew it.

Ian’s missive reports:
‘Today we drove the Barranca from West to East. Much less nerve wracking when one knows what is ahead and daylight isn’t running out as it was last year! An amazing road with cut backs and stunning scenery. We even added a new plant with clumps of Mammillaria gracilis on the way down to complement at least 3 other Mammillarias including M compressa, Coryphantha clavata, red flowering Ferocactus, large Astrophytum ornatum and Gymnocactus horripilus. Down near the river there were large M. compressa, Ferocactus glaucescens, Echinocactus (platyacanthus) and clumps of Dolicothele longimamma.

Dropping down into the farmed valleys we started seeing Cephalocereus senilis but they will be a target for tomorrow. ….(over dinner) Margaritas got lost in translation so Alain, Chris and Paul ended up with a salad type dish but following incredulity, the liquid beverage
duly arrived.’

Apologies for the long silence. First of all, internet facilities, if present, were poor, probably not prepared for four people with electronic gadgets descending on them.

Secondly, we met up with Ian and Cliff last night. Cliff reported a news item that the WordPress server had been hit by a hacker. In any event, I have not been able to access it since the previous message on 5th February.

Thirdly, soon after arriving in Mexico we took turns in being laid up by ‘The Airline Lergy’, bugs picked up as we pass through the ‘petridishes of the world’ on the way here. Alain was the first to go down – I’ll spare you the details – Jonathan was next, followed by Chris and finally I succumbed.

After two days of not getting out of the car for stops and not being able to finish
off a pint of beer at night – yes, it WAS SERIOUS!! Today I’m feeling a bit better.

So, this message comes as a test from Jonathan’s laptop. An earlier attempt to use Alain’s keyboard (thanks for the offer, Alain) failed due to the fact that his laptop has a Belgium keyboard, with all the keys of a UK keyboard taken like a letters from a game of Scrabble, throwing them up in the air and rearranging them in random fashion. The result was worse than my usual laughable attempts, but would have so confused my proofreaders, Jonathan Clark and Brian Bates, to make them reach for that well known song of the 1960’s: ‘They’re coming to take me away haha hihi’ by Napoleon XIV.

I managed to take 99 images today, so must be feeling better, but when I compare the list of plants that I photographed with Ian’s missive for today, it seems that we were two
different trips!

I managed 99 images, with little walking – too weak!

Checking through the images back home, I listed:

Agave sp., Astrophytum ornatum, Coryphantha clavata, Echinocactus platyacanthus, Ferocactus glaucescens,F. histrix, F. latispinus, Fouquieria fasciculata, Hechtia sp., Mammillaria crinita wildii, M. geminispina, M. longimamma, M. polythele ‘obcanella’, Opuntia sp., Quercus sp (Oak), Sedum (?) sp., Tillandsia sp., Yucca sp.

And this is Ian’s for the Saturday 11th.: ‘… it was good to see Paul was looking better than

We were heading for Ixmiquilpan to meet up with Ian Woolnough and Cliff Thompson, who had started their Mexico Trip about a week before us and had followed a different route.

But first we had to get there. I managed just eleven images during two stops,  S3567 and S3568. At least my sense of humour was coming back, judging by the image to the right. One tope too many?

Sometimes it’s difficult to tell what genus a cactus belongs to!

Experts? Bah!

I came across a copy of an email written today to Ian Woolnough in response to his email enquiring how I was.

I replied: ‘Could be better! Alain was first to go down with the dreaded lergy. We then took it in turns, me last. Today I was limited to hanging in my seat.

Also lap top is playing up so driving a bit in the dark.’

I still managed to take images at three stops. The first (S3564) was near Rio Verde to show Chris and Jonathan the Turbinicarpus lophophoroides site. Last year Alain and co. failed to find any plants, this year we found more than a dozen very dehydrated plants and holes where plants had disappeared. Illegal collection? Or natural death? A parasite has been observed by others affecting some of the 15 populations reported by other explorers between Rio Verde and Ciudad del Maiz.

Driving through San Luis Potosi I now felt on more familiar territory, having visited the State three times before.

We passed through the town of Vizaron and stopped at ‘our usual’ Strombocactus disciformis stop S3561.

I can’t remember much about S3562, except that I took two images: one of a Ferocactus echidne, that didn’t turn out too well and one of Mammillaria elongata that turned out worse – time for some more cough medicine and paracetamols.

Alain was excited to show us a Ferocactus at S3563, which he thought looked ‘different’ when he was here in 2016. They did look ‘different’, as noted by Britton & Rose and George Lindsay. who called it Ferocactus victoriensis and F. echidne subsp. victoriensis respectively. When I get home I must look up the differences and also sort out where fma. rafaelensis fits in.

The cold mentioned yesterday hits fast and overnight I woke up with the feeling of raizorblades in my throat. During the day I developed a raised temperature, slowing me down, just taking three pictures  at the Best Western in Colima. Chris and Jonathan’s room had a small balcony from which you could observe the volcano that had been in the news due to its recent explosion. It was far away and difficult to see through the haze and volcanic output.

None of us had the energy to get closer, with our cold dulling our enthusiasm and with cactus habitats tempting us away.

What we saw was a good deal less spectacular than yesterday’s image from the internet.

The first part of today’s drive is again through the Sierra Madre Sur, the southern part of the Sierra Madre Occidental, before a flatter terrain crossed into the State of Colima.

This time, the attraction is to spend the night in view of the Volcan de Colima that was reported on the BBC News as erupting, briefly pushing the Trump inauguration into the background as I was preparing the details for this trip.

The spectacular image below is from the internet and is what we hoped to see.

As an educational exercise, I can report that once we were out of the mountains, the state is covered in banana trees.

It seems that several of us have managed to catch an Airport / flight cold. I’m OK so far, but there is no escaping such bugs in the confines of a car.