Tuesday 13th November

Delightful breakfast at hotel then on the road at 8am. We were aiming to explore a road in the direction of Rio Verde that looked promising on the map but in reality was too tropical to be of much interest. We had a mooch about at this small canyon where all sorts of interesting things were growing.

Around the corner and further on we encountered this rather nice agave. Possibly a large form of Agave lophantha, these plants were 1.2m across and the inflorescence 5m.

The same rockface boasted the largest Dioon edule I have seen in the wild and also this other agave I cannot identify.

The road ended at the small town of Tancoyol, one of a handful of towns in the region with the Misión churches – this is a slightly smaller version of the one in Jalpan but tucked away in the middle of nowhere along a small poor quality road. A bright, neatly kept zocalo and fairly new bandstand proves these mission towns are not too poor.

We then headed back to the main road and off in the opposite direction towards Pinol de Amoles. A turnoff took us on a short hike towards a cascade. The weather wasn’t great – it was dark and raining – but the walk through the forest was delightful.

We were pleased to find Lophosora quadripinnata growing in abundance at the streamsides and also the cute-but-scruffy little palm Chamaedorea microspadix. The cascade was quite impressive, too.

By this time it was getting dark and we were getting wet, so we headed back to Jalpan. We wandered into town for dinner and had a nice mixed grill between us.

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