Friday 2^nd and Saturday 3^rd November

It really doesn’t seem like two years have passed since my last trip but I once again found myself at Heathrow Airport waiting my flight to Madrid, then onwards to Mexico City. My fellow travellers this time were Mexico veterans Neil Armstrong, Mark Fillan and also Billy Alexander - his first visit. All things considered we made up a motley crew with broad botanical interests that promised to make our time rewarding.

Travelling was smooth enough, arriving into Mexico City around 7am. By the time we had cleared border control it was nearly 9am so straight to the car hire office to pick up the Jeep Liberty I had reserved. After some discussion we hit the road around 8am in a Hyundai H100 people carrier – which actually proved to our advantage in terms of passenger space and overall comfort for the fortnight. A new gizmo for this trip – I had downloaded a map of Mexico for my SatNav in an attempt to make navigating in and out of Mexico City less haphazard. Well, it worked - straight out and no false turns!

A short way onto MEX57 we stopped for breakfast at a roadside comedor – good solid meal before heading away. We made a brief tourist stop at San Miguel de Allende then onwards towards the city of Guanajuato, where we had a room booked for our first night.

A short distance before reaching Guanajuato we stopped to do a little botanising, having spotted a small colony of Dasylirions. Some research reveals these to be a population of Dasylirion acrotriche var occidentalis, a variety of the species with which I am more familiar further east where it is represented by the more compact form – D. acrotriche var acrotriche. Mark spotted a Bletilla peeking out from one plant – the first of many orchids seen during our fortnight.

Arrived in Guanajuato and eventually found Hotel Misión Guanajuato, just out of town. Nice place, if a little sprawling. Took a taxi into the centro historico for a look around and dinner, both of which were great. Curious place, built on a steep hill with narrow roads and a network of tunnels delivering traffic to key points.

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