Monday 1st March

Up early to make our breakfast appointment - no water!  Oops.  No sign of life at the cafe, either, so we got going.  Our route took us through a road I passed along last trip - one of the most interesting drives I have ever undertaken starting in steamy tropics, up through cloud forest, into temperate woodland, back down into arid valleys and ending at the truly fantastic city of Oaxaca.

Here are some pics that kind of track the journey - a big handsome schefflera (I assume) down in the jungly bit.

A few treeferns, not sure which species this is.

This one is Cyathea bicrenata

This is our jeep.  Lovely thing.

The awesome Cyathea princeps - me at the base for scale.  Pic obviously taken by Neil.

This is another schefflera thing.

Here a grumpy looking lizard

And another schefflera - actually quite high in the temperate woods, this one.  I didn't actually notice any schefflera at all first time around, so to see 3 different species along the one stretch of road was really exciting.

Temperate woodland with large numbers of epiphytes - here tillandsias

Here some echeverias growing on trunks.  Not sure of the species but probably Echeveria nebularum.

And here a rather attractive senecio of some sort.

Not a long journey but, as you can imagine, it took us quite a while.  Too long, sadly, to make our intended stop at Ixtlán but instead we drove straight on to Oaxaca, where Hotel Roma (600 pesos) with it's handy off-street parking awaited.  Dined at Flor de Oaxaca - I started with sopa azteca then tamale oaxaqueña - divine.  All walked off with a stroll around town.  It was great to be back.

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