El Rosario

Continuing south-east, I stop at Tehuacan, a city of a quarter of a million known for supplying much of Mexico's bottled water. It doesn't have many historic buildings but it's a good example of a working city that's almost tourist-free. I'm staying the wrong side of the tracks (used for freight only) but the hotel more or less lives up to its name. Certainly regarding the breakfast; for the "huevos enfrijoladas", the appetising dish of tortillas and beans is just the starter!

So far, so usual. But Tehuacan lies on the edge of the Tehuacan-Cuicatlan biosphere reserve. This may seem a mouthful, but for me is compulsive because of the forests of huge cacti growing much further south of the better-known regions of Baja and Sonora. The hotel manageress explains how to get there by bus towards the village of Zapotitlan. It takes only half an hour and although it's a Saturday, I get the reserve nearly to myself. A third of the plant species are believed to be endemic and more than half of Mexico's cactus species appear here. Wow!Read more