Mexico's Tehuacán-Cuicatlán Biosphere Reserve, the World's Largest Cactus Forests.

Cactus covered in buds

This winter I went south of the border again, a four month adventure, returning to Mexico to explore regions I've longed to see more of.  For the first time I rented a car with a college friend to get a closer look at the Reserva Biosferica Tehuacán-Cuicatlán in Puebla and Oaxaca States.  I had been through the area before using public transport but having a car made it possible to see the region in a way that few people do.   We rented the car in the city of Puebla and dropped it off in Oaxaca, which adds considerably to the cost, so it is worth considering returning to where you started. 

Intertwining Teteche Cactus and Tree at Jardin Botanico Helia Bravo-Hollis

The landscapes we passed through here are seldom explored, and contain the largest cactus forests on Earth.  UNESCO designated the region a World Heritage Site on July 2nd of 2018.  I had been to the city of Tehuacán, in the State of Puebla twice and did day trips to the nearby Helia Bravo-Hollis Botanic Garden 28 kilometers east of Tehuacán.  

Jardin Botanico Helia Bravo Hollis 

The collection is at the base of a hill that is more wild and connected to the reserve, with large stands of cacti and views of the surrounding mountains.  Having a car made it easy to stop at the ancient salt pans along the way, and towns where they mine and fabricate objects from Alabaster.  

Zapotitlán Salinas Salt Pans

These salt pans have been active for 2,000 years and the salt is said to be perfect for cooking beans and vegetables.  The surrounding mountains are covered in forests of a columnar cactus called Teteche, Neobuxbaumia tetetso.  

Teteche Cacti cover the slopes on mountains west of Tehuacán

Helia Bravo-Hollis was the first woman to study biology in Mexico, starting her education around the turn of the century.  She went on to be the leading expert on Cactus in Mexico and helped develop the botanic garden here and also in Mexico City at UNAM, the National Autonomous University of Mexico where she was a researcher and professor for many years.  If you want to learn more about this pioneering woman this is an interesting article to read: https://www.sciencehistory.org/education/scientific-biographies/helia-bravo-hollis/.  

A sign mounted on the skeletons of cacti

Teteche Cacti forests near Zapotitlán

The first two times I visited this area it was very quiet.  It seems to have been discovered more recently as there were two tour buses and a much larger staff.  Guided tours are required now and we spent a lot of time standing around in a building talking about the ancient sea floor geologic formation of the region and not so much time in the garden.  We ended up splitting off as I knew what was out there along the paths in the wilder parts of the garden we would have otherwise missed, including a 500+ year old Beaucarnia gracilis, the Ponytail Palm.  Its not a palm though, but from the Asparagaceae family, with an Elephant foot like trunk and Doctor Seuss foliage.   I've always loved these in cultivation but it is much more exciting to see them growing in the wild.

An ancient specimen of Beaucarnia gracilis in the Jardin Botanico Helia Bravo-Hollis 

An Observation Tower provides views of the surrounding desert and encroaching development from the town of Zapotilán

The garden also has some new murals that explore the ethnobotanical and spiritual connections between the people who inhabit the region and the desert.

Murals in the Visitor's Center

After our visit we drove in to the nearby town of Zapotitlán for lunch.  Zapotitlán is known for the use of cacti and insects in the local cuisine.  

Exotic Insects from the Desert

I passed on the insects and had a very nice chicken breast stuffed with cactus flowers in a cactus based sauce.  Yum.

The Tehuacán valley has one of the oldest known agricultural histories on Earth, dating back at least 12,000 years.  This history combined with the extraordinary biodiversity of the region is what led to the area's designation as a World Heritage Site.  I had been to the ruins at Tehuacán Viejo a couple of years before.  The forest here is more dense, punctuated by large sculptural clumps of Yucca periculosa.

Yucca periculosa at Tehuacán Viejo

The ruins of the city, which flourished for 500 years from 1000 AD to the Spanish Conquest in 1520 includes an impressive pyramid dedicated to the Rain God Tlaloc and expansive ceremonial plazas.  The setting below an escarpment of Sedimentary rock cliffs is spectacular.  

The Templo Mayor, dedicated to the Rain God Tlaloc at Tehuacán Viejo

Paths leading through the dry forest are lined with pink striped Hechtias who's spiny spotted leaves keep people from straying in to the bush.  Being the dry season most of the trees had defoliated.   

Candelabra Cereus Cacti, Pachycereus weberi

Hechtia tehuacán lining the path leading to the Templo Mayor

Agaves growing underneath a canopy of Bursera Trees.

Red spots embellish the textural clumps of Hechtia tehuacan.

The ruins have an impressive visitor center and museum building that is unfortunately unused.  The architecture and plantings are wonderfully suited to the site.  When I came here two years ago I was the only person visiting at the time.  There were a few families this time.

The Visitor Center at Tehuacán Viejo

Driving back to town, the sprawl of homesteading in the valley leaves and ugly scar on the landscape.  I spotted a sign that said Cueva del Diablo pointing down a dirt track.  Anything that has to do with the Devil is a form of temptation for me, so off we went.  Once we had passed the junk strewn homesteads we approached the beautiful mountains that are inaccessible to tourists from Tehuacán Viejo.  

The track to Cueva del Diablo

I always think of the saying "Don't be gentle, its a rental" when taking a little car down rough roads more suitable to a 4 Wheel Drive.  We were justly rewarded as clumps of large Barrel Cacti, Echinocactus platyacanthus appeared.  They are known as Biznagas here.

Love me some big Biznagas.

 Even more exciting as we approached the cliffs were the large numbers of Beaucarnia gracilis.  They are clearly happy in this area as there were hundreds of them, a wonderful sight to behold.

Groves of Beucarnia gracilis

The road became so rough that I parked the car and we walked to where it ended, at what looked like an abandoned tourist attraction.  Pools had been built in the dry creek bed and there was a hand made suspension bridge and a slide.  There was a large pickup truck parked there but we didn't see anybody.  So we hiked up the trail, but it was very hot and steep so we never made it to the cave.  

An old concrete slide

Hiking back up the road, a couple from Tehuacán drove up in the pickup truck we had seen.  They had hiked all the way up to the cave and showed us photos of it on their phone.  As is common in Mexico, they were so friendly that they offered to take us up there the next day.  Unfortunately we had reservations in a house a few hours west for the next night so we weren't able to take them up on their offer.  I'm so glad we took this detour though.  Such a beautiful area.

Beucarnias and Teteche Cacti at the base of the mountains.

The place we stayed in Tehuacán is the beautiful old Gran Hotel de Mexíco, which was closed for major renovations during Covid when I returned my second time.  The once grand suites are much smaller updated rooms now but the common courtyard areas still have lovely gardens, and there is a swimming pool.  I loved it more in it's original condition but it is still very nice.  The morning after our first night there was an earthquake in the state of Guerrero, where Acapulco is located.  There was an alarm and the building shook and all of the guests quickly gathered in their pajamas and nightgowns in the courtyard in the cool morning air.  

Gran Hotel de Mexíco

It is reasonably priced and has an attractive restaurant so if you decide to explore this region I recommend staying here.  Few foreigners come to Tehuacán which makes it a nice off the beaten track destination.  

A map showing attractions in the area

The next day we drove five hours west on a seldom used road to the town of Santa María Tecomavaca, which is across the border in the state of Oaxaca.  Much of the area is agricultural, irrigated by the Salado and Tomelin Rivers.  A now abandoned railway originally connected the many small settlements to sugar mills.  Before the road was built the railroad had a monopoly on travel in the region.  Along the way, dramatic outcrops of sedimentary rock made the drive more interesting.

There is very little accomodation in this area and I had booked a VRBO in what turned out to be the rather forlorn town of Santa María Tecomavaca.  Much of the town appeared to be deserted.  We assumed that many people had migrated to the United States to find a better life.  

Many buildings have been abandoned in the sleepy town of Santa Maria Tecomavaca.

The few shops sold chips and beer and soft drinks and everything looked like it had been sitting on the shelves for quite some time.  There were no restaurants, but the woman our hosts hired to greet us made arrangements for a local woman to deliver breakfast and dinner over the four nights we stayed there.  She made some tasty meals and we always had a little chat when she and her daughter set the table.  It was a strange place to be based but the area is spectacular so we spent the days exploring various roads in to the mountains.  The house was right off the highway, with a long porch and two hammocks, and a small garden.  The inside was a long hall with a long table and plastic chairs.  The family must have big meals when they are there.  We joked that we could sit at opposite ends of the table like a scene from movie.

Our Living/Dining Room

The next day we drove east to a dirt road we could see on Google Maps.  Tiny crooked lines making their way over the mountains.  The ravines of seasonal creeks makes for continuous curves.  Nobody up here, all to ourselves.  There are wonderful groves of cacti to be found.

A dirt road winds its way through the cactus forested mountains east of Santa María Tecomavaca.

We pulled over whenever we saw something captivating.  You start to notice how the predominant species of cacti there have conditions they favor, so groves of columnar Cephalocereus tetetzo and Candalabra Cactus, Pachycereus weberi are often found in groves.

A cactus garden with Opuntia, Cephalocereus, and Pachycereus.  I don't know the identity of the trees.

I've been beholden to a few websites to learn the identity of the plants we were seeing.  Hardy cacti are starting to catch on in Portland, Oregon where I live but I only know a handful by name.  A lot of what I get out of writing these lengthy essays for this blog is that I am forced to do research and learn more about topics on which I am writing.  This is a biologically amazing part of the world and I want to know the identities of the plants.  Somebody please publish a book with plant ID's covering this region?

I think this is a curvy variant of a Candelabra Cactus

We made arrangements through Jessica, our house contact, to hire a guide to take us up the nearby Cañon de Alas Verde.  A short, stout man named Rodrigo walked to the house and I drove 20 kilometers in the direction of Oaxaca to a locked gate to which Rodrigo had a key.  The main draw here are endangered blue and green Macaws, called Guacamaya verde, who live in pockets in the sheer sedimentary cliffs of the canyon.  We were the only people up here today.  

Rodrigo opening the gate

The road follows the Sabino river up to a parking area next to a developed camp ground.  There is a picnic shelter and small bunk houses and tent areas for organized groups.  It would be a cool place to camp and explore the river bed. and the trails on both sides of the canyon.  

The Picnic Shelter in the campground

The path begins with river stone paved steps climbing up a steep hill to higher views out over the cactus covered valley.  The diversity of plants is so interesting.  There are Bursera Trees with different colors of shiny peeling bark.  These are Copal, who's dense hard wood is used for making utensils, and more famously as the source for a distinctive incense used in rituals.  

Looking down the canyon.

As we climbed higher the diversity of plants grew even more interesting.  The canyon walls become precipitous with the river far below.  The geology is sedimentary, with conglomerate stone from ancient sea beds.  Sometimes fossils are found.  the formations are interesting and the vegetation has found ways to thrive in the cracks and thin soils covering the bedrock.

Conglomerate rock formations provide unlikely places for Copal trees and Cacti to grow.

Conglomerate rock are made up of small stones pressed together in a matrix of clay and sand under incredible and pressure to form a geologic mass.

This region has one of the highest concentrations of the cactus genus Mammillaria, small pincushion plants that grow in clusters.  There are over 200 species and subspecies, many of which are cultivated ornamentally for their textural shapes and spectacular flowers.  The word Mammillaria is derived from the Latin word Mammilla, which refers to a nipple.

One of the more distinctive varieties is Mammillaria dixanthrocentron, with dense white spines.  These were growing in magical clusters in dried beds of moss over bedrock.

As we climbed higher, Rodrigo took me out on to a ledge looking down in the deep canyon below.  Just a tad of acrophobia but I paid close attention to where I was stepping and the view was thrilling.

The Macaws roost in holes in the sides of the cliffs.  You can hear the loud squawks of the birds and then see flashes of color as pairs swoop across the canyon.  They are moving pretty fast so it is hard to get a great photo but they were wonderful to see and the coloring is brilliant.

Rodrigo had no issues standing at the edge of the precipice.  

A blurred image of a pair of Military Macaws flying across the Cañon Alas Verdes.

We started this hike in the afternoon to avoid the heat, and now the sun was going down and the glare that obscured the canyon was gone.  The unusual plant communities gave the landscape a surreal quality.  Hechtias make up the understory in some areas.  Agaves cling to the cliff faces.

Another trail with precariously placed huts follows the edge of the other side of the canyon.

Opuntia Prickly Pear Cacti growing in moss on the canyon rim.

An understory of Hechtias and Agave.

I'm glad Rodrigo wasn't in a hurry and we took our time getting back.  The air cooled as the afternoon turned to evening, and it was almost dark by the time we got back to the parking area.  What a magical hike.

The bark on this Bursera looked silver in the early evening light.  Called Cuajioté in the Nahuatl' language, these aromatic trees are the source of the incense Copal.

We passed this blooming Agave on the way back.  The flower stalk was covered with a variety of pollinating insects.

Looking back up the Cañon

The end to a beautiful day.

Traveling in exotic locations can sometimes take a toll on the body, and my traveling companion was feeling it.  He spent the next day in bed, so I took the car out and explored another road on the other side of the valley from the Cañon we had been to the day before.  

A mesa along the road to Santiago Quiotepec

The town of Santiago Quiotepec resides on a terrace above the Rio Grande, which is lined with orchards of Citrus, with a focus on Limes.  The mountains rise steeply above the valley with some dramatic cliffs and rock formations.  Quiotepec translates to mean the hill of the stalk of the Agave.  There are Zapotec ruins, including a pyramid but I couldn't figure out how to access them across the river.  The Zapotec were able to grow tropical crops here that couldn't be cultivated at the higher altitudes of the Oaxaca Valley. 

Considered a gateway to this part of the region, the road passes an abandoned railway station and a small village before climbing up to the old town.  The church is the most prominant building in town, as is true with most Mexican villages, but it is dwarfed by the red sandstone cliffs that encloses the valley.  

Like most of these small towns, things were very quiet.  I parked and walked around town, and climbed a hill and was surprised to see a young couple from Europe who had also rented a car.  They acted as if I wasn't there, so maybe I was invisible today.  

A burro in the street surrounded by Adobe buildings.

View of the church from a nearby hill. 

A ceremonial ring marking the Cardinal Points with stone seats at the top of the hill.

The road out of town rises quickly in to the dry forested mountains.  Vultures were circling overhead and in the far distance I could see the road climbing at a steep angle up and over the far ridge.  Leaving the irrigated farm land behind, the desert reigns supreme.

These vultures fly north to the United States in Summer.

The cacti up here are just spectacular.  Giant specimens of Pachycereus weberii seemed to have a more bluish cast here.

I wish I could offer the identification of the various cacti in these photos.  I've done a lot of research on the internet and found one blog where the writers knew the botanical names of the cacti they saw while exploring the region but they don't identify many individual species in their photos.  They do give the locations where they encountered them.  Some have small populations found in limited areas.  A slope or ravine would have Pachycereus on one side and species that favor shade from the afternoon sun on the other.  

Massive Pachycereus webberi specimens, distinctive for their candelabra form.

If you know what these are please make a comment at the end of the blog.

Fortunately we never had issues with flat tires.  This feels like the middle of nowhere, a huge part of Mexico that few experience. 

Looking down on the Rio Grande 

These stately cacti can be 250 years old.

Small white flowers emerge in Winter

I was able to pull over when the road curved to cross ravines that must rage during times of heavy rainfall.  Bursera trees must have deep roots that reach down to any remaining moisture during the dry season. 

Beautiful specimens of Brusera simaruba in a ravine in the Sierra La Cañada 

At higher altitudes mountain slopes are cleared for pastureland.

The road is a long winding continuous grade climbing over the mountain range.  The steepness and instability of the road cuts have resulted in one of the two concrete paved lanes being covered in rockfalls, but I think I only saw one car the entire time.  Miradors, places to pull over and take in the view are infrequent but I stopped whenever I could.

Clusters of fruit forming on a huge specimen of Pachycereus.

Tillandsias are an epiphytic plant somewhat like a bromeliad.  Called Air Plants, they don't grow in soil.  There are over 600 known species in ecosystems ranging from the Southeastern US to Argentina.  Some take to cacti and many were blooming in January.  

Tillandsia growing on a towering cactus

Eventually as I climbed higher up the mountain Oak forests appeared.  This is the Sierra Madre de Oaxaca, a region where over 2000 species of plants have been identified.  Most of the oaks are evergreen and I've read there are at least 30 species.  It's actually part of an Oak-Pine ecosystem that stretches all the way from Nicaragua, which I explored some of last year, all the way to Oregon in the United States where I live.  There are cacti poking up in places in the oak forests but gets much greener in the highest altitudes with many Pine Trees.

Looking down on the town farming town of San Juan Coyula

I started to think it was time to turn around.  It would be interesting to carry on through the mountains and see what is out there, the vast varied mountains of Mexico.  But we have another road to explore tomorrow, and the drive back to Quiotepec is amazing.  

Such a beautiful canyon.

A spiny shrub with terminal clusters of small white flowers I saw growing by the road.

I turned off from town and came upon a rough track through a small canyon that is being promoted as a mountain bike trail.  I drove as far as I safely could and then walked.  The solitude is vast.  I cant overstate the magnificence of the flora of this region.  The cacti are spectacular, majestic columns and candelabras, with the shiny bark of Copal trees laced around them.

I bet this is a great bike ride 

A wonderful juxtaposition of forms

Living Sculpture

The town was so sleepy that I slipped through unoticed.  I stopped to check out the abandoned train station, which has a terraced planting of Agaves and Cacti.

The golden hour is usually the best time to take photos.  This view on the Rio Grande capped off a beautiful day of exploration,

The Rio Grande

Chris was feeling better the next day so after a big breakfast, we set out for the region's most interesting town, Cuicatlán.  If there is reasonable accommodation here it would be a good place to stay.  The setting, below dramatic red sandstone cliffs, is dramatic.  It felt positively cosmopolitan after Santa Maria Tecomavaca.  There is a mercado, and a zocalo, and a place to buy paletas.  I eat one or two almost every day.  They are delicious popsicles made with fresh fruit or a myriad of other popular Mexican flavors.  

Selling outside the Mercado

Before we checked out the town we drove up in to the mountains.  We had read about a rock overhang that has ancient pictographs dating back over 10,000 years.  I climbed up the snaking road carved from the hills.  The south facing slope was very warm.  

I drove to the crest of the mountains.  No sign of any trailheads but the views were grand, and it was tempting to drive on and on.  

Sites like this are very vulnerable to vandalism so it is probably best to keep the location discreet.  I pulled over and we scouted out a scrubby area not far from the road, where we ran in to a man herding goats.  He told us that he knew where it was and would show us if we drove him there.  He had goats in that area too.  So we drove half a kilometer or so and parked, and then hiked up a very narrow, somewhat obscure path.  We never would have found it on our own, and the journey was the best part.

Chris and I love plants, hence the reason we made this trip.  He lives in San Diego the desert is all around.  If I'm driving I tend to stop a lot.  Ooo, big Agave, screech.

For such a dry hot place, there is so much diversity.

Time to hit the town.  As much as I love Nature, I was ready for some civilization.  While very sedate, there were people about, and things to buy.  Looking for a place to park, we passed some really interesting and well executed murals.  

I took this from the window of the car as I drove by.

We walked through the mercado and bought some produce and was so happy when we found a Paleteria.  I ate two while we sat in the shade of tall trees in the Zocalo next to the church.  The central gazebo bandstand has a mural inside the dome of local people of varying ages levitating in to the sky.  I thought about a story Rodrigo, our guide in Cañon Alas Verde told about consuming hallucinogenic mushrooms as a cultural ritual in this region.  Levitation.

Flying with the Macaws

I opted to ride a one eared bunny.

After lunch we did a mural tour.  Quiet streets, laid out in a classic Spanish grid here are galleries of wonderfully varied art.  The Mexican paint company Comex seems to have donated the paint the artists used, in exchange for adding a simple company name off to one side.  Subjects were often trippy, dreamlike, supernatural, while interacting with Nature.

Murals bring vibrancy to the streets of Cuicatlán

La Abuela

Venado

This is only a portion of the murals we saw on our walk.  Really wonderful afternoon,.

Girl, Bird, Mushrooms and a Cement Mixer

My favorite mural in town

Blue on Blue

Cactus y Cerveza

Nice to have a dose of art mixed in with all the botany.  I drove us back to Santa Maria Tecomaváca for our last night there.  The light was luminous and I couldn't help but pull over to capture these images.  What a wonderful World.

The next day we checked out of our drove to Oaxaca, the end of this leg of the journey.  We climbed up from the desert in to oak forests of the Sierra Madre de Oaxaca.  The trees looked drought stressed to me  as it was deep in to the dry season.  The rain should come in May, although weather patterns are changing.  The diversity of interesting plants continues to be amazing.  

Tillandsias cling to the branches of evergreen oaks.  

Nine species of Pines grow at the higher elevations.  I think what we were seeing were Montezuma Pine, Pinus montezumae.  The forests are not pristine, but a great deal is still intact.  The mountains of Mexico are vast and varied and I hope to explore more by car in the future.

Signs of deforestation as the population of Mexico rises.

Pinus montezumae 

The outskirts of Oaxaca are not pretty, and rather chaotic after being on mostly deserted roads for a week.  The natural landscape mostly disappeared.  Eventually we reached the historic center, found the nice apartment we rented for a week, and returned the rental car.  I first visited Oaxaca when I was 25 years old.  My first winter trips were in Mexico and I had a lot of adventures.  The sprawl was much smaller back then.  The Oaxaca Valley is very special.  Signs of agriculture, squash seeds that date back 10,000 years were found near Mitla.  A number if villages with distinct personalities and dress dot the wide valley.  The Zapotecs flourished here and built the sacred centers of Monte Alban, Yagúl, and Mitla.  There are a number of smaller pyramid and temple complexes if you have the time to visit them. 

Yagul gets far fewer tourists than Monte Alban or Mitla.  I think it is my favorite.

When the Spanish arrived, they discovered a red pigment that could be extracted from a mealy bug that infests Opuntia, Prickly Pear cacti.  Cocineal comes from the female insect, which develops a waxy case for protection from the sun.  This contains a red pigment called Carmine that was treasured by the Spanish court.  Oaxaca boomed in the 16th Century as Cocineal was worth more by weight than gold.  Different orders of the Catholic Church built chapels and convents and a grand cathedral on the Zocalo.  

The Catholic Church is the heart of so much of Mexico.

We stayed in Oaxaca for a week and then rented another car for another week to explore the mountains to the north of the city.  While there I saw an exhibition Endenismo, work by prominent Oaxacan artists from several generations  had been inspired by group trips out in the the Tehuacán-Cuicatlán Biosphere Reserve.  For many of them, it had been a place you crossed but not necessarily explored.  Each artist created paintings, photographs, and mixed media.  

Painting by Felipe Morales

Painting by Jarol Moreno

After a week in the city, we rented a car and I drove us to Yagul, Mitla, way up in to the mountains to the north, and then back to the valley.  Oh Mexico, how I love you.

Hierva el Agua

Hierva el Agua, Travertine springs at the top of a deep canyon between Oaxaca and Mitla.

It took me forever to get around to finishing writing this after starting it 6 months ago.  We had a beautiful summer in Portland, while much of the northern hemisphere sweltered.  Too many distractions to keep me from getting this written.  I hope you enjoyed reading it.  Thanks, Jeffrey

Oaxaca State harbors the largest number of Agave species in the World.