The next morning we left towards Zimapán, a trip that takes a complete day only driving. We passed by again Tamazunchale and then took highway 85 heading southwest into the state of Hidalgo again. The road was endless winding up and down first along the Moctezuma river south of the Sierra Gorda and then through the Parque Nacional Los Marmoles, with great limestone canyons (unfortunately we had no time to explore the area, perhaps some Pings can be found there in the valleys as well). Then the area turned very dry again when we entered the plateau of Zimapan. Finding a hotel in Zimapan is very easy, as the choice is pretty limited (2 hotels). We took the colonial style one at the Zocálo, the main square in each city in Mexico.

If you will stay in the same hotel, don't ask for room keys, the don't have some. In the evening we were looking for something to eat, but what surprise, no restaurants were open anymore at 8 pm, just a pizzeria around the corner (we have not taken a look into the kitchen, but put a lot of hot chili sauce on the pizzas).

Next morning Hans was driving us towards Toliman canyon, as he went there 20 years ago to see P. agnata (P. elizabethiae was still not known a that time). The asphalt road stopped soon after we left Zimapán and became a dirt road. But what a drought ! The whole area was desert like and the dominating plant were ferrocacti all around. Then we hit the tiny road that should lead us towards the mines in the Toliman valley. After some normal curves, the road was winding down more and more steeply. After a tunnel we stopped, as Hans was indicating, that there was P. agnata growing last time. This area is anyway the type location of P. agnata. We were looking along the steep walls, and really, a nice clump of plants were growing on the rock, but unfortunately far out of reach. With Radek's camera we could see, that there were even some flowers. We continued the road. Now at the side of the road you could see hundreds of meters down into the valley. If you would slide with the car now, bad luck for you. Hans was beginning to sweat more and more. Then the first truck was coming up in front of us. But the road wasn't wide enough to led pass two vehicles, therefore we had to hit backwards to a place where the truck could pass. The road got more and more slippery due to the lose ground and the curves got narrower and narrower. Hopefully no additional truck! Ater another +/- 20 hairpin bends, we finally made it to the mine La Purisima, where we parked the car (they mine quite for some different metals, which of the main are iron, lead, silver, copper). What a road! I don't want to take it when it had been raining before (and I wonder how many mortal accidents are happening there).

The Arroyo Toliman had only few water, therefore we could easily walk down the valley. Most of the river bed was turned into a gravel road where quite some trucks from other mines in the valley were driving. Much more easy to walk as for Fernando last time, I guess. But how dry it was here. No water running down the walls. Where the hell should P. elizabethiae grow here? We walked for about 2 km, where the valley was getting very narrow. But still very dry walls at both sides of the valley. The whole valley was dominated by xerophytic shrubs and plants, a little like a the P. gypsicola site. Then suddenly we were seeing the first group of P. agnata on the walls. None of the plants were in flower, and the leaves were very smooth, as if the plants were lacking quite some water for a longer time. Shotly after we have seen another group of P. agnata. But were all plants P. agnata? No, there were also the first P. elizabethiae plants! A little further on, there were more, and you won't believe it, even in flower! Wow! Under these dry conditions green summer rosettes and flowers! Further on there was another spot with quite a lot of plants on a limestone rock. Often the plants were smaller as expected, probably due to the dry conditions this year. But the flower coloration was pretty diverse. Beside the normal pinkish type, quite a lot of flowers were more violet, from lighter to darker violet. After having taken tons of pictures, we continued our way down the valley. According to Fernando, there should have been another spot of plants further on. But now the valley was widening up and the vegetation was changing towards more xerophytic again. After certain kilometers, we turned around, as we were not expecting to find another colony there. The vegetation in the valley was quite impressing. Even palm trees grew at certain spots, while at other areas Hechtia, Agave and cacti were more dominating. Also large terrestral Tillandsia were growing at some places.

After another hour we reached our van and were heading back to Zimapan. This time I was driving up the mountain, as Hans was not very enthusiastic to drive again. We reached our hotel savely. We arranged with the hotel owners to prepare for us a nice dinner. And we enjoyed it after that great day (which is not always the case in Mexico). In the evening we were sitting on the Zocálo, what probably everybody was doing, and were looking at the "car parade" passing by. It seems that everybody wanted to present his car to the public, driving the whole time around the place and putting the Mexican music on maximum. During the night a heavy thunderstorm came through the area (probably also into the Toliman canyon). Good that we went there already.

Next day, we had to drive a quite long trip towards Pachuca and then continuing to the state of Puebla, where we wanted to see P. emarginata close to Teziutlan.

But more about it in the next postcard.