The next morning we continued our tour to Santiago Pinotepa Nacional and turned north again on highway 125. After 50 km we arrived at San Juan Cacahuatepec. At the end of the village we saw a queue of cars. We stopped and got out of the car to see what was going on. ANOTHER ROAD BLOCK!! Not again. When asking a policeman he told us, that the road would be blocked the whole day. The police was told not to infere to avoid riots afterwards.

As the roughly 20 people on the bridge were cooking, we decided to turn back towards Santiago Pinotepa Nacional. A lost day! As it was still early enough, we decided to get at least one time to the Pacific Ocean. We drove to the Laguna Corralero, a lagoon with mangrove forests. We hired a boat that took us to the coastal line. A very nice place, we took a swim (almost together with the sting rays that were quite numerous in the lagoon and enjoyed the day "the Mexican way", hoping, that in the evening the road block was over. When we arrived again in Cacahuatepec, it was already dark.

At the end of the village, we saw already the standing cars. Shit ! The road was still blocked! It was one of the 2 major roads that went through the mountains, so no alternative roads nearby. We got the information, that each 6 hours, the people would let some cars pass. We would have needed to wait another 4 hours with no guarantee that we could pass. In addition, we were told that driving this road during night is dangerous if you don't drive in a convoi, as often cars got robbed that were driving alone. After some discussions we turned back again for the second time and stayed the night in Pinotepa Nacional. The next morning we took the big detour: 250 km east into Guerrero to Acapulco and then the motorway up to Cuernavaca in Morelos (200km) and then west again to Cuautla and Izucar de Matamoros in Puebla, where we stayed the night. Another lost day, but at least we were close (150 km) to Huahuapan de León, from where it was only another 50 km to Santo Domingo Tonalá, the type location of P. rectifolia.

On the next day we continued our tour towards Tonalá. Just 10 km before the P. rectifolia site we stopped at a place, where we discovered in 2005 a population that seemed to be P. moranensis. This time the plants were in summer rosette and quite a number of plants were flowering. Just a typical P. moranensis habitat on vertical cliffs, but more of the drier locations.

Some of the flowers showed a yellowish spot on the middle lobe of the lower lip towards the tube, a character that should be one of the typical features for the P. rectifolia flowers. But as we were just on the opposite side of the mountains, where P. rectifolia was growing, this is perhaps already an indication, that P. rectifolia is a very questionable species.

When we arrived in the valley, we stopped the car and walked into the Cañon El Boquerón. At the narrow part of the valley, the vegetation was more subtropical, probably due to the higher humidity. A lot of Tillandsia were growing on the rocks and on trees and as well : P. rectifolia. We have seen the site in May 2005, when most of the plants were in flower. This time we had to see, that there was few water running down the steep rock. At one place, where we found thousands of plants last time, there were only few plants on a dry rock and the plants seemed to suffer from the few available water. Was the hydrology in this area changed or was it only such a dry year? Quite a number of plants were in flower, but we have not seen white flowering plants this time. The whole place was not as impressive compared to what we have seen in the past. But the unique feature of upturned leaves, as Speta & Fuchs mentioned in the species description, is not true for all plants there and according to my opinion anyway not a good character for distinction. Probably it is just another P. moranensis.

We continued our way into the Tonalá valley. Another 15 km further, the landscape changed dramatically. Suddenly gypsum hills appeared and the vegetaion was now dominated by xerophytic species, including cacti and Hechtia again. On one of the gypsum hills Fernando found a new annual species, which is still undescribed, and another Pinguicula species, what he thought is probably P. heterophylla. We have seen the site in 2005 as well, but then it was very dry and we could only find winter onions buried in the soil. This time the plants were just starting to flower. But these plants have several characters, which do not fit neither to P. heterophylla (which does not occur in that region and is not known to grow on gypsum) and P. medusina, that grows another 50 km further south. There are some differences, that I will not discuss now, but I am convinced, that it is a new species. Another heavy thunderstorm then interrupted our photo session and we were forced to continue.

We stopped in Santiago Juxtlahuaca for the night. For dinner we got the best seafood of the whole trip, unbelievable if you take into account that we were in the middle of the Sierra Madre del Sur mountains.

The plan for the next morning was the P. medusina site, which was close by.

But more about it in the next postcard.

Oliver Gluch