CANFA Comment

5 Sept: Mazatlan, Mexico
Just an update as we spend the morning in a hotel on the beach at Mazatlan on the Pacific ocean. Since the last email we left Mexico City for a visit to Cimmyt (the second time for Ray and I) but still very informative and interesting.

Fernando was in his usual charismatic form showing us the wheat breeding and conservation agriculture trials. This time though they treated us to a Mexican lunch with the research crew who had been in the fields putting blue tape on individual wheat heads, that would later be harvested by hand in order to keep the seed for further selection. The lunch was salsa and t-bone steak so we were really spoilt!

Heading north of Mexico City with have travelled through beautiful green and some very rich agricultural land - not how I had pictured Mexico at all. We have stopped off at an organic avocado and macadamia farm to see handmade biofertilisers in action. Eugenio Gras recommended this farm to us and he will be in Australia for another course in Mudgee later this month, which we are going to.

On the way, we stopped off at La Cofradia, a tequila farm and factory for lunch. The name tequila is licensed to only approximately three states in Mexico but this one was in the shadows of Tequila Mountain. We learnt how the pineapple of the agave (very similar to our aloe vera) plant is baked, fermented and distilled to form three types of tequila. We tasted all three and thought all were pretty good. After the tour of the factory, museum and shop we had a Mexican lunch outside with a mango margarita!

The hotel we're in is right on the beach but it also has swimming pools with a swim up bar and live music. We only have one more day with the bus and the rest of the trip will be by train so it will be different, but we are certainly seeing some wonderful countryside up the west coast of Mexico.

Anne Williams