I visited this WHS in December 2021 and what was initially planned as quick visit due to COVID closures, turned out to be a great experience over three days. I had contacted a number of small hotels at Zapotitlan as well as a great local company called Bio Fan for more information on some hiking possibilities and to have further information whether the Helia Bravo Botanical Gardens were open since they had been closed for almost two years due to the pandemic.

After weeks with no positive reply, the day before heading towards Oaxaca from Puebla, we received good news: the botanical gardens were finally open on Christmas Eve, so we changed our initial plans and booked a very early guided tour with the friendly and knowledgable Bio Fan to Santa Ana Tecomavaca to spot the military macaws at sunrise (great with binoculars, much less for photography at least with a bridge camera) on the last day before heading to Oaxaca as it's quite on the way. We also did a shorter visit to a place known locally as El Bosque de los Sotolines which we had initially planned as Plan B should the Botanical Gardens be still closed as I wanted to make sure to see the endemic Pata de elefante or sotolin tree which is believed to be the oldest (800+ years old) in the region of Tehuacan. We simply parked our car close by and hiked slightly uphill. Next we headed to the Helia Bravo Botanical Gardens where the first thing that greets you at the small unpaved parking lot is the UNESCO WHS plaque.

I knew that there were some rudimentary cheap cabins inside the botanical gardens area so after paying for our entrance tickets, I enquired whether they were open and to my surprise they were! Well, they practically opened one for us and gave us clean sheets and a quilt, which was a perfect spot for us to stay for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, especially at night under the countless stars around a cosy bonfire/BBQ. An old man stays in one of the cabins closest to the entrance and closes the gate to the main road at night, so before sunset we were literally locked inside this WHS and had it all to ourselves. There are far more watchtowers to climb than the two at the botanical gardens and their location close to a small salt pan and a dried up river bed filled with cacti and sotolines (or Elephant's foot) succulent trees, meant there were much more birds to spot and small fauna such as rodents, the rare tlalcoyote, bats, spiny chameleons, spiders, scorpions, etc. Pay extra attention not to end up in some big spider webs when visiting the multitude of cacti and make sure to inspect your cabin and car with a small torch for pesky scorpions as we found two of them that had "pre-booked" our cabin for Christmas!

We really enjoyed visiting the botanical gardens at sunrise as it was easier to spot the small colourful birds (although quite camouflaged) feeding on the cacti. During our visit at the botanical garden we also enjoyed eating a "cactus lunch" at the quaint Itandehui "restaurant" on-site. At Zapotitlan we really enjoyed going up and down the smaller 125 road when compared to the still impressive highway for a closer look to the cacti but also for other activities such as a quick visit to the local salt pans as well as the children-oriented Paleoparque Las Ventas to view some Lower Cretaceous fossils and dinosaur tracks. We were really impressed to learn how the dried up inside of dead columnar cacti is made up of pretty resistant wood which is used locally for construction. From the different watchtowers as well as from the few vantage points along the highway, it's relatively easy to spot some of the different cacti but above all it's easy to observe why the reserve is dubbed as having "impenetrable cacti forests" as every millimetre is easily covered with different species of cacti, flowering at different times of the year.

All in all we really enjoyed this WHS and the overall experience. Hopefully the inscription on the WH list will help protect further this site from unnecassary construction as it really is a great spot to visit in Mexico.