On August 2000, Rudolf Schulz spent a week with me, visiting UK cactus nurseries and collections. As his departure for Australia drew nearer, he suggested that we’d meet up again, in May 2001 – in Taltal, Chile!
We agreed that I would make up a car full of fellow enthusiasts and would play ‘tag-along’ with Rudolf, Attila Kapitany and his wife Michelle and other ‘car parties’ that would make up Copiapoathon 2001. It did not take much effort to fill the three remaining seats in my car – John Ede (England), Marlon Machado (Salvador, Brazil) and Leo van der Hoeven (Netherlands), jumped at the chance.
The 2001 Copiapoathon Party:
Top: Marlon Machado and Leo van der Hoeven
Bottom: John Ede and Paul Klaassen
The Copiapoathon ‘proper’ took place in Taltal, where we met up with other groups for a number of joint excursions during the day and interesting discussions over bottles of wine and fine food in the evening.
The Copiapoathoners: left to right: Rudolf Schulz, Michele and Attila Kapitany, Leo van der Hoeven,
Marlon Machado, Benjy Oliver, Mark Aston, John Ede, Gustavo Valdes, Arturo Kirberg, Raquel Pinto (seated)
and Paul Klaassen posing on top of Cerro Perales among Copiapoa cinerea (fa tenebrosa)Another Copiapoathon is already being planned and may become the first Convention of the Chilean Cactus Society which, at the time of writing, is also in its early planning stages.
This presentation consists of pages dedicated to each day of our trip (8 May to 5 June). Each day, we made a number of ‘formal stops’ where most of the images were taken. In time, there will be a page for each of these stops to display more images.
The Cactus Trip Diaries 
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