The Cactus Trip Diaries

Sunday 05 November – Pichidangui to Guanaqueros

Today’s plan was to take it easy with a gentle 200 km drive on Ruta 5 – The Pan-American Highway to Guanaqueros. Although the main focus of the trip remained Copiapoa, I have also taken a great interest in the Genus Eulychnia. At yesterday’s stops we had seen E. castanea in flower, with its characteristic spiny pericarpel. How far north does this occur?

My southern-most Copiapoa to date was one planted at the Ranger station at the Fray Jorge National Park. The Rio Lamari to the south of the Park is often understood to be its natural boundary.

And so spotting locations for these two taxa became the aim for today.

Friends had reported seeing Copiapoa growing as far south as Huentelaquon, Bahia Teniente and La Cebada, small coastal hamlets and exits off Ruta 5, suggesting that the Rio Choapa rather than the Rio Lamari might be the southern boundary. We found the exits easily enough – as they flashed by at 120 km.p.hr. Unlike motorways in the UK, there is rarely signage to count the motorist down from 300 m to 200 m to 100 m to a junction with long slip roads. If slip roads exist in Chile, they are extremely short. So, unless you know exactly where the turning (often a dirt road) is, you fly past and need to resist the temptation to reverse back on the hard shoulder and wait until the next exit, often tens of km. further on, to turn back. Alternatively, you crawl along at 30 km.p.hr. to hit the turning, with the risk of being run over by a mega-truck thundering along at some 100 km.p.hr.

So, we missed the turning at Huentelaquon, and somehow ended up on a track leading inland to the village of Mincha Sur, separated from Mincha Norte by the Rio Choapa. S0514 gave a nice panoramic view of the Pan-Am crossing the Rio Choapa, with the Ocean in the background, confirming that we were on the wrong side of both the road and the river. The stop was prompted by finding Echinopsis (Trichocereus) chiloensis and a Puya sp. in flower. After a few more km. the track was bordered by solid hedges of Trichocereus and Eulychnia, as effective as any hedge or fence at keeping animals (including people) in or out. According to signage, the aim was motivated by both agriculture and conservation – to combat desertification.

Back on Ruta 5, we flew past the exit for Caleta Teniente and concluded that there seemed little promise of Copiapoa from what we could see at the high speed pass by. So on to the last opportunity: La Cebada, recommended by our Chilean friends Ricardo Keim & Ingrid Schaub.

This exit was better indicated and had a reasonable slip road, but the tarmac turned into a dirt track within metres. No problem for a Toyota Hilux 4×4. Soon the track narrowed and made a steep 10 m descend. a bend at the bottom and next a gate. The hand break only just held on the steep hill.

Angie jumped out but reported the gate as locked. No space for a 3 point turn, so into reverse. Much spinning of wheels, covering Angie in dust and sand, but gravity kept pulling me closer to the gate. Engage 4x4WD. Great, but on these models that involves turning the front wheel nuts into a lock position and then switching between 1st & reverse until the extra drive engages. The gate drew closer and closer until finally the gears kicked in and I inched backwards up the hill and away from the gate (S0515). Unsure of how far beyond the gate we needed to go to see our cacti, we consulted some maps and decided to take some overview pictures and study these for a solution on the way back.

The map indicated a track running west off Ruta 5 towards the coast to Mina Talca. We found the turn off and soon found ourselves at the impressive gates of Hacienda Talinay. The gates were open and there were no signs discouraging visitors, so we drove on. Another disappointment, as it seemed that we had reached another area earmarked for tourist development. We drove for kilometres along a grid of tracks through a flat sandy area covered in desert scrub, heading for low rolling hills (S0516). The area had been marked out into small parcels that together would have formed a fair sized town if all are developed. But how would this dry area sustain such a large number of people?  Back in England, a search on Google provided a further insight to what we saw: http://www.talinay.com/) and confirmed our fears.

We returned to the Pan Am and continued north, stopping for ‘motion lotion’ at the services at Termas de Socos, a regular fuel stop on previous stops. Why? Because there are no more filling stations for many miles to come. Back on Ruta 5, we passed the turning to the Fray Jorge National Park. Time moves on, whether you find interesting plants or are just become mildly frustrated by the lack of success. And so weapproached the turn off to Tongoy and Guanaqueros to find a bed for the night. No trouble, as we were still outside of Chile’s tourist season and were the only visitors to the cabañas at Bahia Club (http://www.bahiaclub.cl/) , selected in 2001 from the many other facilities in the village because our fellow traveller on that occasion, Marlon Machado, comes from the Brazilian State of the same name.

First though, we took the track to  El Pangue, hoping to find a track to the coast at Puerto Aldea. A lot more signage at the track to Puerto Aldea seemed to suggest that this was a ‘no access’ track to private property. Either we had taken a wrong turn or had misunderstood the signs ‘Revinto Privado’ and ‘Prohibido Pasar’ that would have been like red rags to a bull to our usual companion, Leo van der Hoeven. But Leo was on a cactus trip in northern Brazil, so we both made mental notes to make more effort to improve our Spanish language skills once back in England. With the prospect of a nice shower and a typical sea food dinner, washed down with some Chilean vino in Guanaqueros, we decided to turn back and stop at some Eulychnia in flower that we had passed earlier.

S0517 was a typical cactus hedge consisting mostly of Eulychnia. These were tall, branching plants, rather than the sprawling E. castanea that we had seen further south.

The botanical key for the genus Eulychnia focuses on the pericarpel and fruit that are either spiny (E. castanea), naked scales (E. acida) or woolly (E. breviflora and E. iquiquensis). So what would we find here? I entered ‘aff. E. acida‘ in my notes. Not ‘pure’ acida, as there were just a few hairs in addition to the scales.  I’m working on a Eulychnia (http://www.eulychnia.info) website and will expand on this further once these Diaries have been completed for 2006.

A bit further along (S0518) the sprawling cactus turned out to be an Echinopsis (Trichocereus) sp. but for now I’ll resist the temptation to add another genus to my list of ‘to be studied in more detail’ cacti, bearing in mind the range of classification systems and ‘valid’ taxa for this genus. Nearly as bad as Eriosyce, but that is a different story.

Sunday 5 November 2006 – Pichidangui to Guanaqueros

Saturday, 4 November 2006 – Santiago to Pichidangui

The journey went without any hitches so that by early Saturday afternoon, the dream that got me through the flight had turned into reality.  Angie is reviewing her digital images as I am writing these notes and has just shown me one from this stop that she has entitled ‘Cacti, weeds and sea’. The ‘weeds’ include flowering Alstroemeria, Carpobrotus chilensis, Oxalis bulbocastanum  and a whole range of other local flowering annuals.

Earlier we had stopped off at Pichicuy  and La Ballena (S0511), small fishing hamlets, to check out the impact of tourism that is threatening both the plants and the raw charm of Pichidangui, where roads are now being paved and sidewalks prepared. Angie, whose son Adrian has cerebral palsy and is the Michael Schumacher of the motorised wheelchair community, was impressed to see how much progress had been made with wheel chair accessibility in mind, compared to her previous visit in 2003 – very encouraging! Despite these ‘oases’ in the concrete wheel chair user’s desert, there were still huge areas that would have been an insurmountable challenge, even to Adrian.

At Pichicuy (S0510), the fishing boats fight for space on the sandy beach with homes and shops immediately along the beach – not much room for plants here. At La Ballena, away from the fisherman’s beach, we found a similar flora to ‘our’ shore side spot, our next stop in Pichidangui: Alstroemeria spaculata (?), Carpobrotus chilensis,   Eriosyce chilensis or E. subgibbosa – impossible to tell when they are not in flower,  Eulychnia castanea, Nolana sp., Oxalis bulbocastanum,  Puya venusta,  Trichocereus chiloensis and T. litoralis.

The Pichidangui stop (S0512) is quite special. Quite by accident we stopped here in 2001 on our way to the Airport – the last stop on our first trip. Only 200 km from the airport, it is the ideal first and last stop, providing great continuity between trips. It has been described as a ‘Neoporteria paradise’, with three species growing together. In May 2001 and June 2003, Eriosyce subgibbosa were in flower; in October 2004, E. chilensis var albidiflora was in full bloom. These plants grow side by side on the rocks in the spray of the Pacific Ocean and when not in flower are almost indistinguishable. Their different flowering seasons mean that they are genetically separated: there is little opportunity for hybridisation – even though a rare ‘out of season’ plant can be found with the odd flower during the other species peak flowering period. On the flat area above the rocks, an area right in front of recent tourist home developments, a third species, Eriosyce curvispina (= N. mutabilis) can still be found, although it is under threat of competition of introduced garden plants such as Agaves and the invasive Carpobrotus chilensis. On the uncultivated parts, small multi-headed plants can be found, often damaged as people walk or cycle across them. Ironically, in the recently cultivated area, large specimens can be found competing with the recently planted Carpobrotus. Sadly, my money is on the Carpobrotus to win the battle.

A small area, north of the church of St Teresa, has been set aside as a protected ecosystem zone, is walled off and is only open to the public between 9 a.m. and 11 p.m., but the 1.50 m (5 ft) wall has not prevented the introduced plants from providing unfair competition. Time will tell if this small area can preserve the cactus diversity that so impressed us on our first visit. We’ll be back on our way to Santiago at the end of the trip.

Friday, 3 November 2006 – Durrington to Santiago

Angie & I left home in Wiltshire at around 10 a.m. on Friday 3 November, to visit my parents and leave my car in their care before taking a taxi to near by London’s Gatwick Airport. Strict security measures, following terrorist alerts a couple of months earlier, had eased a bit, but were still cause for some concern as the details of weights and contents of hand luggage presented a few challenges. We were comfortably within the overall luggage weight restrictions but my rucksack (‘hand luggage’) was weighed down by a laptop, two cameras, an extra lens and an array of chargers etc (why does each manufacturer insist on producing its own, unique, charger for each model?) and easily heavier than the 8 lbs suggested by the  signage at the airport. No one seemed interested and we progressed on to the flight to Madrid and (after the usual ‘essential’ hours of waiting) the 13 hour flight to Santiago. Yes, direct to Santiago, without the stop and change of plane at Buenos Aires experienced in 2001, 2003 and 2004.

Clearly we don’t travel enough, as we were unaware of the on-line check in facility that would have enabled us to reserve the favourite extra leg-room seats with easy window & aisle access 24 hours before  departure. As a result we found ourselves in the middle of the plane, where Angie at least had an aisle seat. My solution is to focus my mind on where I’ll be after the flight, so I pictured myself on the rocks at Pichidangui, with Pacific Ocean waves breaking, causing a light spray for the benefit of the local flora that includes Eriosyce chilensis (albidiflora), E. subgibbosa and E. curvispina (mutabilis), Eulychnia castanea and Echinopsis (Trichocereus) chiloensis.