The Cactus Trip Diaries

A nice and relaxed day, driving 227 km from the Bolivia border south, once again passing the marvelous Devil’s Backbone. You just can’t help but take a few more pictures.

We made a quick stop in Tilcare to ‘milk’ the bank’s ATM machine, which here, fortunately, was happy to pay my card 400 pesos.

Then on to Purmamarca to see if the Blossfeldia that we found in 2008 were still there. They were, but Ian confirmed that the location where we had seen them in 2005 was no longer there, now part of an expanding housing project.

S1931 was therefore the only plant stop and Juan, David and I were the only ones to manage to very eroded slope to the rock where we had found the plants in 2008. As well as a couple of dozen very dry plants, we also found that the hornet’s wing of the Argentinean Airforce had some nests here. I believe that Cliff found Blossfeldia at another tricky location around the corner, but Ian turned hero again by finding them growing in a much more accessible rock wall so we could all walk back to the car happy at having some variable quality images. It’s difficult to deal with the contrast of the bright conditions and plants growing in deep shade in crevices.

S1932 is for images taken while shopping in Purmamarca.