The Cactus Trip Diaries

Thursday, 21 October, 2010 – San Antonio de Los Cobres to Calama

I find San Antonio de Los Cobres quite a bleak place. Everything seems covered in dust carried here by an ever present wind. The high altitude (around 4,000 m) makes life more difficult, the only hotel in town is expensive both for accommodation and food. As soon as you set foot out of the door, there are people selling Andean craft work and children begging, although their number has reduced since 2008. Still, the town is a necessary step on the way from where we had come from to where we were going.

Not long after leaving S.A. del Los Cobres (as it is known on signposts) Juan spotted large globular plants to the left of the road, growing on rocks. Echinopsis (Lobivia) formosa! A very pretty, shaggy looking form of what used to be called Soehrensia. (S1944)

The remainder of the day was spent driving through flat plains surrounded by some of the highest peaks in the world, but only some 1,000 m higher than we were already. Llama, Alpaco and Guanaco were grazing peacefully, keeping us guessing at which was which. All images taken as we passed through the Pasa del Sico are filed under S1945. The SAG man (Ministry for Food & Ag.) was friendly and helpful in getting us to submit the paper work. A bonus! When we later arrived at the Immigration point at San Pedro de Atacama, the SAG man made everyone open their bags for a detailed inspection. As we already had the paper work stamped and approved, we could just pass through.

A quick stop to take a picture of an scenic church at Socaire turned out to take a bit longer than planned as we had picked up another puncture. We drove on carefully to San Pedro de Atacama, where they were once again selling Diesel at the only filling station in town. The tyre was repaired – we seem to have become expert at collecting nails, even if there is no building in progress anywhere near by.

The sun was setting as we entered Calama and eventually managed to find Hotel Quitor where we had stayed in 2007.

Wednesday, 20 October, 2010 – Campo Quijano to San Antonio de Los Cobres

We enjoyed a nice and relaxed breakfast but then found that Angie & I were locked out of our room. The lock was broken, Never mind, a lock smith was called but about 30 minutes later had still not arrived. He arrived eventually on a little moped from a near by village and the problem was fixed in seconds.

It seemed a good idea to fuel up before we attempted the Quebrada del Toro. However, there was no fuel to be had in Campo Quijano, so we followed the locksmith to his village where eventually gas & diesel were found.

The main difference between today’s ascend and the one in in 2008 is that the lower 20 km of the road now follows the (dryish) river bed while road work crews are preparing the main road and taking down the rock faces where in the past we had found Rebutias.

Stops made tended to follow the 2008 stop list – not because we have lost our sense of adventure but because we were trying to fit so much into these three short weeks (I was amazed to look back and see what we had done already), so that it was best to drive straight to known places rather than explore for different sites. Stops for today were:

S1936 with Rebutia minuscula the main plant of interest. Synonyms include R. marsoneri and  R. wessneriana.

S1937 with some scenic Echinopsis (Trichocereus) terscheckii

S1938 was at a dense stand of E. terscheckii where holes in the soil indicated that folk had been digging for Gymnocalycium spegazzini near the road. A bit farther from the road there were still plenty of plants. There were also a number of Cleistocactus hylacanthus (syn. C. jujuyensis) with red flowers.

S1939 was a few hundred meters before the Ing. Maury police control. As we went higher and higher E. terschecki gave way to E. atacamensis ssp pasacana but we had difficulty to spot the exact point and suspect that there were some intermediates for quite some distance before only ‘the true’ E. pasacana persisted

 S1940 was for more scenery with E. pasacana

At S1941 we had to decide what to point our cameras at first E. pasacana, G. spegazzini or Eriosyce umadeave. My 74 images suggest that I did all three.

Now the search was on for a spot that Cliff had christened his ‘field of dreams’ in 2008 – another population of E. umadeave. S1942 was not it. The main attraction had been a crested E. pasacana spotted from the road.

 S1943 was not it either, but gave a very similar crop of E. umadeave with as high light for me, a five headed plant with nearby a clump that put most Copiapoa across the border to shame – E. umadeave with some 40 heads! Cliff was more than happy that we had found another ‘field of dreams’.

Tuesday, 19 October, 2010 – Maimara to Campo Quijano

Hotel La Casa de Tata (= The house of my grandfather) was not only comfortable and photogenic, but the restaurant had an excellent kitchen and a great house red wine of which many a carafe were sampled. Despite this we stuck to our 7 a.m. alarm call, 8 a.m. breakfast and 9 a.m. on the road routine. At least that was the plan. As I stood under the shower, nicely soaped and ready to rinse myself down, first the hot water, than the cold water stopped flowing. These things happen in South America and are usually fixed in minutes. This time word soon spread from hotel management that there must have been a fault with the town’s water supply that had been updated in recent weeks. Never mind, at least I had my shower, sort of, but the others were less fortunate.

It should again be a relaxed drive to our next destination as in 2008 we had managed the full La Quiaca to Campo Quijano stretch in one day. The only unknowns were the ease with which we could negotiate two state capitals: San Salvador de Jujuy and Salta.

But first we went to check out a stop that Brian Bates had sent through that morning for Blossfeldia along RN 9, near the turning to RN 52, the road to Purmamarca. Rather than a set of GPS coordinates, he had provided a set of cryptic clues rather like those of a treasure hunt rally. There was no information as to how old this data was. We were to look for a picnic table along the side of the road – not found – and from there go past a ‘prayer shack’ – small church? road side monument? Again, nothing fitting these descriptions in the widest possible sense were found. No disaster, as we had found Blossfeldia near by yesterday, but it would have been nice to have added another spot to the list. We took a wide angle picture to send to Brian in due course to show him what we had seen. May be we were miles off the spot where we should have been, but no picnic tables were spotted between Maimara and the turning to RN52.

SS de Jujuy turned out easy to negotiate as there was a nice modern highway style bypass.

We followed RN 9 as it turned from a multilane highway to a very narrow, in places single track, tarmac road that took us through the subtropical rainforest that had amazed us in 2005 and 2008. Not so much the flora itself but the great contrast with the conditions when we left this morning.

We had moved from dry Andean conditions, waiting for the summer rains in December – February and were driving through a subtropical rainforest with epiphytic cacti, all kinds of Bromeliads, ferns and Orchids hanging from the trees, some of which were in flower themselves.

But wait a minute! These trees were also much drier than on previous trips and some were showing the effects of lack of water by stem sacrifice, shedding branches. Some were just coming into leaf – it is Spring here, after all, but others had not and could be dead?

S1933 and S1934 were for pictures taken at various brief stops along this very scenic section of some 30 km of RN9, then it was on to do battle with Salta.

I felt a bit more confident with Juan and his SatNav leading the way. That was until the right turn it recommended turned out to be a one way street! They were improving the roads (much needed) which meant diversions which sent SatNav in a spin. Ian, Cliff and David behind the steering wheel of Big Red were following closely, at times confused by my last minute turns. When ever possible, Angie would communicate Juan’s instruction via the Walkie Talkie’s. It worked well and the team ended up on whet looked like a motorway being built. Just a lonely truck in front of us, no other traffic or traffic signs or road markings and by UK standards not yet ready for traffic as the surface had not yet been swept.

We passed a sign that said that bicycles were not allowed on the road. Next we passed a couple of cyclists. At last we came to an intersection where motorways petered out and found a sign to Campo Quijano, our destination for the night. A cheer went up in both cars.

We found the hotel that had served us well in 2008 and booked in again for the night. After some prompting, the owner remembered us. Not much had changed. Even the Christmas decorations were still up. Or was it ‘up already’?

With plenty of daylight left, we decided to make the stop at Campo Quijano Station this afternoon. It left us unimpressed, plant wise, again lack of water being the issue. Pictures recorded as S1935.

Monday, 18 October, 2010 – La Quiaca to Maimara

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.

Saturday, 16 October, 2010 – East of La Quiaca

Today our main target was the Oreocereus ‘forest’ known as the Harry Blossfeld site. It is where Juan and I were speechless with the sights we saw and promised to come back here with Florencia and Angie sometime in the future. Today, that day had come. Just as in 2008, we stopped off in the middle of a housing project between La Quiaca and Yavi. The plant list for S1062, made on 17 December 2008 is mouth watering: Cumulopuntia boliviana, Echinopsis (Lobivia) ferox (syn. Lobivia longispina), Echinopsis (Lobivia) pugionacantha, Maihueniopsis glomerata, Maihueniopsis hypogaea, Maihueniopsis subterranea, Tephrocactus nigrispinus, Tunilla erectoclada or was it Tunilla tilcarensis? Today the location received stop number S1924 and lack of recent moiture made for a much shorted stay and shorter list. C. boliviana was there, as were the Lobivias, shrunken into the ground and after a thorough search we finally found some M. subterranea, each requiring a ‘before’ and ‘after’ images, with paintbrushes in action in between, to make the plants presentable. Next, S1925, was the Blossfeld site, just as magnificent as we remembered it from 2008 and earlier from images shown by Leo van der Hoeven that gave it a ‘must see’ rating in our wish lists of cactus localities. owever, I already had so many images from the 2008 visit that I was struggling to find something different to take a shot at. This was presented by a llama that calmly walked between the plants and stopped occasionally to ‘graze’ at the flowers, buds and hair at the tops of the Oreocereus stems. One image has a close up of the beast looking curious at me, its mouth covered in the wool of the Oreocereus. Inspection of the plants visited showed that this was indiscriminate grazing, not looking for fruit as I had expected. Flowers were damaged and while I guess thare was a minimal chance of pollination resulting, I hardly expect to list Llamas among the pollinators of these Oreocereus. Angie took some movies as well that shows that it requires quite a yank to get the flowers and wool off. I also managed a couple of shots of a very large hummingbird briefly visiting a couple of flowers. The pictures are not sharp enough for inclusion in a talk. I made no attempt to match or add to the plant list for this location in 2008 which is included here for the benefit of those for whom this was the first visit: Cumulopuntia boliviana, C. chichensis (?), Echinopsis (Lobivia) ferox, Maihueniopsis glomerata (ssp. hypogaea?), Neowerdermannia chilensis, Oreocereus celsianus, O. trollii, Rebutia pygmaea,Tephrocactus nigrispinus, a taxon that seems to have mistified the botanists in putting together the NCL. It looks like a very dark spined form of C. boliviana to me. Finally, the white spined Tunilla corrugata and the famous hybrids between xOreocereus celsianus x Echinopsis ferox We decided to drive on beyond this location, S1926 into the hills, but after a short while regretted this as a sharp stone punctured one of the tyres of the Chevrolet. No drama, as the spare was quickly in place. As we drove into La Quiaca a tyre repair shop was easily found and although it was Saturday afternoon, the boss said that the repaired tyre would be ready for collection around 9 a.m. the next day. It was a nasty hole and he recommended that we’d only use the repaired tyre as a spare. Tomorrow we’ll be trying to find Yavias. As everything is so dry, this could be quite a challenge!

Friday, 15 October, 2010 – Maimara to La Quiaca

First priority today was to get some Argentinean money, so we popped into Tilcara, drove past the Hosteria from previous visits and found the bank just off the town square. It took ages for the paper work to be completed so that I could change my last US$ into Argentine Pesos. Why? They could not find The Netherlands on their computer’s list of countries to record that a Dutchman had exchanged US$200. Everyone else had been milking the ATM machine outside the bank so we could at least fuel up for the days ahead.

S1920 was a scenic stop along the main road. We found Echinopsis (Trichocereus) atacamensis ssp pasacana with various Tillandsia sp. growing between the spines, Echinopsis (Lobivia) longispina, Gymnocalycium saglionis and Opuntia sulphurea.

Oreocereus trollii appearing along the road caused the next stop, S1921.

We made S1922 stopped at a location where in 2008 (S1053) we had found Maihueniopsis (Puna) subterranea, but conditions were much drier now, so although we saw Echinopsis ferox and Maihueniopsis glomerata, M. subterranea remained hidden from sight.

S1923 was for pictures of the Devil’s Backbone, that remains a glorious sight no matter how often you see it.

We arrived in La Quiaca without incident, but unfortunately the Hosteria was fully booked. This is the only hotel that accepts Credit Cards. We were directed to Hosteria Munay that had space but only accepted cash. Never mind, there were banks in town. Accept that the two banks we found did not accept my credit card! Fortunately other members in the group fared better so that we could eat and pay for the hotel.