Since Friday I have been wrestling with a broken laptop. I have a Microsoft Surface Pro 3 that I use as a laptop, but the link with the keyboard has ceased working.
It kind of works but it is slow as many keys are in the ‘wrong’ places. So let’s give it a go:
Paul Klaassen is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.
Topic: Paul Klaassen’s Zoom Meeting Time: Oct 25, 2020 07:30 PM London
Tonight we should finish the outline itinerary, from Fiambala to Uspillata. Elisabeth and Norbert Sarnes from Germany did this stretch in 1996 where as my experience is from 2008, so I jumped at the chance. They should have been along the route at the moment if it had not been for COVID-19.
Any suggestions or offers for future presentations will be gratefully considered and most likely presented here.
I offered to give more publicity for tonight’s speakers but they asked to keep it small and low key – they quite like the intimacy of the open-mike, small audience feel of these meetings.
Hope to see you tonight! —————————————————————————————————————-
Paul Klaassen is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting. Topic: Elisabeth & Norbert Sarnes Zoom Meeting – Fiambala to Uspillata Time: Oct 18, 2020 07:30 PM London
Since the Second Weekend in September I have been planning Angie’s and mine next trip to cactus country. Angie asked for another trip to Chile and I had come across an image taken on 18 May 2001 of me sitting in a field of flowering lupine shown on the previous page. This tends to suggest a travel date of May, but as we are not prepared to put our lives at risk while the Coronavirus travel warning still limits where we can go safely, the start date is left open.
The above map shows an outline of the planned route, flying in to Santiago, Chile, driving north via Ruta 5 until the turning to San Pedro de Atacama. I selected images for this stage on Sunday 27 September. Last Sunday (4th October I showed images of the journey form San Pedro de Atacama, over the Paso de Jama to La Quiaca, Argentina and looked at plants growing along the border with Bolivia.
Today I’ll show you pictures from the journey South, to and up the Quebrada del Toro before returning to a lower altitude via Cachi and Cafayate to Famatina. There are lots of Tephrocactus on this stretch, with many in flower. Next week I’ll try to find all the Argentinean Eriosyce Group known as the Pyrrhocactus Group, to get us back to Uspallata and the border crossing tunnel through the Andes back to Chile.
Last Sunday we had a small but nonetheless cozy meeting where I had intended to share images of my first trip to Chile in 2001. I was a little overconfident that I had all my trip presentations on a plug in hard drive so had done far too little time prepare for the presentation, only to find that in 2001 I was dragging two analogue cameras and about 40 rolls of 35 mm film with me, together with a prototype of one of the early Nikon cameras thanks to the father of a classmate of my youngest son, who was (and still is, I believe) the Marketing Manager of Nikon Europe.
Having to take life easy after I had a heart attack in 2006, I scanned all my conventional slides to digital format.
Why start in May? The above image was taken in May 2001. The area was covered in flowering lupines. My camera gear now is a whole lot better now so this will be an opportunity to retake the image with better results.
This Sunday I’ll entertain you with images from Chile around San Pedro de Atacama, to La Quiaca on the Argentina / Bolivia border before heading south to the Quebrada del Toro and on to Salta.
We did this stretch and more; Yavia cryptacarpa and the Blossfeld Oreocereus forest as well as most taxa in the Eriosyce Pyrrhocactus group and in the genus Tephrocactus.
The Cactus Trip Diaries 