The Cactus Trip Diaries

As we can afford the time, we thought that today we’d do some conservative exploring. That meant taking another look near some places that we missed for various reasons earlier in the week on our way to Inhai.

You may recall that last Monday (16th) we were still feeling like a couple of greenhorns out in Uebelmannia country. There was a certain tension as I had high expectations of the digital images I would take to supplement the relatively small number of slides that I had from my ’99 stay in Diamantina. We gained a lot more experience and confidence since then.

First stop of the day was at last Monday’s Discocactus placentiformis site (S1523). This time (S1539) we almost stumbled over Arthrocereus melanurus ssp odorus that Marlon had told us we would find here. But the real reason to return here was to explore (walk 290 m.) to where he had found Uebelmannia pectinifera (Inhai form). In fact, we did not have to go that far. We spotted some black rocks and headed for them instead and sure enough, before long we had found the Uebels. Now, with digital cameras at our disposal, it is possible to take several pictures of each plant we see, compared of the 36 pictures for the day at perhaps 6 or 7 stops. I have been really impressed with the variability of these plants in habitat, with spines ranging from very short (and spreading on immature plants) to the rigid row of porrect spines, much longer than ever seen in cultivation on old plants. So far we have only seen flowers at one population. Why?

Also photographed here was a humming bird feeding on an unidentified shrub, Cipocereus minensis and the odd few Discocactus placentiformis that had survived crossing the road. Why is it that sometimes roads seem to provide a natural limit to a plant’s habitat.

We became convinced that anywhere along this track we could stop the car, walk west towards the Rio Jequitinhonha and found a rocky outcrop with Uebelmannia growing on it. To prove the point we made a random stop (S1540) and BINGO! Uebelmannia pectinifera as well as A. melanurus ssp odorus, P. aurisetus (the plant that I reported yesterday as ‘bugging me for a name), Euphorbia sipolisii and a Philodendron sp. (Cheese plant) with aerial roots that ran 10 m or more from the plant over the rocks. There was also the Tigridia (Tiger Lily) that we had been seeing all over Rio Grande do Sul, but this time taller, larger and yellow in colour.

S1541 was to prove us wrong – all the usual companion flora was there, but no Uebelmannia. Why?!? To make up for matters we found our first, but only few, plants of Cipocereus crassisepalus. It would seem that these are the rare plants, not the Uebelmannia!

On the snow white quartz sand that the river had deposited as a small ‘beach’ there were tracks to indicate that a snake had been through here.

Just before the famous bridge over the Rio Jequitinhonha was a turn east, to the village of Maria Nunes. The track ran along the river and we could see kids from the village play in the river from snow white quartz sand beaches. We had our daily Coca Colas from the fridge of the tiny village bar, again, much to the surprise of the owner and her family.

The last stop of the day (S1542) was on the south (Diamantina) side of the bridge over the Rio Jequitinhonha that we reported as being under repair last time that we crossed it. Somewhere in the back of my mind was a suggestion that although we parked at the bridge, we walked some 500 m. back along the track and then walked towards the river, through dense vegetation on rough quartzite rocks to find Uebelmannia. So we repeated the experience and within seconds had found a dozen plants. By now, it was boiling hot and we had more images of Uebelmannia from today then I had taken during the whole of the 1999 trip! Time to cool down in the air-conditioned car again.

We made one more (unnumbered) stop that yielded no cacti for the day. It was at the end of a short track from where a foot path ran about 20 m. to the river for a nice picture where the clouds reflected briefly on a smooth river, before a welcome breeze started up again and disturbed the water. A ‘no cactus found’ stop.

It was our last night at the Hotel bar and snack bar, where for the last week Raphael, our barman and Nilsa the cook had been very welcoming and interested in what these ‘cactus loco’ people from England had done each day. Most nights, we were the only customers, with most other customers ordering food and drinks to be taken to their rooms. They learned more English (and we Portuguese) than either of us knew before and I’m sure that each time that they see a cactus, they’ll think of us. We have very fond memories of them.

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Hats off to Cliff today.

We had to get yesterday’s puncture fixed and foresight or luck had it that a Borracharia was situated just across the road from the hotel. Our helpful attendant this time assured us that it could be fixed and collected at around 13:15. This was more of a town-sized tyre-man, where there was a manager and a fixer, rather than the usual one man band that would sit around until a puncture came in and then jump into action. This guy managed the flow and he had a delivery of tyres due and needed the fixer for the unloading and stowing away. As a result of needing a manager, the price of fixing the puncture and hammering out the wheel into shape resembling round was sufficient to pay two rather than one person. At R$45 it was still reasonable compared with the UK.

We decided to do a bit more sightseeing in Diamantina while the tyre was being fixed. I suggested this time that we should take the more easterly entrance than the one taken last Saturday, as I seemed to remember that this was the side that we’d enter from in 1999. Narrow streets, impossible slopes and Diamantina cobble stones (flat, worn smooth over the years), lack of direction signs and signs to indicate one way streets and which way they run all contributed to me lifting my hat to Cliff the driver for the first time today.

Just as we thought that it was time to go home I was pounced upon by a gent, my age, parking his motor bike. I must look English because he started a flow of very good but loud English and insisted on taking me around the corner to see ‘justice done’. I played along. Just by the bus station there was a dead tree. Most of its branches had been cut off, but right at the very top some branches were left and a bird’s nest was visible, Two golden yellow birds were flying to and fro. Apparently the tree was to be cut down, but not while the birds were nesting. Everything stood still for nature and conservation. A nice thought. I took extra images of the tree and birds. All pictures were recorded under last Saturday’s Stop number, S1518a.

It was about 14:00 when we picked up the car. We decided to go back to Mendanha as we had so far only seen three of the typical (in habitat) bluish-grey Uebelmannia pectinifera ssp pectinifera. This time I had done the best homework possible: detailed screen prints from Google Earth showing the relevant locations in relation to the village and tracks and noted the coordinates of turns on tracks. Our scout around a few days ago had already revealed that the bridge across the Rio Jequitinhonha (not easy to say after a few drinks, try it!) was for pedestrians, bicycles and motorbikes only. The alternative track was in poor repair and took all of Cliff’s driving skills to manoeuvre our low ground clearance little Chevy Meriva along the ruts left by cars with much wider wheelbases but eventually we had to give up. It seemed to far to walk in the heat to reach the nearest location on our records and the vegetation looked much more dense than I remembered from 10 years back. We decided to park the car and walk along the track, ignoring previously recorded locations and just having a stomp around where things looked possible.  

Cliff found a clearing in the distance and an unofficial trail that went that way.  Hats off to Cliff again. We arrived at rocks that quickly ascended quite steeply, with some evidence that they had been worked, to collect quartz crystals, we assume. (S1538).

I photographed some Cipocereus minensis and the other ceroid that is beginning to bug me, as I don’t recall what it is. I’ll send Marlon a picture to ID. That way this would at least not be a ‘no cacti found’ stop. (Something that few people record but that would ultimately save so much time.) Then Cliff shouted excitedly that he had found U. pectinifera, first one, then another and so on, until I was getting a complex about not finding my own – again, hats off to Cliff. I’ll start spreading the story that he comes along as my guide dog.

Somehow, finding you’re own spots is much more satisfying than finding plants at somebody else’s location. Unfortunately today was absolutely clear with only an occasional slight breeze, we we were soon having difficulty seeing where we were going with sweat dripping into our eyes, despite hats and sweatbands. After 30 minutes we were back in the car, with air-conditioning at full blast, driving back to the hotel where a cold beer was calling us.

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There was a light drizzle falling as we left this morning for today’s adventure. It intensified to a steady rain, but we did not care, as we were apparently heading for blue skies and sunshine!.

We passed a desert meadow full of white flowers that had not been in flower last Tuesday (S1534). They turned out to be members of the Veloziaceae family. Nowhere else did we see them again today. So how many species did we encounter and did they all have different flowers and flowering times?

Marlon had written to say that the info for our attempted Melocactus stop on Tuesday had been fine and that we had been only 500 m away from the location. As we were now only 61 km away, how long would it be before I would get so close again? I had by now carefully plotted Tuesday’s stops and discovered where we had gone wrong. Just past the Discocactus stop, there was a fork in the track. We had, as usual, taken the main track, and so had missed the Melos. Today we took the right hand turn and stopped at exactly the coordinates in our database. (S1535).  As we locked the car we were already seeing the first Melocacti!

It was remarkable that only some 10% of plants had a cephalium, another 10% were of a size that were approaching cephalium size and the rest were immature youngsters. Again for the non-cactophiles: some cacti produce their flowers from a distinct zone. Most extreme in this respect are Melocactus and Discocactus, where, at maturity, they stop producing a vegetative stem (green with spines) and produce a stem specially dedicated to flowering. This ‘head’ is known as a ‘cephalium’, you’ll see lots of them in weeks to come, including ‘pseudocephalium’ (only part of the stem is a flowering zone) and ‘ring cephalia’ (plural) where the stem continues to grow through the flowering zone. Here endeth today’s botany lesson.

The other remarkable observation is that most of the plants had a very yellow-green colour. In cultivation in the UK this may either indicate a nutritional deficiency or perhaps that the plants had been too warm, with the heat destroying the chlorophyll. We also observed that many of the other plants were struggling to recover from a fire that had swept through here sometime – after your 2008 visit, Marlon? So heat is a likely culprit.

We took our time, enjoying the plants, the scenery – with dark rocks (limestone covered by a black crust of probably cyanobacteria), heavily weathered producing some razor sharp edges to some of them – treacherous to walk on. In addition, not all rocks were stable. In fact we spent nearly two hours here, taking 143 images; that’s just me.

We drove on to the nearby village of Rodeador (not Mojoles as reported on Tuesday) to get another picture of a village church (S1536) to identify nearby plant stops in future presentations, had a Cola in a local bar (locals are always amazed and surprised that we walk in and then actually order a drink!)  and found a long deserted railway station, abandoned years ago, without a rail to be seen.  A feature of today’s bar was that beer, liqueurs and motor oil were on sale side by side. The days of drinking diesel are not far away I guess.

All images of the way back to the hotel are filed under S1537 and include a no-cactus stop on a track sign posted to Mina Vale do Jacare – we never got to the mine as a number of large thunderstorms dropping large quantities of water were heading our way, and it seemed sensible not to be caught on these unpaved tracks in a tropical down pour; pictures and movie clips of a charcoal burner operations and ….. some pictures to show how many people it takes to fix a puncture! There were Cliff * myself (2) the occupants of the first car that passed by (5) and the pick up truck (2) where one of the occupants did all the work and the second was chatting up the daughter from car one. The problem? The spanner / wrench provided to undo the wheel nuts was too small for the job. Occupants of the other two cars tried theirs, but as both were Fiats, they had the same toolkit that again did not fit. I asked the audience if anyone spoke English and a choir of female voices replied ‘Si, I love you!’ and then giggled out of control. Not much use, given our current situation. It turned out that the wheel nuts had protective plastic caps and, once removed, the spanner / wrench fitted perfectly. By then, the ladies seemed to be preparing a picnic, but with the tyre quickly changed we said our thank you’s and goodbye’s, before finding ourselves married off to their daughters.

Tomorrow will start with finding a place to repair the tyre – if possible.

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Today’s plan was to drive to the tiny village of Sao João da Chapada, eye ball some potential stops that I had marked on Google Earth on our way and spend some time exploring them on the way back. The weather was lightly overcast, so slightly diffused light to soften the contrast was ideal for photography and a cool breeze made things very comfortable. By the way, what is the weather doing in England? 🙂

The best thing about making plans is that you can ignore them if something better crops up. In this case, just a few km. before reaching our turn around point, we felt the need for a comfort break. While doing our business we surveyed the scene and both thought that there might be potential for Discocactus here. The area had been worked quite intensively, but some time ago, probably digging for diamonds and gold nuggets in the quartz. Much of the flora had re-established so why not the cacti.  Cliff was the first to spot a small Discocactus seedling (again D. placentiformis we assume?) As always, with one plant found, we soon stumbled across them in large numbers, a good healthy population with plants of all sizes. A good Stop! (S1531). Just past here we caught our first view of Sao João da Chapada, with the top of the church touching the bottom of the clouds. It was like a camanchaca in Chile, but of course there was no direct sea fog influence here. But the plants will have appreciated the various aspects of these fogs all the same.

S1532 was one of three stops planned for Uebelmannia pectinifera ssp.flavispina ‘crebispina’.  I have to own up about being embarrassed about my failing memory. There are a number of very clear stops from 1999 engrained in my brain, mainly because they were featured in my presentations for a number of years. But I have no idea of which of these memories belongs to which stop. Not until I get there and event then, I am often surprised with what I find. Great, just like discovering these things again for the first time. In many instances, the conditions now (after recent rains) were entirely different to what we saw in May 1999. In many places the vegetation is much taller, hiding the globular cacti.

I also failed to give myself a thorough tutorial on how to use my GPS to find locations. I used to pose with it in one hand to take a picture with the other, to record where the next images were taken, but never as a tool to find locations. How do you get the data in? Angie’s GPS unit, from memory, allows you to type it in (?) but for mine you need special software. I had brought the disc along but we struggled for a whole evening before it would finally install and then I did not find the use of it very intuitive.

So we were doing it the hard way: piece of paper with the coordinates of where we needed to walk to in one hand, GPS unit in the other and initially walking in a circle to see which direction made the numbers come closer with the destination. But here this resulted in a zig-zag course, as we got distracted by rocky outcrops. Eventually I remembered this stop as an awful long walk. It was not made easier when we had to cross a small river, now in full flow, although we found a place to cross, bog land around it, then extremely sharp rocks to cross a low hill to get to the one where the plants grew. When we got back to the car I checked the screenshot that I had made from Google Earth, to find that this was the Stop 1.78 km from the track, rather than the one that was only 120 m away. Not a huge distance 1.78 km, on good terrain, but here we struggled and the chance of twisting an ankle or worse was not worth the effort as we were going to see the plant again later. We came across some quartz sand and just as we had agreed with each other that this was Discocactus country, Cliff found the first ones. Again, for the uninitiated, Discocacti are not plants that enjoy listening to Saturday Night Fever or boogie to the Bee Gees. They are flat, disc shaped cacti that due to their shape can escape death from frequent bush fires that rage overhead.

So at least this was not going to be a ‘no cactus’ stop. But we were sensible and left it at that. I still managed a useful selection of field flowers, many members of the Veloziaceae and Eriocaulacea families that we had seen in ’99 dried out, but that were now in full growth and some in flower.

I checked the laptop before we started walking at S1533. This was the stop 120 m from the plants and it looked like easy going. And yet, it took a while before finding the first Uebelmannia. But then there was no stopping. They do however occupy a very limited area, without obvious indications why they grow where they do and why they then suddenly stop. Another noteworthy addition to the pictures was a 20 cm long millipede that was also captured on video.

We enjoyed ourselves so much at this location (135 images show that) that we decided to give the other planned stop a miss. After all, it would only be more of the same and was less than a km away.

So instead we had an ice cold Cola at a small bar in Sopa. We were served by a boy in his teens. ‘I bet you learn English at school’ I said. ‘Yes’ he smiled nervously. ‘That is so that you can talk with foreign tourists and sell them things that they want from your shop.’ ‘Yes.’ he agreed. ‘So how much are the 8 AAA batteries here on the shelve?’ He got a calculator, looked at the answer and thought hard. ‘Five’ he said. We knew it should be R$ 4.80. He did too, but did not know how to say it, but we did receive the R$0.20 change. ‘Good luck with your studies’, we said as we left. ‘Goodbye’ he managed, as his proud parents came to wave us farewell. 

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Cliff and I had said it before, but it deserves a mention here too. Unlike other places where we have travelled, including Rio Grande do Sul, the uninitiated could be excused to think that they were NOT in cactus country  as they were driving along. No tall ceroids, no opuntioids along the road, nothing – either cultivated fields, open barren land or thick vegetation accompanied us along roads and tracks.

All the more worrying when the GPS would tell us that we should park the car for a cactus stop. Where? Why?

Today we took the track (MG-220) through Conselheiro Mata and turned round just before Mojolos. We had marked a few of the stops that we had intended to make on the way back. The first one (S1526) was for some strangler fig, a ficus that somehow had found somewhere to put its roots and was now rock climbing. Some ceroids were following its example. Pilosocereus floccosus had been remembered from Marlon’s pictures on the BCSS forum from the 2008 CSSA trip of Brazil.  We were parked right below a bees or wasp nest and soon moved on.

S1527 was for a location that claimed to have Melocactus levitestatus. We found an abundance of Discocactus placentiformis, the form known as D. multicolorspina. We kept being surprised by huge (10 cm at rest) grasshoppers. So now tell me that they were locusts. Anyway, they made a mechanical noise as they flew away from us. I managed to capture two on images. But Melocactus? No!

As I stepped out from behind some shrubs I spotted a lady along the road. She appeared European rather than Brazilian so I asked if she spoke English. ‘Yes, A little.’ came the reply. It turned out that she was Swiss and that her husband was as mad about cacti as we were. He appeared a few seconds later, accompanied by a Brazilian guide / driver. We must have the same data, because he too was looking for Melocactus levitestatus. He was Thomas Wegelin, a Swiss geo-botanist from Zurich seeing Brazil on a sabbatical break and using Marlon’s CSSA trip Diary as a guide. Between us we could confirm that there were no Melocacti in the areas that we had looked.

Also here was Arthrocereus rondonianus. This time we found some show quality specimens, ready to flower tonight or having flowered last night – just our luck. 

S1528 was for Cipocereus bradei, at least that’s what I believe the blue stemmed on top of the rocks were.   I had seen these from close up in 1999 and knew that they look best from a distance. Whatever they were, they looked great here.

We now had a drive for some 40 km before reaching three Uebelmannia pectinifera ssp flavispina locations. Cliff noticed a number of thunderstorms building up behind us. They provided a nice cooling breeze, but we were aware that they could turn our track into a fast flowing river, so we treated them with respect, only allowing ourselves a limited amount of time at two stops for our Uebels, S1529 and S1530. Each time it took some time to find the first plant.

They tend to occupy just a small area. All around, the conditions seem identical but for what ever reason, they only grow where they do. As a result, it is important to walk to the exact GPS coordinates, which so far reliably has provided at least one plant each. You then had to scout around to find where the core of the population was to find a couple of dozen more plants. They looked great as they had done in ’99, but this time there had been a lot of recent rain, so we were able to photograph them on the edge of small flooded areas. At the first stop, many of the plants were in bud and / or in flower. Again, it was amazing to see how small the flowers were. We found some young plants, showing the juvenile spination that justifies the name ‘flavispina’ – yellow spined.  On the other extreme were plants of 50 cm (20") tall. Again, I got the feeling that there were more plants per stop in 1999 than we saw this time. Why? Adverse conditions? Illegal collecting? 

We were in rather a hurry at the second stop because the thunderstorms rumble came closer and closer. In my hurry I jumped off a rock and nearly landed on a coiled up snake. I don’t know who was more shocked. He decided to stay still, relying on his camouflage and me to make the next move. My next move was to fire of some shots with the camera before saying a polite farewell. I treaded a bit more wearily thereafter. 

We never had any rain. It seemed to pass by to the north and east of us. May be tonight there will be a repeat of last night’s heavy rain and brief hail storm – at least according to Cliff – I slept as usual.

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Yesterday’s disappointing day (although only in terms of Uebelmannia seen) was still fresh in our minds. I therefore suggested a change of plan and selected a road with at least two dead certain populations of Uebelmannia. We decided to go to the farthest away one first, just before Boa Vista, three km before the village of Inhai, that became famous after Rudolf and Marlon used the term ‘Inhai population’ for a form of Uebelmannia pectinifera in their book. Just as in 1999 we drove past the site, noting it for our way back and headed for a small bar at the far corner of the triangular square. The place had had a lick of paint since then. It was like stepping back in time, a bit eerie. After two small Colas each – partly frozen in the freezer, just like the beers had been in ’99.

But we had already made an impromptu stop (S1523) before arriving at Inhai. Cliff spotted a Discocactus in some snow white quartz sand by the side of the road. We had nearly forgotten about this genus that shares his area with Uebelmannia as globular cacti of interest.  I believe that they were D. placentiformis, but not sure what syn. was used for this population.

Having had our Colas in Inhai, it was not long before we were at the bridge labelled Rio Caite Mirim (S1524). Again, an eerie moment: I could see Brian Bates with his paper bag full of C. minensis fruits laughing, he had eaten twice as many fruits as he had collected for seed. And I could hear Keith getting excited about the ‘interesting’ stick Euphorbia, E. sipolisii, about which we gave him so much stick if you pardon the pun. I promised Cliff plenty of Uebelmannia here.

But what had gone wrong? We looked and looked but no Uebels to be seen. Were we struck with selective blindness? Had all Uebels become invisible? Perhaps higher up on the rocks? Yes, eventually Cliff found the first plant and then there was no stopping them, singles, groups, big ones, little ones, but none in flower. Also worth a mention were the two ceroids: Cipocereus minensis and a denser spined plant that seemed to want to form a pseudocephalium, Arthrocereus rondonianus (?) I’ll include pictures in today’s gallery and perhaps Marlon can confirm names. The Veloziaceae, the plants that often look so much like Yucca in the US and Mexico, were also around, many species, some in flower, as well as an orchid, Laelia rupestris, in flower, growing through the stick Euphorbia, somewhat enhancing that plant’s appeal.

We noted that unlike in so many other cactus habitats we had seen, there were no opuntioids to be seen. We’d see them farther north as the Tacinga would start to appear.

On to the next stop (S1525) was another stop that was fondly remembered from 1999. It was at a long bridge across the Rio Jequitinhonha. In ’99 I remember that we had parked the car before crossing the bridge and had looked at this well known HU (Horst/ Uebelmann) collection number site (notes at home will tell me the HU number).

For the non-cactologists, HU refers to Horst & Uebelmann. Werner Uebelmann is a long retired racing driver in Switzerland who had / has a cactus nursery there. He sponsored cactus exploration trips in the late 60s / early 70s by the late Leopoldo Horst, the gentleman whose son, Kurt Ingo, now runs the Horst cactus nursery in Imigrante, Rio Grande do Sul that we visited a few weeks ago. The other person on these exploration trips was the late Albert Buining, chairman of the Dutch / Belgian Cactus Society Succulenta. Buining would describe any new plants that they discovered. Horst would get a bonus for every new species discovered.

This was the hey-day of taxonomic ‘splitting’. Any small feature that differed from a known species justified a new name. In that climate, with the prospect of financial reward, it was easy to create new species. This is not a criticism, merely an explanation of how things were in those days and an observation that things have changed (certainly in the English speaking cactus communities) to a ‘lumping’ approach where people respect similarities and rank them higher than small differences. As a result, many of the Buining names have been merged under the earliest name. Even so, he described the Genus Uebelmannia in 1967 and, at the time, its appearance, quite unusual among cacti, caused quite a stir.

In those days, it was legal to collect and export cacti commercially, with Europe, the US and Japan as the main customers. As the number of plants in habitat was often limited, there was a distinct danger that plants, already living on the edge by challenges presented by their habitat, would become extinct in nature. Laws were passed, both in the countries where cacti grow naturally and internationally by laws that aim to control the trade of endangered species across boundaries (governed by CITES).     

Anyway, as usual, I digress. I had fond memories of this stop from ’99. We parked the car before crossing the bridge and, while searching for the Uebelmannia, saw a sizeable truck drive across the bridge to give us the confidence that it would carry our weight. This time, on our way to Inhai, there was a Toyota Hilux pick-up with load waiting to enter the bridge. One of its occupants was making an inspection, especially at the end of the bridge where various bits of woods had been arranged waiting to be put into the jigsaw puzzle. The two occupants had a brief chat, smiled at us and gave us the thumbs up, then crossed without incident. I filmed their crossing, followed by that of our car with Cliff driving. It did seem that this bridge was in need of some urgent repairs!

On our way back, 2 Colas later, we found the bridge with full repairs in progress. There were two cars wanting to come our way, with their occupants giving useful advice (?) to the workmen. We just parked the car, said hello and walked across for our plod in search of Uebelmannia. We found only four! With the distraction provided by the bridge works I had left the GPS and my hat in the car. I can not be 100% certain that we had the exact right spot along the river.

From memory (10 years + 6 months ago), we parked our car in a bend immediately after the bridge and then crossed a barbed wire fence to follow a foot path along the river for some 200 m, then, some 10 m from the river, there was a clearing with a rocky cliff rising, in front of which were the Uebelmannia. growing in the dappled shade of trees between the dried leaves of the trees.  We walked along much more than the 200 m, without me recognising the spot, until I was quite sure that we were seeing beaches and side gullies that we had not seen in ’99. It was bl**dy hot and Cliff was overheating. Common sense said to take as many relevant pics as possible with the camera’s GPS switched on and compare them with GPS readings from previous visits.

We found a total of four Uebelmannia pectinifera. There had been lots more in ’99, although with a self imposed limit of one roll of film (36 slides) per day, that might have been a distorted memory-recall. The logical conclusion was that we had missed the ‘clearing’ that perhaps had become overgrown. A worse thought was that perhaps the plants from this famous location had all been collected by hobbyists, each just taking one each to take home where the plants would almost certainly have died by now. Taking pictures home is by far the best strategy for the species survival. Mind sets need to be changed. Despite the lack of Uebelmannia found, I still managed 45 images at this stop, scenery, bridge repair work and other plants in flower. How fortunate we are to make these trips with today’s technology.

Still, we found an Epiphyllum, E. phyllanthus, in the forest that was new for me from here and of course recorded photographic evidence of all the other cacti (Cipocereus minensis, Pilosocereus floccosus and Cereus jamacaru) that we found.

We are booked in for at least five more nights at our Hotel and could stay longer if need be, so no worries (yet).

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A mixed day: excellent weather, bright and sunny but not too hot (c 25C I guess) and with a light breeze. We had selected four known localities for Uebelmannia pectinifera from our data set. All were along the road from Diamantina to the village of President Kubitschek, named after arguably the most popular and successful President of Brazil during his 5 year term from 1956 to 1961.  Juscelino Kubitschek de Oliveira was born and raised in this small village which is part of the Municipio of Diamantina where 33 years after his death he is still somewhat of a local hero.

But the first stop (S1519) was close to Diamantina. Here we hoped to find the form of Uebelmannia pectinifera that was sold in Europe under the name U. crebispina. We had the right idea and found a total of four plants about 500 m from the spot suggested and another two plants and four dead plants (borer beetle victims?) about 400 m. from the designated stop. Looking at Google Earth (no date for the images displayed there) it seemed to have been a lot wetter recently than at the time that the picture was taken. There was a sizeable bog between us and the location in the data base and the going was treacherous – there seemed to be huge cracks about 50 cm. (2ft) deep but covered in vegetation. These were half filled with water, if you were unfortunate to step into one of them. Google Earth suggested a nice ‘stone with quartz’ surface. Never mind, we were sure to find more at the next stop.

The next stop was at Datas, but was of a tourist nature, taking pictures of the architecture, particularly the church. We could always come back for the cactus location on the edge of town, although it was farther away from the main road then the other stops, but with ‘parking’ close to the town – it had looked a bit dodgy the day before as we passed with groups of youngsters enjoying themselves.

S1521 was the farthest away from Diamantina, a few km. before the turn to the village of Presidente Kubitschek. The plants were supposed to grow 10 m. from the road. The nearest ‘car park’ opportunity was a bit farther away but we recognised the habitat conditions, all the companion plants were there and we felt comfortable that we should find hundreds of Uebelmannia here.

Wrong! We found just one plant, less than 40 m. away from the spot that our database suggested. Cliff and I are convinced that on our way back to the car we actually walked over the database coordinates, but without finding any Uebelmannia.

Again, the place was thick with vegetation following October’s unusually heavy rains. But the ceroids here (Cipocereus minensis and ?? sp.) looked as though they had had a very hard time. Only recent new growth provided an indication to their identity. Cliff claims to have seen a third ceroid sp.

How did we know about these recent rains? We gave a lift back to Diamantina to a student couple. She was studying tourism and spoke very good English and he was reading agriculture. They had just finished a spell at the University farm looking after lambs. I was beginning to feel hungry.  The amount of water (bog sites) was another indication of recent rain. And the vegetation was going mad!

After 90 minutes looking high and low, literally, we decided to call it a day and after a quick visit to the village named after the former President (again, nice church) we returned to our hotel. Better luck tomorrow, we hope.

A bit of re-packing, a visit to the Supermarket and we were on our way to Diamantina. There was no real expectation to see cacti, but anyone we saw would be a bonus. Initially the road was a splendid motorway – until we discovered that we were heading south instead of north – ooops! We found our way out of Lagoa Santa, this time heading in the right direction, but it took some time before we saw indications that we were on the right road. Street signs are still somewhat of a luxury I guess.

We made a scenic stop (S1516) as the road climbed steeply into the Serra do Cipó. The name suggested that we’d be seeing lots of Cipocereus, but none were spotted – we did not look very far – just alongside the road. We made some more short stops along the road up, still all filed as S1516. This included some pictures of a large statue of a man sitting in the field at Cachoeira do Capivara. No cacti were seen or photographed, but we did snap some field flowers, including a nice Orchid and our first Eriocaulaceae of the trip.

S1517 was for a Rhipsalis sp. (?) or an Epiphylum sp.? and nothing else, while S1518 was for a series of trees that stood out from a distance as their glaucus – silvery leaves stood out in sharp contrast with other plants in this area. No idea for a name, but plenty to research once I’m back at home for summer.

S1518 was for sightseeing in Diamantina – pictures of the well maintained Portuguese colonial houses, offices and churches that brought back many happy memories of my visit here in 1999. But a lot had changed. There was a lot more emphasis on tourism – lots of signs spoiling the fronts of buildings, lots of expensive looking hotels and pousadas and hotels, both in the centre of town and on the outskirts. Lots of noisy bars full of youngsters. This in a town where 10 years ago we struggled to buy some postcards that were not sepia prints and where the nightlife consisted of meals in one or two restaurants or a hamburger on the market square. Also a lot more police of various branches in various uniforms, the lady officers looking particularly attractive in their spray-on kit.

We found a nice hotel to the south on the outskirts of town and decided that this was easier to get out and back to than the hotels in town, particularly if we should have any rain – in 1999 Brian’s 4×4 struggled on the very smooth old stone slabbed streets, much too steep in wet weather.

More of the hotel at http://www.hotelestilodeminas.com.br/

We were aware that today we passed a number of Uebelmannia locations – the Datas sites, but wanted to find a hotel before getting side tracked by cactus explorations, so tomorrow we go back some 65 km to the most southern U. pectinifera site.

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Our flight was not until 12:18, but we assumed two hours of check in time and allowed another 30 minutes for hotel check out and a taxi to the airport.  Check in was nice and easy with bags going straight through at Sao Paulo (hopefully to Belo Horizonte.

The only snag came at airport security where it was discovered to transfer his ‘field tool kit’ (multi purpose pocket knife, collapsible hand trowel and fold away pliers, plus, I’m sure, the omni-present and ever so useful (not) tool to remove stones from horses’ hooves) from his back pack to his hold luggage. The security personnel’s attitude was ever so refreshing. Instead of Cliff immediately becoming the  prime suspect of a terrorist plot to blow up the universe, they understood that it was just a simple oversight. But rules were rules, so a member of the security team accompanied Cliff back to the check in desk where his hold luggage was retrieved and opened to put in the offending articles. Wonder if that would have happened so smoothly at Heathrow. I remember Mike Harvey forgetting the Swiss Army pen knife in his hand luggage in 2007 and security people nervously getting ready to put on the latex gloves for a detailed inspection of his luggage and person. Of course Heathrow a a tad more busy than Porto Alegro and the security issues in the UK at that time were at a higher level of alert. Still, compliments to the Brazilian security staff for handling the situation in an efficient and friendly manner.

Our plane was 30 minutes late and with less than two hours transfer time in Sao Paulo reduced to 90 minutes we became worried that it might be another race against time – one that we had lost here when we arrived four weeks ago. We need not have worried as first we noticed that our departure Gate at Sao Paulo was the same that we had just arrived at and that our plane to Belo Horizonte was the same one that we arrived in from Porto Alegre. We shared our flights with a football team, Gremio, from Porto Alegre, playing in Serie A of the Brazilian league, playing against a team from Belo Horizonte tomorrow. They seemed well known as some passengers were taking pictures on their mobile phones and one lady asked them all for their signatures.

We had caught up with ourselves and even arrived 10 minutes early! On to the Localiza desk where a nice lady greeted us and showed us the mini bus to their car park which also had their main admin block. The rep we approached immediately referred us to Michelle, who spoke excellent English and had studied in London and has an English boyfriend. Lucky guy! 

The bad news was that the quote we had via the helpful hotel receptionist in Porto Alegre was wrong. Different rates apply in Porto Alegre to those in Minas Gerais. The good news was that the total cost now quoted was less than the quote we had received, including full insurance. And it was less than what we had paid for the Doblo. And it had only 2,688 km on the clock, with tyres that match that distance. We have a Meriva Joy that for the short distance to near by Lagoa Santa (12 km) has proven to be a joy to drive. It’s now a bit like driving your own new car, careful not to put any scratches on or make it dirty.

We are in Hotel Lund, which came up in one of my earlier internet searches. Cheap and cheerful with a wifi connection that’s fine for Cliff but not for me. Tomorrow we drive to cactus country.