The Cactus Trip Diaries

As you may have gathered from the break in communications, time has stood still for tourists in Grão Mogol and we were unable to find an Internet cafe to send out our daily missives.

As I started to explain yesterday, the cactus flora around Grão Mogol is of great interest to lovers of Brazilian cacti. Members of genera that are widespread elsewhere in the States of Minas Gerais and Bahia are represented here by species that only occur in this small area. Examples include Discocactus pseudoinsignis, Micranthocereus auriazureus, Pilosocereus fulvilanatus and Arrojadoa eriocaulis ssp albicoronata but the plant that is probably most closely linked with Grão Mogol is Discocactus horstii, named in honour of the Brazilian cactus explorer, Leopoldo Horst.

We started the day with a quick trip along the road to Cristália. In May 1999 they were working to build the bridge across the Rio Itacambiruçu  This time, the bridge was completed and a smooth hard top road lead us south. The vegetation was becoming thicker and thicker without obvious rocky outcrops to explore. We found a track off to the east and this soon was the required rocks and quartz patches, plus we could see P. fulvilanatus and M. auri-azureus from the car. As we parked up (S1551) and walked towards these plants I stumbled across a much less attractive plant, Brasilicereus markgraffii, not often seen in European collections and here we could see why. The thin stems, at most 4 cm in diameter can only stand upwards to a certain height. After that they require the support of a shrub or rocks and when that fails, the stem breaks and sprouts again from the base. There is nothing that you would call beautiful about the plant, but as I don’t recall seeing and photographing the plants in 1999, I made up for it this time.

Before lunch we decided to check out the entrance to the Parque Estadual Grão Mogol that we had first learned of in 1999. On that occasion we were unable to find Discocactus horstii during our first attempt. We had asked a 7 year old boy who was playing barefoot along the road, showing him a picture of the plant. ‘Oh yes’, he volunteered,’I’ll show you.’ Unfortunately the plant he showed us was the big brother of our goal, Discocactus pseudoinsignis. We returned to the Pousada  Vila da Serra where we were staying at that time.

That evening, Keith Grantham noticed three young man examining our car, Brian Bates’ Nissan Patrol with Bolivian number plates. They were looking through the windows and checking the empty boxes on the roof of the car. We went out to discover what they wanted. Marlon’s native Portuguese again proved invaluable. They explained that they were policemen and that they had reports that our car had been seen near the location of a newly formed nature reserve. We confirmed that we had been there and that we were visiting Grão Mogol to take photographs of the wonderful plants of the area. We were not aware that the area was now a nature reserve. There were no signs. We were told that we were not allowed to enter, but Marlon asked if it was possible to speak to the Police Commander to plead our case.

Keith and I had brought spare copies of the book that we had just written, ‘The Plantguide to Cacti and Other Succulents’ and donated a signed copy to the Grão Mogol Library. That evening the Police Chief came to visit us and with Marlon as our translator, we put our case. We were aware of past commercial collecting of plants and that under current law, this was no longer legal. However, we had travelled a long distance to photograph plants to show back in our own countries. We invited the Chief, or one of his men to come with us, to check that we did not steal or damage plants and that we would follow any instructions and limitations imposed. The Chief agreed that if we took one of his men, we could go. The next morning we met our guide and drove to the site. Fortunately we had information from friends in Belgium of how to get to the location, as it was a walk of up to 2 km from the road as our guide did not know exactly where the plants grew or what they looked like. We gave him a thorough lesson in Cactology and by the end of the excursion he knew the botanical (Latin) names of all the local cacti. It was a wonderful experience that I have often quoted in my presentations of how an unofficial neighbourhood watch scheme helped to protect these plants.

We had understood from many recent visitors that there was now a Parque office where visitors needed to sign in and would then be escorted by a park guide along a paved foot path to the Discocactus horstii plants. It sounded like another very positive move of a country and its people caring about their natural resources.

We found the likely entrance to the Parque, but there was a gate across the drive. We drove on to a small bar along the road and over a Coca Cola asked if this was the entrance to the Parque and if it could be visited. The bar keeper took us to the road and pointed at a house that we could see in the distance, close to where we had seen the gate. ‘Go there!’ he said.

We found the gate unlocked and drove up to a newly built house and an entrance building, still being finished. There was no one to be seen. We honked the horn and a gentleman in uniform overalls came from the bushes. Unfortunately we had a language problem as we were all fluent in our own languages but not in each others. With our little appreciation of Portuguese picked up during the recent six weeks we understood that there was an office in Grão Mogol, where we would need to obtain written permission to enter.

Back in town, we had soon found the office. It was situated above a supermarket just around the corner from our hotel. But where was the entrance? We went to the Tourist Information office where again, the lady did not speak English, but seemed to have a good understanding of our English request. She took us to the building and next to the supermarket was an unmarked door. It was open and we went up the stairs. Unfortunately the door was locked and through the windows we could see the place was empty. It was 12:15, so likely the staff were at lunch. We pointed at our watches and said that we’d come back later. What time would she suggest. One o’clock seemed OK. We went to have a leisurely lunch ourselves and came back at 13:45, but still there was no one to be seen. We held watch in a small park and at 14:30 finally saw somebody go in. What a shame that there was no clear signage on the door with the hours of opening.

We were greeted by a young lady and again we struggled to understand each other. In anticipation I had taken a picture of the Parque Office and showed that on my camera monitor screen. We had been there and the man told us to come to town to obtain written permission.

She looked concerned, then said quite definitely in Portuguese ‘The Parque is closed, it is not possible to visit there.’

Cliff and I must have looked visibly disappointed. We have flown from England to Brazil and driven yesterday from Diamantina to Grão Mogol, especially to see this cactus. She offered us a seat and made a phone call. A few minutes later a gentleman arrived at the office and fortunately our language problems were solved. He was the gentleman who had helped Thomas Wegelin and his wife, the Swiss couple that we had met looking for cacti on 17 November. Thomas had warned us to get official permission before attempting to see Discocactus horstii as they had no end of problems that took five hours to resolve.

Claunidio, a lawyer by profession, did his best to plead our case. The final decision lay with the lady who was the local manager and who was away from the office today. The office assistant promised to contact her boss and Claunidio suggested that he would meet us at the offices at 9:30 the following morning to communicate the decision to us.

Everybody had been very friendly and helpful, but the rules did not permit a different outcome for now. Full of hope we left to take a look at a location for Arrojadoa albispina that in 1999 we had seen much nearer to town.

We had little trouble finding a parking place along the road and finding a gap in the barbed wire to let us in. (S1552) Before long we came across many B. markgraffii, in much better shape than the plants seen exposed on the rocks at the previous stop.

Soon we had also found the first of many Discocactus, but this was D. pseudoinsignis. There were a few buds appearing in the cephalia, but we did not feel like repeating Leo & Gerardus’ experience of returning at night and catching these night flowering cacti in action. The Pilosocereus here also looked better than out on the rocks, protected by the shrubbery. Then the biggest surprise I could imagine, found by Cliff: a Melocactus ernestii fa. plant, very mature and with cephalium. How on earth had this gotten here and were there any more?

Just as we were going to explore, we heard the noise of people coming through the forest. It was our friend from the Parque house with a young man in Parque uniform. If we understood them correctly, we were still trespassing as we were still in the Parque! ‘How far did the Parque stretch?’ we asked. ‘Many thousands of hectares’, we understood to be the reply. ‘But where does it start and finish and how can we tell?’

All we could do was to apologise and walk with the Parque attendants to the road. We really had no idea that we were on Reserve land. There are absolutely no signs along the road to suggest that here the barbed wire is to keep people out, rather than elsewhere, where its function is to keep cattle in or merely mark the extend of land rights by respective owners.

No where in my thousands of kilometres of travels, in the USA, Mexico, Peru, Argentina, Chile and the rest of Brazil have I been unable to obtain permission to photograph cacti in habitat. We are now pessimistic that this unintended trespassing will damage our chances to obtain permission to see Discocactus horstii in habitat. 

I will offer to write an article for the British Cactus & Succulent Society’s journal so that readers will understand what to expect when they visit Grão Mogol and what the correct procedure is to obtain permission and guidance on how to arrange things. We can also put in a proposal for funding from the BCSS Conservation Fund to assist the Parque in achieving its objectives, but we hope to be able to communicate that like everywhere else, things created in nature should still be capable of being seen and enjoyed by visitors. There is great potential for eco-tourism in Brazil, including Grão Mogol, and it would be a great shame if our experience would sour these opportunities.

Fingers crossed for tomorrow!!

We said our goodbyes again at the hotel, this time more permanently than on Monday. It was 365 km between Diamantina and Grão Mogol but it was all on paved roads, so not a problem, especially with two drivers. The first part of the journey was the same as last Monday’s and Tuesday’s: head north past Mendanha and Coutes da Maggalhaes, then past the turning to São Gonçalo do Rio Preto, and on until the turning left to Bocaiúva and Monte Claros. Much of the journey was again through Eucalyptus forest as far as the eye could see. In a way, these trees were to be thanked for the excellent roads that we were on. To get the timber from the forest to the processing plants (a large percentage find their way to the paper mill) you need good roads for the lorries.

We made one stop (S1548) as the road crossed the Rio Jequitinhonha and climbed some hundred meters to offer a superb view as the river with its snow white quartz beaches zigzagged its way through the green forest.

I remember Monte Claros as a bit of a nightmare town in ’99, chaotic with traffic, even late on a Saturday afternoon as we were looking for a hotel. This time the impression was much better as they have made a bypass with well signposted roundabouts to help keep the traffic out of town.

The next stretch of road, the BR365 was like a slow moving snake of lorries. This is the main road between Belo Horizonte and Bahia. There were some amazing driving antics as the snake wound itself up and down hill with the speed dictated by the slowest vehicle. That is until there was a stretch suitable (or not) for over taking, when these giants of the road would slowly grind past the slowcoach, sometimes with another lorry overtaking the over taker on the hard shoulder of the lane meant for traffic going the other way! 

Once we had left Monte Claros behind, things calmed down a bit, but the quality of the road surface deteriorated dramatically, so that overall, our average speed did dot improve.

Before too long, we reached the turn to MG-307 and 53 km later we arrived at our destination.

But first, we made one more stop, S1549, as we were just in need to stretch our legs and thinking that there were bound to be cacti here, Wrong! We walked off in opposite directions, either side of the road, with our walkie talkies and soon reported to each other that although the presence of quartz would suggest that we would find at least some Discocactus. After 30 minutes we admitted defeat, drove on a few more km., took another look, same result.

As we approached Grão Mogol, we finally had confirmation that we were in cactus country, with Pilosocereus fulvilanatus seen regularly either side of the road. We resisted the temptation of a cactus stop and headed into town. An advert for a new superb looking hotel on a poster at the entrance of town appeared to be a promise of future development that was still work-in-progress!

Once in town, it seemed that time had stood still these last 10 years. The square with the church and the Pousada da Serra where all the cactus greats in the past had stayed were still the same as we left them in 1999. Backeberg, Ritter, Buining, Horst (as well as Bates, Grantham, Klaassen & Machado) would have stayed in these basic quarters and been glad of them.

In 1999 we had a late lunch in what at the time was a recently opened hotel, by the river. It was still there, was clean and cheap but had no wifi. Neither would the Pousada, so we booked into the hotel.

After settling in (top of the house – 3rd floor – no lift – narrow steep stairs) we went for a walk around town and again it was as though nothing had changed for 10 years. Eerie.

Tomorrow we’ll check out the formalities of visiting Discocactus horstii that now has its habitat protected in a public nature reserve. We discovered this in 1999 as this change was introduced in October 1998. Recent information suggests that the protection is being taken a little too far with would be visitors being refused entry. We’ll then explore to find the other unique local cactus flora of this area. We have allowed five nights to stay here or in near by towns to enable us to extend the range of explorations once the D. horstii challenge has been fulfilled.

The best laid plans …

There is obviously no excuse for not getting it right. After yesterday’ s scouting trip plus the homework that I had set myself, today was a disappointment for me.

Marlon had suggested by email:

‘   …to Pedra Menina it is even easier, if you take the paved road to São Gonçalo do Rio Preto, then take the paved road to Felício dos Santos, and from there Pedra Menina is not too far and the road is good – they were actually paving it last year, it might be paved road all the way to Pedra Menina now, or at least it is to Felício dos Santos).’  This was the road we had chosen for today.

The reports (from June 2008) were accurate. Although not completely finished, they were still working on the bridges, it provided a very fast access to Felicio dos Santos. There things were in a big mess with the original track blocked, being prepared for tarmac laying. Good job that there was no recent rain or the temporary tracks around the problem spots would have been impassable.

But here the good news stops. The bad news is that we had the impression that the usual maintenance on the track to Pedra Menina had stopped soon after Marlon had passed last year, probably in anticipation of the promised hard top. But where was it? Lost in the post? Money run out on the previous stretch?

To make matters worse, there were umpteen side tracks all clearly NOT sign posted, and if there were signs, they were to metropoles not on our maps or radar.  My GPS had some idea that there were ‘Terra’ (unpaved tracks) and I had taken some key coordinates from Google Earth the previous evening to act as winch posts to enable us to head in the right direction. Sometimes we were right, but on several occasions we had to go back a few km, after asking directions in our, by now fluent (NOT) Portuguese. It was a great relief when down in the valley we saw the village that I immediately recognised as Pedra Menina. It should be plain sailing from here.

Again, we were to be disappointed. It was easy to see the quartz field where we had seen wonderful Uebelmannia gummifera ssp meninensis in 1999. I had their exact location coordinates. I had the coordinates of the track towards them and even the side track that would get us the last km to them. But that last side track was not to be seen in ‘reality view’, only as a wish on Google’s ‘virtual view’. We tried three possible tracks but had to turn back each time as our little town car was not able to handle the deep ruts left by much larger vehicles at much wetter previous times. At one stage Cliff had to reverse about 500 m down hill on such a narrow track with the ridge between the ruts taking bites at our exhaust system By now it was 15:15 and time for alternative options was running out, especially as dark skies were looming – we did not want to be caught in rain before returning back to hard-top.

Had we been earlier, we could have left the car and walked across the valley to the quartz field and back, but there was no time to do so.

Anyone wanting to see this location in the near future better note that the local unpaved roads are mostly in a bad condition and that sign posts to anywhere that might be shown on a map are non existent.

A tiring and disappointing day.

The best laid plans of mice and men …. often come a cropper.

Today we were moving on from Diamantina to use Itamarandiba (that I have great problems with to pronounce, especially after a couple of beers!) as a jump of point to see Uebelmannia gummifera and U. gummifera ssp meninensis and possibly fa rubra in habitat.

Google Maps had told me how to get to Itamarandiba, but …. the safe, faster long way round – 173 km in total. We drove into town and looked for hotels while at the same time looking for the way out towards Pedra Menina and Penha de França which were close to the locations for the above cacti. In our search for the way out of town we came across two hotels and one Pousada (over the petrol station on the edge of town) None of them seemed to have internet facilities which we needed to finalise our plans to reach the Uebelmannia populations. We agreed to focus on our search out of town towards our target area, then look for the nearest hotel.

As we have mentioned before, the success of finding the plants you want to see lies all in the preparation that you put in before – and we had not.

We found the track that according to my woefully inadequate GPS system seemed to be heading in the right direction. We got so wrapped up in this search that we forgot about returning to town. We decided to persist with this quest as a scouting mission. Earlier today I had spotted a sign for a hotel in Couto de Magalhaes, along the main road, near to where the track that we were following would join it.  Inspection of the hotel resulted in a thumbs down. Although we did not go in to ask, it did not look to have internet facilities and certainly did not advertise it, if it did.

We were only 31 km from the hotel in Diamantina where we had a wonderful stay for the last 8 days, so decided to retreat to there. A bit of putting today’s GPS waypoints into Google Earth gave us a clear idea of where we had been and how close (14 km) we had been to one of these Uebelmannia sites. It seemed a much more practical idea to see these sites from Diamantina, so that is the plan for the next couple of days.

Raphael was very pleased to see us back so soon. He also told us in his best English that a lady would be at the hotel bar tonight who could speak both Portuguese and English, to help us overcome the language barriers.

The lady in question turned out to be Annick, originally from Antwerp, Belgium, who had been living in Brazil for some thirty years. The three of us exchanged summarised life histories and we were now able to amaze our Brazilian audience with what we had done today, what we had been doing and what we were planning to do.

Annick has been added to the number of people who are aware of this blog and, who knows, may drop in unexpected one September at ELK (Europese Landen Konferentie) in the  Duinse Polder, Blankenberge; Europe’s prime cactus festival.

Tune in tomorrow to check if the plans hatched tonight actually work out.

This was a cactus free day, so no pictures to post.

We really had run out of things to explore here. That is a lie of course – we could have made stops, say every 1 km along the roads to Datas, Rodeador, Sopa, Inhai etc. walked one  km either side of the road and back and so have a very detailed set of data of the cacti of this area. That is for another life time if we should find nothing better to do.

The remaining Uebelmannia (U. gummifera, its ssp meninensis and U. buinigii), are better approached from Itamarandiba, where we’ll be heading tomorrow.

What to do today? On the assumption that there are cacti everywhere here, Cliff picked a random town from the map, Gouveia, from where a track seemed to run west and then just stop. Obviously we were curious where it stopped and if there were cacti on the way. None were reported from our database. Not a cloud in the sky, it was going to be a scorcher!

We arrived in Gouveia earlier than planned, as the road was an excellent paved road. The track to the west was also easy to find. It had a number of forks and we obviously had taken the wrong one as some fifteen minutes later we arrived in a small village which I think is called  Francisco Doria a Pereira (S1543), at least that was the name painted on the school.

Back on the original track and another fork, eventually the bare rocky hills approached our track – no hard top here! – so we agreed to have a ‘stomp around’. (S1544a). Just one miserable Cipocereus minensis. We were disappointed not to find any Discos on the flat, as the terrain seemed right.

We carried on, still taking the ‘wrong’ turns, ending up at farms, se decided to turn back. As we approached ‘our rock’ again from the other side we decided that this might be the better aspect, facing more to the north, worth another look (S1544b).

Cliff decided to be a mountain goat and found nothing. I decided that as Discos like the flat quartz at the base, so I’d scout around there. It was quite a large area so I started at one end, from where we had actually found one Discocactus. Eventually I found another, but they were few and far between. Then Cliff came back down and found the hill at the other end from where I was searching easier to descend – and stepped right into the core of the Disco group!

There had been a fire through here perhaps 12 – 18 months ago and the plants illustrated perfectly how, being low to the ground, they could survive such a fire; singed ribs and spines and all. The plants were recovering and made unusual subjects to illustrate their powers of survival. I even found a fruit with seed that looked viable that Cliff is looking after. So, new Disco locality in an area not previous explored by our database contributors.

Then into the town that we had picked at random, Gouveia, for the traditional mid day Coca Cola. (S1545).

It was still early and on the way back (at c 16:00) we passed the turning to Conselheiro Mata, the track where we had had our puncture. It bugged me that since we arrived here, my memory was ‘blocked’ by a mental image from the first or second stop that we had made around here in 1999. From memory, the location was only 50 m from the track. So we turned on to the track.

This time I decided to rely on my eyes instead of the GPS and found a likely spot. Consulted the GPS – yes very near to a 1999 stop for U flavispina BUT that location was on the other side of the track. Now there was a farm there with a party in full progress.

We decided to let my instincts take over, had a look around some rocks, then I saw an electricity pylon and memory cells stirred. Go to it! As we approached we could see flat rocky terrain just past the pylon and in front of a huge rock hill. Things were beginning to click, particularly when I spotted the first Uebel!.(S1546). These days, a barbed wire fence cuts across the area. (or did it already in 1999?) I would search one side of the wire, Cliff the other. We had even remembered the walkie talkies. 15-20 minutes later – nothing! Well, except for Pilosocereus aurisetus with two ripe (split) fruits. Then Cliff woke me up from my search announcing that he had found 1, 2, 3, eventually 11 plants in one spot alone. This had to be the place of our 1999 stop that I remembered so clearly, as Marlon had found a group of young plants (16 from memory) that he had called ‘his family’. There had been two crested plants here at that time, but they were gone now.

This was an excellent way to finish off cactus exploring around Diamantina, with the first stop in 1999 now providing success as our last stop in 2009.

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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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