The Cactus Trip Diaries

Thursday, 24 October 2013 – Around Villa Pehuenia (2)

The view from our bedroom window keeps changing. This morning the same bedroom window that offered us a glorious view over the Araucania covered mountains across the lake when we arrived, snow covered Christmas scenes yesterday morning and back to normal when we returned in the afternoon, this morning gave us ….. pea soup! But very spectacular as over breakfast (with camera in hand) we watched it clear up. Should have used my tripod to do some time-lapse shots. We’re not complaining!

Our guide, Martin, is a teacher at the secondary school in Lonco Luan and had to be at work until 15:00 hrs. So we spent the early part of the day on the road to Zapala. In 2010, Guillermo Rivera’s party were travelling 2 days ahead of us and reported to have passed a spot along the Zapala road, where some 200 Tephrocacti had been in flower – 56 km from where we were. Now I wasn’t so silly to expect that they’d still be in flower, but certainly hoped that a drive to the area might suggest the spot and that one or two of the plants might reveal themselves. They did not, but we have some more shots of the spectacular scenery. We’ll drive through here again tomorrow as we move north.

Road to Zapala

Martin was ready and waiting as we arrived at the school. What did we want to see? Cacti or Viola? Again, both was the reply. We had been warned that it was probably too early in the season for the Viola and also, with Pterocactus not in flower yet, these would be difficult to spot. So, cactus first – a location away from Villa Pehuenia and one that we had visited also in 2010 – at the base of a huge rock on private land.After the long break since last seeing cacti in habitat, I practically raced up the hillside to where I knew the plants were. They looked in excellent shape but again – too early for flowers. Angie found her first Austrocactus ever, a bit lower down on the hillside – one that I must have gone straight past on the way to my patch.

Austrocactus bertinii (S2870)

We photographed about a dozen groups of plants but then it was time to move on again. By now it was 17:00 hrs and Martin estimated arrival at the Viola spot around 18:30. I was amazed to learn that the track that we were on now – and had been in 2010 – was in fact the road to Paso Il Arco, another border crossing with Chile. Quite hairy! Particularly as the tyres provided little grip. Again, a snow field blocked our way and again we had to cross it on foot. Martin walked ahead as we changed foot wear for a short hike. At the place where he had expected to find some plants there were none. On to another spot, but again no joy. The problem was that the snow & ice was lower this time so we were still short of the 2,000 m mark that Viola seem to prefer here. We explained that the Viola at Laguna Laja in Chile had been up and flowering, but that was a day’s drive farther north (i.e. closer to the Equator) and on black rock that acts as a heat sink.

Also worth reporting that the Patagonian wind that had plagued us during 2010 had only appeared once or twice. This morning’s drive had taken us past the spot where in 2010 I had already returned to the car when Juan was caught in a mini hurricane that battered him with sand and pumice particles. John and Cliff had been observing the event from the hillside, above the turmoil. Today it had been very calm, a great photo opportunity.

It was dark when we arrived at Villa Pehuenia, around 20:30 and said good bye to Martin. He did not want to accept any money for his time – as Alejandro had already suggested yesterday – just a warm handshake of friendship. This we did plus I gave him a very rare book indeed! The only copy in existence of the Cactus Trip Diaries – Patagonia 2010! I can always print off another copy when I get back to the UK. He was over the moon!

Tuesday, 22 October 2013 – Temuco to Villa Pehuenia (Argentina)

Last night at the Holiday Inn Express was one of well earned luxury after a week and a bit on the road. Our bed was larger than some of the rooms we had stayed in! But, a price to match, so it’s good that there are more affordable options around.

At the end of September I had started looking at some suitable passes to get from Chile into Argentina. Just before we were due to leave, the car rental provider advised that we would not be able to pick up the necessary papers for taking the car into Argentina until the week after our arrival in Chile. A quick bit of rescheduling left me with one main concern: would the passes in the south be open? Some stated that they would only be open from 1 November – too late for us. I explained our problem to the owner of Hosteria Al Paraiso in Villa Pehuenia and he suggested the near by Paso Icalma, so small that Google Maps had not appeared to have heard of it, instead trying to send me on a 134 km detour! A weather check at the time reported 150 cm of snow and freezing temperatures.

There had not been much information about this pass on the internet and there was a significant stretch of track that was only ripio quality on the map. I remembered some of the tracks in 2010 which were turned into mudslides by an overnight thunderstorm and remembered the rain that we had experienced just a couple of days ago. Like a good IT Project Manager, I had ‘invoke reverse processing’ as an option.

I need not have worried. But let’s start at the beginning:
We enjoyed a nice Holiday Inn breakfast and a little later than usual set off. The hotel had been ideal for access from R5, but SatNav seemed unfamiliar with the town of Tembuco. After some scary experiences where it tried to send us the wrong way up one-way streets, we learned that this was in fact a feature – it consistently got it wrong each time! Back to first principles: we needed to head into the Andes that we could see some 50 km out of town in the east. Driving in a straight line, sooner or later we had to reach the outskirts of town where skylines were more easily seen and rush hour traffic would not try to push us off the road.

Angie was familiarising herself with strange sounding names of villages on the map and soon found one that we had driven through, that proved that we were headed in the right direction. It was nice and sunny despite the TV forecast of clouds and rain and the scenery was of a typical sunny UK Spring day, with fresh green leaves breaking on the Alamo (poplar) trees. Quite a fast road too, with average speeds of 80 km.p.hr. So far so good. But I remembered the drive to Antuco a couple of days ago where it got cold and bleak fast as we increased in altitude, and the Andes loomed up fast, their peaks covered in snow.

Then the asphalt stopped and we found ourselves on good gravel, but the sort of stuff that our car, christened Dodgy, had difficulties in keeping a straight line on. I suspect tyre wear and pressures might be to blame – something to check out at a next fuel stop. With the scenery improving, the slower speed was no hardship. Araucaria trees appeared on the hills, covered in mosses and lichen, producing an eery feel to the place.

Scenery on the way to the border with Argentina

Auracaria in the snow

As was the case in 2010, there were also a lot of dead trees around – stripped by nature of bark, standing like skeletons on the lower hills. Workers were busy in places to clear up the dead wood. Had these trees (Notofagus – southern beech?) been hit by a disease? Taking pictures nicely distracted us and so it came almost as a surprise as we saw the name Icalma appear by the side of the road. We were there at the pass, not at all the way that I had imagined an Andean mountain pass (1,300 m)

Four Chilean immigration officers competed for the challenge of best English speaker, all very relaxed and no other customers in sight. I told him about our experiences in 2008 at the Cristo Redentor pass on the day before New Year when we had been in a 12 km long queue to get from Argentina to Chile – a night mare. They laughed. ‘Send them this way’! they said. I promised to award them best ‘Exit from Chile’ officials. 12 km later, having taken some nice shots in no-man’s land’ of the Argentinian Lakes before us, we were met by an unsmiling Argentinian custom’s official, who directed us to park the car and enter the small wooden building. Here we were met by four girls in uniform who giggled as they tried to make sense of our passports. They called on a grey haired senior colleague for help. All in all we must have been more interesting than the cyclist who seemed to have been the other crossing that day – or more likely the warm(ish) empanada delivery man.

One more call to make, to a small hut across the road, where two more officials were glad to see somebody different from the locals and with mucho gusto stamped their way through the documents that imported our car temporarily into Argentina. Was I german? they asked, looking at my passport. ‘No, Holanda’ I replied. Ah, they said, better at football than Germany! No argument there, although the number of world cup wins suggest a different story. (S2865 – Lago Aluminé)

And so we turned up a day early at Hosteria Al Paraiso where it took a while for me to recognise our hostess Monica. No problem, they had rooms, so we could relax and catch up with Diaries and a bit of relaxing new age music that sets the tone for the hotel.

Sunday, 20 October 2013 – Pichidangui to Chillán

We enjoyed a nice meal last night at Restaurant Pichidangui, which seemed to have had a face lift, or did they just put in brighter lights and clean table cloths?

Breakfast was a little later today, to allow the lady who was scrambling the eggs to attend to church duties. There was still time left for a quick look at the rocks – Angie had only visited the area north of the church, so we headed to our usual spot south of the church.(S286). As in previous years the Carpobrotus chilensis was taking over and smothering the Eriosyce and even crowding out the Eulychnia. Attempts had been made at some landscaping and weed clearing, but it looked as though the label ‘weed’ had been applied to the wrong plants. Never mind, there were enough still in tact and flowering closer to the water’s edge, where conditions were a little harsher.

Eriosyce chilensis on the rocks at Pichidangui

Next we were off to the Airport. When we had picked the car up on Saturday 12th, we had been told that the papers to take the car into Argentina would be ready on Monday 14th or later in the week. As we were passing by the Airport today, now was a good time to pick them up. It took all of 3 minutes. As we needed to stretch our legs, Angie decided that now was a good time to buy some souvenirs, as the traditional Chile cups and T-shirts back home were in need of updating. First, for those who have been to the International Departures area of the Airport – pre check-in, they have moved the souvenirs stall to a larger area opposite the old one, which now provides extra space for the security bottle-neck. Second, all the old favourites were gone and I was not that impressed with their replacements. There was a little stall selling mobile phones, mp3 players and associated paraphernalia, where a gentleman with excellent command of the English language confirmed that he had the cable that I needed to end my musical starvation. Did I want the 30 cm, 1 m or 3 m long cable? 1m would be fine! And so, after an anxious moment when I worried that the car’s Hi-Fi might have been faulty, the dulcet tones of Carlos Santana filled the car. Great!!

I had pencilled in Talca as a place where we could spend the night, but with heavy rains preventing any local sight-seeing, we pushed on until around Chillán where it seemed a good idea to ask SatNav for a place to spend the night. It sent us down a road in the middle of town with lots of seedy looking hostals, but the flag pointed at a nice modernised building where we were pleasantly surprised by the high standard of fixtures & fittings.

Ruta 5 in pouring rain – never seen north of Santiago, perhaps much more common to the south (S2862)

I thought of taking pictures to show the Hosteria in Vallenar for some ideas of what others provided for a good deal less money! I guess they would have pointed out that they were some 1,000 km apart, therefore no competition.

Sunday night seems to be when restaurants here close for the evening, so we were fortunate to find a Baverian / German styled eatery that was open and served pizza’s (Jawohl!) and beer (Cristal) which we finished off with a large slice of kueche. There goes the diet again!

Tomorrow we head into the mountains and hope for brighter weather.

Saturday, 19 October 2013 – Huasco to Pichidangui

Today was always going to be a driving day – 524 km. What goes up (north) must come down (south), so with ticks in just about every box on Angie’s wish list she was a happy bunny. There was just one empty box left – the rocks at Pichidangui, which Ritter called Neoporteria heaven – I guess Eriosyce heaven these days, with E. (Horridocactus) curvispina, E. (Horridocactus) chilensis ssp albidiflora and E. (Neoporteria) subgibbosa all growing on the rocks where the Ocean waves break, alongside Eulychnia castanea. And that is where Angie and her camera are right now, while I’m writing up today’s Diaries, adding to her thousands of images from here since 2003, when it was the first cactus stop on her first trip to Chile.

Bart & Marijke should note that the main access road to town is getting a new coat of asphalt, so that today a Devisio was in operation, sending all traffic along the back way, where those living along the main road park their cars and have large gardens.

We’re staying in Hotel Rosa Nautica where Cliff, Leo & Juan & I stayed in 2007 after our trip to Lake Torca in the south.

So much for where we are. The drive today was all Ruta 5, in fog or through a tunnel with the clouds touching the hills around us. Even if there had been cacti to photograph, they would have looked miserable, as would we, because with the fog, the temperature was down too.

We did stop at the Lider hypermarket in La Serena, to top up on provisions and for me to see if I could get a lead to connect my iPod’s headphone socket to the auxiliary input socket of the formidable (but silent) car Hi-Fi system. Jonathan, if you read this, could you buy such a lead? (CANCEL THAT – SOLVED ON SUNDAY). The Hi-Fi also takes CDs, in case you want to bring some of those. I’ve been starved of my music for a week now! I can see a smile appear on Cliff’s face as he has suffered my personal jukebox with some 28,000 tracks more than others. There is always a groan when yet another Frank Zappa track comes on, but I also have fair selection of his Pink Floyd favourites and the whole car has in the past shaken as we spent several hours on a Beatles greatest hits session (not to forget the Electric Light Orchestra for Alain & Eunice).

Anyway, after much hand gesturing and dragging the salesman to the car radio display to show him an axillary input socket and then to an iPod to show him the socket there plus a walk past the headphones to show him the kind of plug that was needed (Lider sells everything, except the lead I need). Ironically I came across it during packing, but decided against bringing it and leaving with the other items often dragged half way round the world and never used. Typical!

Friday, 18 October 2013 – Caldera to Huasco

Today we would follow the Ruta del Desierto, the Circuito del Costera or ‘Coast Road’. SatNav seemed to know of its existence, in patches, but seemed to assume that it was still in the state in which I had found it in 2001, a warren of often poorly maintained ripio tracks, especially, at the time, the Carrizal Bajo to Totoral stretch. These days this endurance track had been replaced by a good oil/salt road, smoother than many UK roads. Although a maximum speed of 40 km.p.hr. was recommended, and assumed by SatNav, cruising at 100 km.p.hr. we were regularly overtaken by cars and trucks in a greater hurry.

In 2004 we were treated to the northern stretch of this track in full flower. Today’s images clearly show the quite different and ‘normal’ state of the desert: barren, with minimal signs of life. Despite the maximum highs forecast for Santiago of 28 C, here it was quite chilly and again over-cast, so that fleeces and jumpers stayed on.

It took a while before we spotted our first cacti – some large clumps of Eulychnia that turned out to be E. breviflora, confirmed by some honey coloured hairy flower buds, away from the roadside (S2854).

Eulychnia breviflora

A bird of prey watched as we took pictures of road signs warning us of cacti and guanaco along the road and of ‘no overtaking’ signs that were followed a 100 m farther along by all clear signs, with absolutely no reason for the short stretch. It seemed as though the road builders had a certain quota of signs to place alongside the road and used their judgement to make it an even spread. To overtake, you need at least two cars, and such occurrences were very few and far between!

We made a detour to Baranquilla, as Angie had never been there and had heard me talk about cacti that we had found there on an earlier trip. I miss my little MS Access data base for which I have so far failed to find an Apple McIntosh replacement. I might have to consider putting a Window’s partition on it before the Spring Trip to Mexico.

Nearer to Totoral and a bit more inland, we came across some tall, to 20 ft tall, Eulychnia. One bud suggested that this had to be E. acida. These plants were taking a long rest. They were building a large industrial construction, and grafity along the road warned against the Castilliano del Muerto – castles of death. The ever growing economy demands more energy, but no one wants to host the power stations that are a necessary consequence. At least here there was a stretch of desert that seemed to have few people around to complain.

We started to see Copiapoa dealbata, many large clumps, and stopped for a much needed leg stretch (S2858).

Copiapoa dealbata

The sun came out and burned back the cloud cover, although it remained chilly. Most of the clumps were in flower, quite a change from the southern population just a few days ago! Eulychnia breviflora was also in bud, with some flowers just opening. Although we have still not found the 2010 stand of C. dealbata where most of the plants were cristate, we did find some impressive crested heads, with one plant with a near 100% of cristate growth gaining our unanimous ‘best in show’ award.

We passed the point where a few days ago we had turned round for our return to Vallenar. This time we stayed in Huaso, in Hostal San Fernando, with its depressing view over the oil-pellet fired power station belching its smoke, this time over the Ocean rather than over the town of Huasco (S2859), where the population has a much higher incidence of cancer than elsewhere in the country. We’re just staying the one night.

Huasco

Thursday, 17 October 2013 – Taltal to Caldera

For Angie, the northern point of her trip was reached a few days ago, at Botija. Taltal was the most northern accommodation. Today we headed back south, always a sad occasion, as the km numbers along R5 decrease to zero at Santiago. But this time, we’ll carry on, south of Santiago, down into northern Patagonia! But not today!

I was sure that we passed a turning on R5 to Pan de Azùcar, Minas El Luces and Cifuncho, but decided that we had probably gone too far when we saw a sign for Pan de Azucar & Las Lomitas. That would do. We were hoping that this was the track that would lead to the Ritter TL for C. columna-alba, around the point where you head north for Secret Valley and the Guanillos and Tigrillo Valleys. However, I had my doubts, as SatNav (which was unfamiliar with all these names – but I’m teaching it!) showed that we were too far into the Atacama Region. Many of the tracks in Pan de Azùcar look the same, so it was not until we reached a junction, with a sign pointing North to Las Lomitas, that I got my bearings – too far south was confirmed. After a km or two another sign warned us that in 7 km the track was closed and sure enough there were formidable crash barriers across various potential side tracks and a truck-proof chain across the main track (S2849). Open between 10:00 and 14:00 hrs, the sign proclaimed. It was 11:00 – they had lied!

S2849 – Closed track to Las Lomitas

I remembered that in 2010, Juan Acosta had been able to contact a friend who had been a ranger in Pan de Azucar and still had some influence there. After some negotiation, he was told that before this main gate to Las Lomitas, there was a side track – apparently also blocked by a crash bar, but with a gap where a car could pass through (S2850).

By-pass to Las Lomitas

Before too long we had found this track and off we went. This was in fact a pretty well maintained ripio track, putting me in fear of losing the remainder of my fillings as we shook, rattled and rolled along the track. The one downside of the Dodge is that on ripio tracks, it bounces along to such an extend that it is difficult to steer it at more than 30 km. p. hr. so that became our top speed here. We kept an eye on the clock as what ever time and distance we travelled, we needed to travel back as well. SatNav was completely lost, but did at least show me that we were far too far inland and descending at quite a rate which was wrong for Las Lomitas which is high above Planta Esmeralda. Should we go back to look for another track to the west? By now I was curious where this track would end up, so decided to follow it for another 20 minutes. This brought us to a nice patch of C. columna-alba and Angie asked for a photo stop (S2851).  This became our turn-around point to be added to the Chain and other key locations to date in SatNavs Favourites Folder. The plants  here looked a lot happier here than at the Smiler location a few days ago – much larger apical discs and evidence of recent flowering. Also a number of ‘seedlings’, small plants that at the local rate of growth might easily be 10 years or more of age. Eulychnia iquiquensis (‘saint-pieanna’) was still at rest – or were they dead? It was hard to tell!

Copiapoa cinerea ssp columna-alba

Our time-budget spent, we wondered if we could find the gate back, over the numerous tracks that criss-crossed here. No problem.

We took the usual pictures as we left the Pan de Azucar NP – across the sands with the town of Chañaral in the background. It’s always too hazy to get a good image and this time was no exception. The petrol stations around Chañaral were the usual mess with trucks fighting for a spot at the pumps – next fuel north is at Antofagasta, some 250 km to go, as big trucks don’t want to squeeze through the streets of Taltal!

On the way to Caldera we stopped at some old familiar spots of C. calderana, (S2852) again, small discs, but quite a number in flower – was Spring on its way or were these the last attempts at sex before death took over? In 2003, I photographed a single Opuntia pad, leaning against a leaking pipeline, presumably carrying fresh water. This had now grown to quite a shrub and a small oasis of local flora had formed around it.

Copiapoa calderana

Another stop was at a pull-off towards the Ocean that was a tourist attraction for large rocks of Orbicular Granite, apparently a rare phenomenon. Jonathan, please note, we’ll pass it again in November.

Granito Orbicular

We made it to the Hosteria Puerto del Sol in Caldera and again are staying in the ‘Cabañas’ that look like deformed wigwams. As always, there was a smell of disinfectant, polish and pesticides around the place – a bit like an English Cactophile’s collection before the plants are put to rest for winter.

Tomorrow we’ll follow the new coast road south to Huasco.

BTW: We are having fun & games trying to get the internet to work here in Caldera. In the fight to try to get things to work it seems that any email I have tried to send is firmly stuck in my out box – refusing to budge. Sorry, Brian, Florencia, Jonathan, Anne Hill, Rudolf and Tony B. respectively. None of the messages were critical. As for tonight’s missive, it’s been typed up in OpenOffice Text and will be cut & pasted to my WordPress Blog as soon as I can.

Wednesday, 16 October 2013 – Around Taltal: Paposo & Chifuncho

The 2013 whirlwind tour of Chile continued with another visit to two classic Copiapoa locations above Papaoso. The first was at the Virgen del Carmen monument along the Cuesta del Paposo (S2844), where everything was fine, but again very dry. Some Eulychnia taltalensis had given up the fight to live. In other years we had often been disappointed when C. humilis plants had gone, with just holes left behind where once we had taken their picture. Since 2010, this seemed no longer to be a problem. May be the illegal collector had filled his greenhouse or had saturated the market. More likely, since the Paposo to R5 road had been significantly improved, guanaco had been too frightened to come and help themselves. Just as in 2010 it was now possible to find both mature and juvenile plants in good numbers. Eriosyce (Horridocactus)paucicostata was also looking good and the Copiapoa cinerea ssp haseltoniana at the end of the ridge were at rest, but otherwise OK.

Angie at the monument for the Virgen del Carmen on the Cuesta del Paposo

[Later, in Taltal, we learned that in July there had been so much snow on the hills above Paposo, that the Antofagasta to Taltal bus had been unable to negotiate its way downhill. This was the first such event in 60 years (1953).]

We moved on to, for us, a relative relatively new (2010) location (S2845) for Copiapoa cinerea ssp haseltoniana, described by Ritter as C. eremophila, off the B-710, the Paposo to Ruta 5 road. For the first time this trip the plants looked happy, with large orange felted discs and the remains of recent (last year’s?) flowering. Again, I could not resist taking even more images of these fantastic plants.

Copiapoa cinerea ssp haseltoniana (= C. eremophila) on the edge of the Desert, east of Paposo at 850 m altitude.

We briefly popped back to Taltal to fill up with gasoline – queues in the morning are horrendous – why do they only have half the pumps working? At least they still accept credit cards, a fairly recent development.

And on to Cifuncho. On the way, we stopped to check on the C. taltalensis ssp desertorum location (S2846) to see if any of them were in flower. I have only seen red flowers here, but flowering plants are fairly rare and it could be that ‘normal’ yellow flowering plants flower at a different time of year – that’s the problem with being here only to take snapshots in time.

Copiapoa taltalensis ssp desertorum

For the final goal of today we went to check on ‘Benjy’s plant’ at Cifuncho. Angie has a fantastic photographic memory and more or less walked straight to the spot. I’m perhaps better at pointing at maps to show where things grow. I used to find the plant by parking close to a large sign board, but this had gone, so I was lost. The plant looked as good as I have seen it, with abundant evidence of last season’s flowering, although no seed was found. There is just one other, solitairy plant left, a bit lower down the hill so pollinating flowers must be a bit hit and miss with so few pollen donors around (S2847).

Angie posing with the plant we first saw here in 2003 and christened ‘Benjy’s plant’ – Copiapoa longistaminea fa

We drove back to Taltal along one of my favourite stretches of roads, the coastal road between Cifuncho & Taltal (S2848).

Tomorrow we start heading south. Angie is glad to have seen all the goals on her northern wish list, but sad that it’s over so soon. But there are lots of new things to look forward to, as I introduce her to northern Patagonia. We’ll be back! Me, in a few weeks time.

Tuesday, 15 October 2013 – Around Taltal: Botija

These days the 50 km drive to Paposo is quick on the well maintained asphalt coast road, Ruta 1 (S2839 – no cacti photographed). S2840 was for a leg stretch among the Copiapoa cinerea ssp haseltoniana.

Ruta 1 – the coast road between Taltal and Paposo

Copiapoa cinerea ssp haseltoniana

Another one of Angie’s requests was to see Copiapoa solaris at the end of the Botija Valley. Why not? During my last visits in October and December 2010 our familiar ‘campsite’ had been bulldozed and a rough track lead into the Quebrada. In December we met a car with two occupants at our old campsite – they too were surprised. One of them was the Manager of the Manta de La Luna Mine in Tocopilla and keen on cacti. No, we need not fear that Botija would be destroyed by mining – he would have heard on the grapevine, although clearly there had been some serious exploring, judging by the heavy-duty caterpillar tracks. Perhaps a small gold vein had been found and emptied, but the tracks were now ‘old’ and there had been no obvious follow-up.

So we were a little tense as we approached – for two reasons: 1) would there now be a camp with mining equipment and 2) if not, would we recognise the place? I had not brought my regular GPS along and had set off believing that I’d have no problem at all. Never mind, we could always turn round if we got to the easily recognised mining dump at El Cobre! S2841 was for images from the car – no cacti photographed.

There was no need to panic. Some of the R1 beyond Paposo had been improved, but there was still some 80% of the traditional bone shaking to endure. Angie & I both saw the first Copiapoa ahremephiana more or less at the same time – but they looked extremely dry, almost beyond hope! Fortunately nature seems to have a fantastic ability to recover, but this will take a major miracle! It was difficulty to decide which image was right to include in talks and in my blog – one of the very few plants that still looked in reasonable shape or one of the many dead or dying plants, looking very dehydrated. I settled on a small clump that shows aspects of all these stages perhaps explaining why when we were first here in 2001, Marlon & I both noted two species here. When we get back here in a month’s time Jonathan Clark noted that there are two different ‘faces’ on the same clump – one plant, one species, but two different appearances as the plant sacrifices stems to survive. (S2842).

Copiapoa ahremephiana – one clump, one species, two ‘faces’

We set off on our hike but soon found what seemed to be a new branch to the Quebrada off to our right. I decided to follow it for some 30 minutes while Angie marched on to the ‘T junction’ at the end of the main valley. All I found were dead C. arhemephiana, quite a depressing sight. This small canyon seemed to turn round to the coast, away from where I might expect to find the other interesting cacti of this area.

I turned back and followed Angie’s footprints along the track that we had found in 2010. It seemed that nature had done nothing to improve the quality of the track, rather made it worse. It also seemed as though not many other cars had tried to copy us and drive in. The suspension on the Dodge was rather bouncy and if we had a new set of all terrain tyres, I might have risked driving in. For now I was happy to explore, move some of the larger, sharpest stones and see if I’d like to take the risk in a few weeks time when I would be back here again.

Most of the track was passable, some parts even good enough for a 20 km.p.hr. sprint, but in some places wind and water (?) had cleared away the sand between huge boulders, leaving large gaps with protrusions that I think would not be cleared by our car. Also, if we should be able to get to such a point, there was no space to turn around, so we’d be stuck. I stopped my highway maintenance tasks and started to look for cacti – still very distressing. Soon Angie appeared, reporting that she had reached the T junction and at least found a number of healthy looking clumps of C. solaris, but here too, there was more death to be observed. We walked back along the south side of the Quebrada (the track zigzagged across the valley floor, but the main place to spot C. decorticans had always been on the south side – north facing side of hills. I have never been able to work out why Copiapoa, living in an environment where water, and how to avoid losing it, is of critical concern, always seem to select the north facing side of a hill – the side that at midday gets the full sun, rather than look for shaded positions. This preference could be fatal here.

C. decorticans (the name C. moribund had been considered when naming the two ‘sp. Botija’ plants was discussed) was in serious distress – I did not find any live plants, plenty of clumps that had died a while back. I know from more detailed explorations high on the surrounding hills by mountain goats such as Rudolf Schultz, Leo van der Hoeven and Juan Acosta and Florencia Senoret that many healthy plants grow much higher on the hill, much too high for my physical ability and for today’s time budget, even if I had been mad enough to try. Fingers crossed that things are better higher up.

And so, after our after our brief sojourn to our farthest point north, we set off back to Taltal, muscles aching after years of too little exercise.

The story of cacti looking stressed through lack of water has now been observed everywhere that we’ve been. That despite us seeing the Desert in Flower in October/November 2010.  Clearly there had been plenty of water than to encourage the annuals to put up a magnificent show, but not enough to allow the cacti to build themselves up for the next great drought.

We saw some lizards that seemed in no hurry to run away from us, but no insects, even though there were some annuals in flower. Angie reported being followed by a hummingbird everywhere she went – must have been her shirt with lots of red in the pattern that was the attraction. So even if there should be a good wet year for the plants, will there be enough pollinators left to ensure sex for the cacti?

On the way back to Taltal we made another leg stretch stop (S2843) among the ever so photogenic C. haseltoniana.

Copiapoa cinerea ssp haseltoniana along R1

Off to Club Taltal soon, where yesterday we had been greeted as long-lost friends. It’ll take a few Pisco Sours to forget the dead plants seen today.