The Cactus Trip Diaries

Monday, 9 June 2003 – Bahia Inglesa: Explorations north of Caldera

Ricardo suggested that we’d join him and members of the Chilean Cactus Club for the day and so we met up at the Copec fuel station on Ruta 5 at around 8 a.m.. Our first goal was a drive and walk up the Quebrada El Leon (S0123), where we found Copiapoa humilis, C. marginata and what we tentatively noted as C. hypogaea (which would make it the most southern occurrence by quite a distance and therefore unlikely). The ‘other cacti’ included Eriosyce (Neoporteria) taltalensis and Echinopsis (Trichocereus) deserticola.

Next we were to meet the owner of the hotel where Ingrid & Ricardo had been staying, who would guide us to another location which, as far as we are aware, had not been explored for cacti before (S0124) at La Hormiga. Angie christened this stop ‘Horror Hill’ as the track was probably the most demanding on car, driver and passengers of anything we had met to date. Many a ‘Ouch’ and ‘whoops-a-daisy’ was heard as the convoy of 5 cars lunged up the hillside track. There had been the usual low cloud cover as we woke, but this tended to lift during the day. Not today – it even started to spit with drizzle as we were taking our pictures. The Copiapoa and Eriosyce sp. we found (small plants) were dully photographed. As the Copiapoa met the ‘squishy’ criteria, coined by Rudolf in 2001 for soft bodied plants in the Humilis complex, this was the name noted. Discussions later on left me a little confused with C. humilis, C. echinata and C. totoralensis as possible candidates for the identity parade.

The Eriosyce (Neoporteria) sp. was also ‘different’ to anything we’d seen before with probably more than one taxon represented. The name E. occulta was suggested and that name deserves a bit more study of the available literature in weeks to come.

Plant ID can be quite a tricky business. When it comes to cacti, we’re so used to buying labelled plants and often blindly trust the accuracy of the name on the label. Or we have built up an image of what a particular species should look like from a limited number of pictures in a book. This ill prepares us for the variability that can occur in nature. Some taxa are quite uniform in appearance, while others can confuse the most experienced copiapoaphile. The next aid to identification is to check through literature for suggestions of what has been reported from a particular location before, but this relies on the expertise of the author, who may have copied errors that have crept into earlier works and of the person who has entered that name on their field list and so it too has to be used with caution. Next, we used the process of elimination and ultimately some long discussions over several alcoholic beverages help to put the world to rights.

It was at this point that our car, a Kia Sportage, decided to play dead. It had on some occasions been a bit tricky to start, but this time it was as dead as a dodo. We had been the last car to reach the ‘car park’ – the end of the trail at the top of a hill where we just managed to squeeze the car in between Eulychnia and Trichocereus. The last 20 meters had been steep with large holes and boulders making the end of the road a welcome sight. We believed that we would be able to bump-start the car, but none of us dared to do this in reverse down this horrible track. So with the unified strength of the assembled cactophiles, the car was pushed from (and over) Eulychnia to Trichocereus for what seemed like a 12 point turn on a handkerchief.

Eventually it was pointing down hill and Cliff volunteered to be the chauffeur for the bump start. With a sigh of relief from the spectators the car fired up and we could start the descend. From than on it was important to look for a place to park the car with a good downward slope to get it going again.

We intended to ring the car rental people or to seek advice at a local garage, but when you spend most of the day in the field, away from garages, this proved not the easiest of things to accomplish. We agreed to seek help in Taltal where we’d be spending six nights. By then, Cliff’s careful observations had found the car battery bone dry due to two grommets, fitted to avoid spillage of battery acid in transit between the factory and the supplier, still being in place, despite the instructions (in English) on the battery to remove them after installation of the battery. As a result, the battery had been unable to breath, causing it to boil. The problem was remedied easily with the aid of a few litres of distilled water supplied by the owner of the cabañas in Taltal and the removal of the grommets.

Anyway, with the car still ill, our two car parties decided to spend the afternoon on the Morro Copiapó, opposite the hotel at Bahia Inglesa (S0125). This is an important location for Copiapoaphiles, as it is the location of the neotype of Copiapoa marginata, the plant that was chosen as the type species of the genus when it was created by Britton & Rose. For some 60 years, the true identity of C. marginata had been the source of some argument and discussion until Ritter designated the plants from Morro Copiapó as the neotype.

It is also the neotype locality for Eriosyce odieri according to Kattermann. The two taxa were dully found and photographed as the sun was disappearing behind the Morro, casting a harsh shadow over the plants.

And so it was once again time to get back to the hotel bar and for Angie to down-load the day’s images from her, Cliff’s and my digital cameras to her laptop, which by the end of the trip had about 6,000 images stored.

Sunday 8 June 2003 – Huasco to Bahia Inglesa

As today was Sunday, breakfast was even later than the previous day, but after the daily packing ritual, we set off for Carrizal Bajo.

As usual, we got lost in the little back streets of Huasco Bajo to find the bridge across the Rio Huasco, but with the help of Benjy’s GPS data for the bridge and the assistance of a bemused local citizen, we found the bridge and were pleasantly surprised to find the road in better condition than in 2001. This was something that in general had improved over the last two years. As usual, there is a balance to be struck – natural habitats are destroyed, both by the road being laid and by the quarrying for aggregate to be brought in by truck from elsewhere. Quite often this destruction affects cactus habitats, particularly as the rocky outcrops preferred by cactus roots are an ideal source for road building material. On the plus side, access to known and yet to be explored areas is much easier.

We made our first stop of the day (S0119) as soon as clumps of Copiapoa appeared alongside the road. These were still C. fiedleriana (very similar to C. coquimbana, but with a characteristic chin on the rib between the areoles). We must have ‘gotten our eye in’ for the small stuff as without any problems we found a number of Eriosyce sp that I take to be E. odieri.

Thanks to the improved road, we made up for our late start and arrived in Carrizal Bajo in good time. The tide was out, too good an opportunity to miss to cross the small quebrada.

In 2001 we had arrived here from the opposite direction, with the sun setting and the tide in. Going back north to Totoral would have meant a long drive over the worst tracks encountered that year, in the dark. Fortunately, our suicidal driver that time – Leo – did not like the idea much and instead drove straight into the water following as best he could remember the sand bank that we had seen there some four weeks earlier. Amazed onlookers, out for a sunset stroll, screamed in fear and amazement at our (successful) attempt. This time, things were a lot easier as we hardly got the tyres wet during the crossing and began to climb the steep track heading north along the coast.

Now that we had passed Carrizal Bajo, we found a mixture of Copiapoa at our next stop (S0120). The last remnants of C. fiedleriana seemed to merge with some small, often single bodied clumps of spines – C. echinata; some large bodied plants with often flattened bodies – C. echinoides; darker bodied forms – C. dura and enough intermediate variability to explain the host of taxa described from this area. The Euphorbia lactiflua and Oxalis gigantea were not in flower or leaf, and the Miqueliopuntia and ceroids had all seen better days, so the rains that appeared to have occurred further south had not been here.

Our next stop (S0121) sums up my idea of cactus heaven – standing up to your knees in huge clumps of Copiapoa, not knowing which way to point the camera first. This is the area where Graham Charles and Ted Anderson were pictured on the covers of their books. Huge clumps of Copiapoa dealbata, mixed in with C. echinoides. Anderson used the name C. malletiana, an older, but poorly described and therefore dubious name, but more recently the name C. dealbata has come back in favour, so that all of us who relabelled our plants when the Cactus Family was published, can reach for our label writers again.

It took several blows on the whistle to get everybody back in the car. We made one more stop (S0122), a bit further north and were glad that we would pass by Carrizal Bajo again on the way back south, at the end of our trip. In addition to the magnificent clumps of C. dealbata we found some dichotomously splitting stems and a good number of crests. When surrounded by such large plants it is easy to ignore ‘the small stuff’, so not until we started looking for seedlings, to confirm the health of this stand, did we spot ‘Thelocephala‘, probably Eriosyce odieri (subsp. fulva?) and a small, flowering, Eriosyce crispa.

As we drove east from Totoral, we promised ourselves to take a look at the cacti that we raced by in a few weeks time, on the way home. There was no time or interest for stops along Ruta 5 as we pushed on for Caldera and from there to a fantastic modern hotel, Rocas de Bahia, overlooking Bahia Inglesa with Morro Copiapó across the water. Tempting as it was to use the luxurious dining facilities, we had to eat in Caldera, because we had an appointment with Rudolf Schulz and Leo van der Hoeven, who had been touring Copiapoa country since late May, with Ricardo and Ingrid, Peque and Frankie and a number of Chileans whose full names, in the excitement of meeting old friends, I forgot to note – sorry, Karen, Jose, Vincent and others. We had a great evening with the (NOT!) shy and retiring Leo and I catching up on old times in Dutch, while the others did very well communicating in Spenglish, – it has to be said that the language skills of our Chilean friends was far superior to our poor attempts at Spanish.

Plans were made for some explorations north of Caldera the next day and once again it was time to fall into bed (or was it the hotel bar and the free hospitality Pisco Sours?).

Saturday 7 June 2003 – La Serena to Huasco

One disadvantage of staying in ‘a posh hotel’ is that there seems to be less flexibility concerning the earliest breakfast available, so a bit later than hoped for, we were back on Ruta 5, heading north. After 30 km we saw low mounds of what could only be Copiapoa, right alongside the road! At the first available pull off we stopped (S0115) to feast on clumps of Copiapoa coquimbana, a highly variable taxon that needs a good deal more study.

Shrubs of Oxalis gigantea were in leaf, indicating that there must have been some recent moisture available. The Copiapoa were in excellent shape with a range from seedlings to mature clumps in evidence. Some plants were in flower but most heads had their apex hidden by flower remains, hinting at the presence of fruits. We were not disappointed and Benjy showed us how to go about harvesting.

The recent moisture had also woken up some of the shrubs and Senna cumingii was showing off its yellow flowers.

On we went and after the climbing ‘the bends’ north of La Higuera, we made another stop (S0116). Again, we found Copiapoa coquimbana alongside the now familiar ceroids and opuntiods, but the new kid on the block was Miqueliopuntia miquelii, both in bud and in fruit, but sadly not in flower.

We decided on a change of plan and instead of aiming for Vallenar to spend the night we made for Huasco and made a stop (S0117) west of Freirina on the way. Here we found Copiapoa fiedleriana and Eriosyce napina subsp. lembckei var. lembckei (syn. Neochilenia lembckei). Throughout our trip we kept referring to these cryptic plants, often invisible below the soil, as Thelocephala, as we all knew what we meant by that name. One plant was duly dug up, so that we could see for ourselves the massive tap root that gives the plant its name ‘napina’.

On to Huasco where, close to our 2001 stop S0024, we were once again amazed to find cacti covered under a thick layer of coal / ore dust from the nearby docks (S0118). I have never encountered the advice to ‘cover your plants under coal dust until they take on a permanently black appearance’ in any text book concerned with cactus cultivation – may be I should remedy this omission, as the plants certainly did not seem to mind. We found Copiapoa fiedleriana, Eriosyce crispa (in flower), E. napina subsp. lembckei var. duripulpa and the usual ‘sp.’ of Eulychnia and Echinopsis (Trichocereus) – even more difficult to identify under their black coating and with spines worn off by wind and dust.

Satisfied with today’s finds, we looked for accommodation, which we found at the Hosteria Huasco, where the owner, rather nervously asked if we were Americans and seemed to be relieved that we were Europeans. Next, where to eat? Everything seemed closed, except for a bar across the road, but our landlord warned us not to go there and instead arranged for another restaurant opposite to be opened especially for us. We all had Lomo a lo Pobre (beef with fried eggs and papas fritas), washed down in the usual way. They had even brought in a singer / guitarist who played what sounded like Chilean pop / folk songs.

Friday 6 June 2003 – Ovalle to La Serena

During my 2001 visit, we spent a day each, travelling up the Elqui and Huasco river valleys. It was interesting to see where the influence of the coastal climate, that appears to be so important to Copiapoa, stops and similarly where other cacti are found. Since then, looking at maps, I have been curious to see ‘the next river valley south’, that of the Rio Los Molles / Rio Rapel / Rio Grande / Rio Limari river system that passes by Ovalle and eventually passes by the south side of the Fray Jorge National Park to empty into the Pacific Ocean.

The river waters warm during their journey from the Andes to the ocean, where they meet the cold Humboldt Current on its way north from the South Pole. As a result there is a lot of fog that supports an original temperate rainforest that stands out like an oasis in an otherwise barren area. This is the southern limit of the Copiapoa distribution area.

As we drove up the valley from Ovalle, Benjy and I once again observed how much greener the areas we had travelled through so far had been, compared to 2001. That time, we had travelled during May while this time we were travelling in June – the middle of winter on the Southern Hemisphere. Obviously there had been a lot (?) more moisture available to the vegetation (rain and / or fog?). The greenness was even more noticeable here as irrigation has enabled agriculture to become a major industry, with vines for the famous Pisco grapes as just one of the crops.

Probably because of lack of preparation on my part, probably due to lack of access to possible cactus habitats due to agricultural development, but when we reached ‘the end of the road’ – a (disused?) border control point in Central Los Molles, at an altitude of 1074 m in the foothills of the Andes, we had only made one ‘cactus stop’ (S0114) and a number of photo-stops to capture the beautiful scenery.

S0114 was at Puente Los Angeles de Rapel, a newly constructed bridge on a relatively new track that was not on our map. The local Trichocereus chiloensis form here was particularly nice with large big stems in full growth, producing spectacular spines of up to 15 cm (6″) in length.

It can be quite difficult to strike a balance between exploring for cacti and moving on to, perhaps,

more rewarding sites and the varying individual needs in a party of eight to take enough pictures to remember this once-in-a-lifetime stop. It is also easy to become absorbed in your search for plants and so to lose track of time and of the distance that has still to be covered before reaching the planned accommodation for the night. In order to keep some focus on the aims of the day, I had brought a soccer referee’s whistle that proved quite useful to draw people back to the car. This time, the whistle was blown in vain as Cliff failed to re-appear until eventually tracked down by Benjy. His explorations had taken him a bit further and out of reach of the whistle’s sound. His efforts were rewarded by having found an Eriosyce aurata and a Eriosyce (Neoporteria) sp. We’ll have to wait until we see his slides to see if we can provide a more educated guess for the precise name of these plants.

Somewhat disappointed – we had still not seen any Copiapoa in nature – we headed back and drove north to La Serena, where on Benjy’s recommendation we spent the night at Hotel Costa Real, an excellent, luxurious hotel that we would visit again on the way back.

Tomorrow we would see our first Copiapoa!

Thursday, 5 June 2003 – Pichidangui to Ovalle

Eventually, we were all showered and ready to go. First stop was a vulcanizion where for the equivalent of £ 1.50 (c. US$ 2) the tyre was fixed, the valve changed and the spare wheel swapped back for the original, so that we had matching sets of tyres.

Along this part of the Chilean coast, access to the rocky shore line is rather limited as land has been fenced off in preparation for sale and building of some very nice weekend retreats for the better off Santiago workers. While this urbanisation does have an impact on nature – we were able to see this already in Pichidangui – the pressures of people in search of better housing, even only as a break for daily city life is irresistible. It would be wrong for us to criticize this situation, as we had been quite happy to make use of the facilities at Hotel Kon-Tiki, which previously would have been nice cactus habitation.

The next opportunity to see what could be found at the coast came at Punta Totoralillo (S0002 from 2001, S0109 this time), some 15 km up the coast. During my previous visit, signs of tourism,
encouraging housing development, were already to be found, but now more sections of the coast were fenced off and a few summer houses had been built. The same mix of cacti and succulents that we had seen at Pichidangui were to be found, but with easier access from the bottom of the rocks rather than from the top.

S0110 was an unscheduled stop at a petrol station off Ruta 5. While the cars were being fuelled, toilet breaks were taken and legs stretched. This last exercise took us to a barbed wire fence, no doubt put up to stop passers by from falling into a dry gully. Here we found some very fit Eulychnia acida and Trichocereus and all of us were persuaded to get our cameras from the car to photograph a nice crested plant. Hence this was entered into my Stop list. Sequential Stop numbers were allocated to each place where we stopped to take pictures of cacti.

Next we pushed on until we reached the turn off to Parque Nacional Bosque de Fray Jorge. In 2001 we had learned that during the winter season, these parks were only open during the weekend, so on this Thursday, we made three stops (S0111, S0112 and S0113) along the road up to the park entrance gate, which in 2001 had been chained off. However, this time it was open and we made our way to the Ranger Station to make some enquiries. We were assured that the park would still be open on 26 June when we were due to pass by on the way home. We decided against camping this time as we had not bought provisions (read beer, wine and bread rolls) for a night out. At the Ranger Station I was able to take a picture of Copiapoa pendulina, a form of C. coquimbana that is regarded as the most southern Copiapoa. This plant had been moved to a small garden so that the people could recognise it later on their walks through the extensive Park.

The stops on the road in and out of Fray Jorge proved a treat in their own right, as we found the only Eulychnia plant (Eulychnia acida) on the whole trip, that was in flower. Various attempts were made at catching the flower, some 2.50 m (8-9 foot) off the ground, on film. Time will tell if the slides I attempted to take, hanging off the side of the car, are any good. In addition to the ceroids (Eulychnia acida and Echinopsis (Trichocereus) skottsbergii). other cacti included Cumulopuntia sphaerica although we still tended to call it by Ritter’s name Tephrocactus berteri and Eriosyce aurata, the form previously going under Ritter’s name Eriosyce ihotzkyanae or Backeberg’s E. ceratistes var. jorgensis. These plants were giant barrels, to 88 cm tall and 50 cm in diameter. Some still had the characteristic woolly fruits in abundance, while others were bear of fruit, but with the plant’s depressed apex full of seed, ready to be scooped up by ants, mice and keen cactophiles.

Aware that we still had some way to go before a hotel bed awaited us, we drove east to Ovalle, making short stops to capture the best sunset of the entire trip on film and digital camera. Ovalle turned out to be a typical Chilean town, with some 53,000 inhabitants and a grid system roads where getting to the planned hotel usually means driving twice around the Plaza before you have found the one-way street that gets you closest. Hotel Roxy was no exception, with it’s neighbouring porn video shop probably helping to keep the price for accommodation down. As often, behind the plain and unassuming entrance was a nice courtyard leading to simple but clean rooms – a welcome bed for the night.

Wednesday 4 June 2003 – Santiago to Pichidangui