We left Caldera for a drive of some 500 km to
Antofagasta. We would pass many interesting cactus locations (Pan de
Azucar, Esmeralda, Cifuncho, Taltal, Paposo) but forced ourselves to
keep Leo's foot on the accelerator pedal to 'eat the miles' on the Pan
Americana - we would come back this way again on our way back to
Santiago in a few weeks time, this time in the company of Attila
Kapitany and Rudolf Schulz whose previous field work in the area would
help us to drive up to the best locations without the hit and miss need
for hour long searches.
North of Barquito, we stopped on a shale
outcrop to look for Copiapoa barquitensis (S037)
- our inexperience still showing: expecting to find the plant just
because we were near the town after which it was named. It
actually grows in the hills behind the village and not right alongside
Ruta 5!
After Chañaral, Ruta 5 turns east before
turning north again, some 30 km inland and now protected from sea fogs
by the coastal hills that are the Pan de Azucar National Park. We
are now in the true Atacama Desert and can only be amazed at the
landscape - no plants to be seen anywhere as we speed though the
landscape at 100 k.p.h. - and can only guess how dry the climate here
must be. So the signs along the road, urging drivers to switch on their
main headlights in case of fog, look strangely out of place. It seemed
impossible that fog could penetrate this far inland and there was no
visible flora to suggest that it ever had in living memory.
We took the Antofagasta exit off Ruta 5 and, as there were still a
few hours of daylight left, decided to find the coast road (Ruta 1)
north. We took the exit to Juan Lopez on the Peninsula de Mejillones to
find the Morro Moreno, the type locality of Copiapoa atacamensis.
Sometimes, luck is on your side and you simply wind down the car window
to take pictures of the plants you are looking for, as for example on
Morro Copiapó where we found Copiapoa marginata. Not so in this
case. The Morro was much bigger than the map suggested and much less
accessible than M. Copiapó. Day light was now failing fast so we made
for the town of Mejillones, north of the peninsula and found a holiday
bungalow camp, deserted for winter. We had our pick of the cabañas and
enjoyed a good night's rest.
