The Pan de
Azucar National Park is just too large to see in one day, even if you only
concentrate on the Copiapoa highlights.
First
stop of the day (S091)
was at a fluvial sand bed, but there were no signs of recent water flowing
through here. The Copiapoa cinerea subsp. columna-alba here were
young plants, compared to the old giants that we had seen elsewhere. But how
young is 'young', when seedlings, molly-cuddled in our European
collections, can take a decade or more to reach 10 cm in height?
Our next stop
(S092) was a short valley
running inland to the east of the track. Here we found C. cinarescens,
some C. marginata and finally C. serpentisulcata, growing at the
end of the valley. Usually C. cinarescens and C.
serpentisulcata are easily distinguished, although both tend to form nice
symmetrical mounds. But here, at the end of the valley, there were a large
number of what can only be described as intermediates between the two. There
were large numbers of unusually nice Eulychnia saint-pienna and it was
interesting to see how C. marginata tended to grow at the foot of these
Eulychnia 'trees', perhaps for protection, but more likely to benefit
from moisture that would drop down these 'natural fog nets'. Judging by the
lichen and algae that grew on the Eulychnia, fog was a regular occurrence
here. Here, the C. marginata tended to grow as single, solitary plants,
dotted around the valley, rather than forming the clumps or dense stands that we
had seen at Morro Copiapó.
Walking back
to the main track, this time along the (shadow) south facing wall of the valley,
Attila and I were excited to find a single 'different' Copiapoa - was
this something new? It was certainly 'different' enough to mark the spot with a
separate stop number (S093).
Our answer came the next day, south of Chañaral, when we found lots more of
these plants growing right along Ruta 5 and there more easily recognised as
Copiapoa calderana var. spinosior.
The next stop
(S094), west of the track at
the sign for Loberos, we found more C. cinarescens and C.
serpentisulcata. The latter was also found at the next stop (S095),
at sea level, along the beach.
We left the
park through the Chañaral gate. As the mouth of the (dry) Rio Salado opened up
before us, we followed a track along the southern hill slopes of the Pan de
Azucar National Park. Ritter had reported C. hypogaea from 'the hills
north of Chañaral Airport', so, as we could see the airport in the valley, we
made some brief stops exploring the foothills (all recorded as
S096) but only found an
Eriosyce (Neoporteria) sp. There were some suggestions that in Ritter's
days, the Airport had been located further inland, but more exploration work
during our 2003 indicated that Ritter must have walked over the hills, rather
than stay near the track.
Back at the
Hosteria in Chañaral, we compared notes before going for dinner (sea food, what
else!) at a wonderful restaurant near Barquito, just south of Chañaral, as this
was to be our last evening together as a large party.
