As we drove
south along Ruta 5, the km. posts, showing the distance to Santiago showed less
than 1,000 km to go - so a 'homeward bound' feeling crept over our party.
We
stopped, at Ricardo's suggestion, at a prominent shrine at km 950 along the
Pan Americana (S097). We
had stopped here on the way north, but purely to stretch our legs - the
scenery of large boulders did not suggest a cactus habitat. Ricardo and
Ingrid guided us between the boulders and pointed out the Copiapoa
calderana var. spinosior that was growing here, as well a small
Eriosyce (Neoporteria) pulchella.
A bit further
along Ruta 5, (S098) we
stopped again to look at 'proper' C. calderana and for our final goodbyes
to Rudolf, Attila, Michelle, Ricardo and Ingrid - it had been great fun
travelling in their company.
Things went
quiet in our car, as the realisation that we'd be leaving in two days time
hit home. We all agreed that we wanted to go back via Totoral and Carrizal
Bajoto take another look and more photographs of the Copiapoa dealbata
that impressed us so much on our way north at the start of our trip.
And so, we
turned west off Ruta 5 and headed for Totoral, stopping a few km past the small
village (S099) where we found
two forms of C. echinoides :- the dark skinned C. dura and lighter
coloured C. cuprea. Unfortunately, I had run out of charged batteries for
my digital camera, so was only able to take slides of the plants here and at the
next stop (S100), where C.
echinoides was now growing right alongside C. dealbata / C. carrizalensis
with both species in flower, without any obvious barriers to cross pollination
between them.
This was a
truly magnificent stop and I praised my digital camera, now recharged from the
car's cigarette lighter socket, as we were all running short of slide film. I
had brought a laptop computer to down load the digital images from the
Flashcards, but even this had its limitations and the 5GB hard drive (considered
exceptionally large at the time!) was rapidly running out of space and would
need some selective deleting of less than perfect images to allow me to down
load today's crop of pictures. Just as we'd decided that we had taken enough
pictures, one of us would find another exceptionally nice plant or another
spectacular cristate.
Time was
pressing on, and as the track was one of the worst that we'd been on, it was
difficult to guess when we would reach Carrizal Bajo and the better quality road
to Ruta 5 and Vallenar.
We allowed
ourselves one more stop (S101),
to take pictures of C. echinata and it was near dusk before we could see
the outline of Carrizal Bajo. What we had not counted on was that the sandbank
that we had driven across on 14 May was a tidal feature and now - with the tide
in - invisible. What to do? Leo shouted across the water to some local couples,
out for a Sunday evening stroll to see the sunset. Their reply was not good -
the tide would cover the track until early morning, there were no crossings
further inland and the only way back seemed to be along the 'bone-shaker' track
to Totoral. With heavy hearts we started the journey back. After a few km, Leo
uttered some Dutch curses, turned the car round and we sat in silence as we
drove towards the water's edge, with the lights of Carrizal Bajo beckoning
across the other side.
Our silence
turned into screams of excitement, encouragement and fear as Leo selected the
most appropriate gear, revved the engine hard and built up some speed before we
hit the water. Yes, it was sheer madness, but none of us had really wanted to go
through the ordeal of the overland journey via Totoral again. Our camera
equipment and my laptop were on our laps, just in case the water should rise
above the car's sill or worse, in case we would have to evacuate the car. The
locals on the beach joined in with our shouts and screams and cheered and
applauded when we reached dry land. Never again!.
