We had
promised ourselves another night under canvas when we had visited Fray Jorge
at the start of our trip. Our two nights of comfort in the luxury hotel in La
Serena were aimed to make up for the discomfort (but still enjoyable) that
awaited us tonight.
The weather
was still not great - after all, this was the middle of winter, and our
bar-man friend in the hotel had warned us that Fray Jorge would be cold and
damp. He was right. It was over-cast and windy. We stopped (S209) along
the entrance road to the Parque Nacional, about a kilometre before
S113
where we had found lots of Eriosyce aurata on 5 June, at the start of
our holiday. There had been either heavy fogs or perhaps even some rain, as
grass and even a few mushrooms had sprouted up, persuading Benjy to stay in
the car so as 'not to get my trainers muddy'. We soon found some 'auratas' and
there was some competition to find the largest live specimen. I believe that
it was Cliff in the end who found a specimen that I measured at 83 cm (35")
tall and 51 cm (20") in diameter, excluding the spines.
Once again
the plants were awash with seed that was just lying in the slightly depressed
apex of the plant. But it was hard to collect as I had advised the others that
there was no need to bring suction tools. Seed of most Chilean cacti can be
collected by 'picking' the fruit with a pair of forceps. With Eriosyce fruit,
you have to pinch the bottom of the fruit to prevent ripe seed from falling
out. But here, most of the woolly fruits were gone - blown away by the wind,
which also provided a cold-chill factor, or by animals - we had seen some
small, long-tailed rodents scuttling around and there were lots of entrances
to underground burrows. During their removal, the seed had dropped out and had
to be collected one by one with the forceps. Ian had brought along a home-made
sucking device, made up of two plastic tubes and an old film container, but
the seed was too large to fit through the tube.
I was not
feeling my best (too may Pisco Sours the previous night?) and the cold wind
made matters worse - my digestive system reacted in sympathy and told me to go
and warm up. The prospect of a night out camping was not attractive. Back in
the car, Benjy too was not keen and it did not take much persuasion for Angie
too to prefer a warm bed to a damp tent. We proposed that we should move on to
Pichidangui instead. The great thing about having two cars in the party was
that it allowed us a fair degree of flexibility. Some of the others had been
really looking forward to seeing more of Fray Jorge, and so it came to be that
Anne and Cliff swapped cars - Anne joining Benjy, Angie and myself to drive to
the warmth and comfort of Hotel Kon-Tiki in Pichidangui.
