On
previous trips, a feeling of depression crept in as soon as the km
readings on Ruta 5 started to drop below 1000, north of Chaņaral. The
last week however had been so full of unexpected and new experiences
that the feeling did not hit me until S318, yesterday.
We had made it to the Bahia cabaņas at
Guanaqueros, where we had also stayed on my birthday in 2001. We had
breakfast at one of the many truck stops along Ruta 5. From here it was a relatively
short drive to Fray Jorge, as I had promised Alain to show him some
'big' Eriosyce and in the hope of collecting some more seed.
And so, at 9:15 a.m. we presented ourselves at the entrance gate
(closed) to the Parque Nacional Fray Jorge (S319),
where the sign proclaimed a 9:00 opening time. The warden arrived at
10:15, just as we set off to our next stop (S320),
on the track back to Ruta 5, where on previous occasions, if we had
brought a small vacuum cleaner, we could have collected kilos of E.
aurata seed. This time I had brought my adopted seed sucker, with
a larger bore tube, but like Ian's last year, it too got blocked by
the third seed, so that it was back to tweezers to top up supplies.
Being foreigners, we felt we had a good excuse to ignore the 'Private
property - no admittance' signs that had now appeared along the track.
There were more fences going up, so in Bob Dylan's words: 'The Times,
They Are A-Changing'.
There were two more stops to make before the
trip was over - bar the journey home. S321
was last year's stop in the Quillimari valley where this time
Eriosyce curvispina was in full flower. Again,
agricultural development was progressing at pace. Some of
the neatly newly planted out vineyards on the hillside across the
valley reminded me of the war graves of allied soldiers around Arnhem
in the Netherlands and filled me with similar sadness in the knowledge
that it would not be long before the cacti that we had pictured would
be ploughed under.
S322
was a celebration - the coast at
Pichidangui that had become an unplanned, almost
accidental, last stop in 2001, only to provide the continuity for
trips as it became the first and last stop of subsequent trips. In a
way it offered the promise of being the first stop on the next Chile
adventure, provisionally planned as 'Angie's Birthday Tour 2007'. We
had the rest of the afternoon to feast our eyes and cameras on the
numerous plants in flower before returning to our cabaņas and doing
the final packing. Where had all the extra luggage come from!?!?!?
(Same question each trip!).
