It
pays to be patient, as today we were ready for some cacti. First we
needed to fill up with fuel - quite a challenge as the Copec station
seemed to be so well hidden in 2004 that we took its GPS coordinates. It was of
little use, as this only told us if we were getting closer or not, but
did not allow for the many one way streets that stopped us from reaching our
goal. As we circled the town in ever decreasing circles, another 4x4
pick up pulled out of a gate and nearly rammed us: Bart!
He confirmed that the
Copec station was only just around the corner. They were going to Toconao and
had been on the El Tatio trail the day before. We agreed to meet in
the Plaza around 6 for a beer and then go out for a meal.
And so, on to the cacti.
This was the same route that we followed on 9
October, 2004, but with very good reason. I had a heart attack in
June 2006 and wanted to confirm that, following the unblocking of the
arteries that had caused the problem, I could still function as
before. Angie too had a few question marks over her ability to operate
at altitude, having felt unwell many years ago in the Alps at much
lower altitudes than the 4,600 m that we were planning to visit. We
were both very pleased with our experiences, and for Angie it was the
first time that she had seen Andean vegetation. Ricardo had suggested
an alternative location, north of Calama, with a denser population of
Echinopsis (Trichocereus) atacamensis, but this would have
involved a 160 km detour and there was no mention of other cacti that
we might see. We later saw a digital slide show of Ricardo's location
which includes all the cacti that we would encounter,
so this has been pencilled in for Copiapoathon 2007.
So what did we see today?
S557 was the Oreocereus leuchotrichus stop
from 2001 and 2004. If I remember, it was Marlon who spotted the
plants as Leo was driving at rally speed towards El Tatio. They
were in a gully, some 50 m. down from the road, visible only briefly
from the car as we negotiated some sharp bends quite a distance away.
Fortunately we had taken a GPS reading that time, as I think it would
be difficult to spot from the road again, as the track had been moved
several times since 2001. The plants seemed in good shape - the dead
stems had already been dead in 2001 and there was abundant new growth;
even a small seedling that had not been spotted before. This time,
there were no flowers, but quite a few fruits, despite Bart's visit
the day before. A lone Trichocereus atacamensis was shyly pushing out
a flower, but by midday, the flower was well past its best.
S558 were pictures of distant Trichos in the Andean
landscape, like telephone poles approaching the road, but rather more randomly arranged,
and finishing at the 2001 stop. Just as we were about to start taking some pictures a coach
arrived and tourists swarmed out like ants over the hill side. Never
mind. we would stop here again on the way back.
S559 was at 4,359 m. and not far from the 'Anacampseros'
that Anne Adams had spotted quite by accident in 2004. At the time,
Alain and I had been quite unimpressed with this minuscule plant and
had not bothered to get out our reading glasses to see what all the
fuss was about. We were satisfied to point our fully automatic digital
cameras in macro mode at the plant and obtained remarkable results, considering the
lack of photographic skill that we put into the pictures. Only when we
got back to the hotel and saw the images full size on the screen did
we regret not taking this stop more seriously. Had we been the first
to discover an Anacampseros in Chile? Unfortunately not. Eventually, a
botanist in Santiago was able to identify the plant as
Pycnophyllum macropetalum, an Alpine
member of the Caryophyllaceae, the Carnation Family. I was
determined to pay more attention this time. The spot for the stop was
prompted by a family of guanaco, chewing the cud fairly close to the
track a little way back. Juan was keen to see how big the caudex would
be that we expected to find. It transpired that the clumps of plants
we had found were nothing more than a dense collection of individual plantlets
each with a
single thin long root that extended several inches into the sand. What
was surprising was how humid and cold the sand was, only some 15 cm (6
inches) below the surface. While we were at it, we took some pictures
of other tiny alpines, as yet without ID, but including Llareta.
Google found the following description of this curious plant:
'Azorella
diapensioides; Llareta (as usually spelled) is a woody shrub with
tiny tough leaves, in a rounded cushion form of such tight
construction that it is frequently mistaken for a moss-covered rock,
even on close inspection. Not typical for an umbellifer. Habitat is
rocky slopes at high altitude (generally around 3,500m-4,500m) in
areas of low rainfall, but generally found in locations where there
is some water seepage. Its range extends over a considerable area of
the high Andes from Peru to central Chile. It is used for firewood,
because it grows in regions where fuel crops won't grow. As a result
it has become extinct over much of its former range, but it is still
common in some of the high altitude national parks in the northern
half of Chile (eg, PN Lauca). It tolerates very wide daily
temperature swings (at least -25C to +25C), but probably requires
the dry air and high light intensity of its natural habitat. It is
very slow growing, with as little as 20mm per year quoted, so larger
(1m+) specimens must be around a century old.
S560 took us back to
the ruminating guanacos that had been joined by a small group of what
looked like partridges. Mike Harvey tells me that they are Puna
tinamous. Thanks Mike!
