Following the previous night's rescheduling of the itinerary, three cars left Taltal for the journey north, on the coast road (Ruta 1) to Botija. After all his lobbying the previous night, Leo had stayed behind, proving that nothing is more changeable than the human mind. 

We reached Paposo just before 10 a.m. and were ready to stretch our legs and inspect the C. humilis plants at the shrine, dedicated to the Virgen de la Puntila which we first visited in 2001 (S064) and which this time became S663. In previous years, the habitat seemed always to have suffered from damage by guanaco, donkeys and / or humans, with Copiapoa either nibbled down to the root, trodden on or attempted to be dug out, which in all these cases had left part of the rootstock embedded between the rocks. The plant's survival strategy is its ability to regenerate new stems from these tap root remains. As a result, we usually found quite a number of tap roots with a number of offsets with a short spined juvenile appearance. Last year, Angie and I had been unable to get to this site as road development of the track to mines farther inland was in full progress. This enforced isolation seems to have benefited the Copiapoa, as this time quite a few of the small heads had developed longer spination usually found on mature heads.

S664 is a for a collection of images as we travelled from Paposo to Botija. In 2003, we had difficulty in finding the turning to the usual campsite at Caleta Botija and I was keen to avoid the fracas this time.  'What are those cacti growing along the side of the road that have been there since we left Paposo?' asked Trevor. 'Copiapoa cinerea ssp haseltoniana' I replied, as it dawned on me that if we didn't make a stop soon, he and others who were here for the first time would never get a picture of these plants in habitat.   We made a stop and everyone was happy snapping away, while I fired up my laptop and noted down the GPS co-ordinates for Botija.   The problem in 2003 was that the sun had set so that it was difficult to recognise the silhouettes of the coastal hills. Today, the tops of the hills were shrouded in clouds so that again there was no recognisable silhouette. As I was driving, I passed the GPS co-ordinates and the GPS to Trevor. Bad news! We had already passed the spot!

The convoy made a series of three point turns as I explained the situation to Ian and Mike who were driving the other car. I also passed a copy of the co-ordinates to Ian and off we went, back south. After some 10 km, Trevor was still reading out co-ordinates confirming that we were heading in the right direction, but with still some way to go. I spotted C. haseltoniana growing by the side of the road. Strange! I was sure that these plants disappeared from the scene sometime before Botija. How could I have been so wrong with my past observations? I carried on believing the technology rather than my instincts for a little longer, but then called for another stop to fire up the computer again and double check the facts. The figures I had written down were correct. Next to the GPS and then it dawned on me what had happened. On my computer I had noted the co-ordinates in decimal degrees, to facilitate input in Google Earth and Map Info. My GPS was set to display our location in degrees and decimal minutes. I should have had more faith in my instincts and checked earlier. It meant that when we had turned around, we had NOT yet passed Botija. I broke the news to the other car parties. Never mind, these things happen. It was 13:57 as we turned around again and 15:32 before when we finally arrived at Caleta Botija. Bart & Marijke's car was already at the car park and they must have over taken us as we made our slight detour to the Paposo Shrine.

'Had we felt the earth quake?' Marijke asked. No, we hadn't. 'Just the bumping of a flat tire that we picked up following Ian up a very poor side track.' grumbled Mike. Two continental shelves meet just off the Chilean Ocean shore. It is the reason why the coastal range and the Andes exist. Each time that one shelf moves a little over the other, the earth's crust shakes a bit. It forms part of the Pacific Oceans 'Ring of Fire'. Some of the 2003 Copiapoathoners had experienced this while camping out at Fray Jorge in 2003. These are normally just small, local shudders, nothing to worry about.

I wanted to check out the extent of C. ahremephiana distribution along the track (S665) and then drive on a little to a population of golden spined Copiapoa solaris that I'd driven past on a number of occasions without having time to stop (S666). Cliff decided to join me while the others disappeared up the Quebrada.

Finally, to reassure all future visitors to Botija, if you come from the north, you can not miss it: there is an old car door with the words 'Caleta Botija' in white paint, parked along the road.