As we walked from the cabana to the restaurant for breakfast, we looked up to the peak of Cerro La Campana towering over us, just across the road. My fellow travellers were living proof of the saying 'No pain, no gain', as their arms and legs ached from yesterday's hike.

Today, would be more of a driving day with just one stop planned, to see another rare Eriosyce, E. aspillagae, north of Pichilemu. I had no maps of the area south of Santiago with me, so we played 'follow the leader' i.e. Flo's Horridoauto soon hitting a motorway and, judging by the signs, passing south of Valparaiso.

As we left the motorway, but still on tarmac, the scenery changed as we drove through dense, planted pine forest that would take turns with equally dense and planted Eucalyptus. Where the forest moved back from the road, verges of a light yellow flowered Lupin shrub added colour to the landscape. Just after midday, the road took a sharp turn west and down and a vista of a bay with sandy beach opened up before us. We passed through several seaside tourist resorts, some old and traditional, some new and modern, with huge condominiums towering along the side of the road, with imposing walls and gates keeping out intruders (or keeping the residents in?). If added to the tourist developments that we had seen in the north, Chile must be desperate to attract more foreign tourists to their country. Shame then that so little of it is in prime cactus country where we needed it. Or perhaps it was fortunate, as so many tourists and the facilities that they would need, would destroy much of the environment.

The scenery changed again as we drove through low rolling hills covered in low shrubs, grass and various agricultural crops. We turned off the main road onto ever narrowing tracks and soon had lost the comfort of a blacktop surface. Finally Horridoauto turned off the track and stopped at a closed farmyard gate. We followed the track until it finished a some hundred meters above the Pacific Ocean (S723). There were two easily spotted cacti here: Eriosyce subgibbosa and an Echinopsis (Trichocereus). 'That's Echinopsis bolligeriana!' said Juan. I looked at him in disbelieve. The pictures I had seen in journals and in the Hoffmann / Walter book showed an extreme pendant, long, branching stem and as a result was on my 'must see' list for this trips. These plants were only some 60 cm (2 ft) tall upright stems and were quite a disappointment compared to what I had expected to see. They looked just like the very variable Echinopsis chiloensis that we had seen so often in the north. How could this plant be excluded from such a variable species? Did E. chiloensis not occur this far south? Juan reminded me that the red fruits of this plant were the distinguishing feature, not found in E. chiloensis. But  there were no fruits!. Not this time, but Juan had observed the fruits here on a previous visit. Juan assured me that we'd see some hanging specimens tomorrow.

So where was the Eriosyce that we had come to see? Florencia and Juan started searching on hands and feet and had soon found several - shrivelled, pulled down into the soil and hidden among the grass. With all this 'interference' by nature, it was difficult to get a good shot. What a shame, as I was sure that such a rare plant in reasonable shape would make an interesting contribution in future presentations. The 'common as muck' Eriosyce, E. subgibbosa, was of course in much better shape and I was able to make some additions to my 'cacti & sea' portfolio. Regrettably, none were in flower. 'So how do we know that none of these bigger plants are not E. aspillagae?' I asked, as I was sure that I had seen pictures of similar sized aspillagaes. 'You can't be sure when they are not in flower.' Juan explained, and of course he was right. There was of course no rule that ensured that newly described or rare cacti had to be more photogenic than widespread cacti that had been known for centuries.  I had almost resigned myself to the fact that the best pictures of this plant are already on display on Juan & Flo's website when I stumbled across one of the larger Eriosyce in flower, and it was not a subgibbosa flower!  For more pictures of E. aspillagae in flower, take a look at the excellent Chilebosque website. Juan and Flo have asked that we do not share the details of this location, so I'll limit this by saying that these plants grew in the northern area indicated on the distribution map on the Chilebosque website.

It was not too long before we had found rooms in Hotel Montecarlo in Pichilemue where we must have had the only spare rooms, as at breakfast the next day, all ther tables were taken by old age pensioners. Apparently there is a state sponsored scheme that enables pensioners to go on subsidised holidays and we had landed in one of the participating hotels.