On 19 January we had to cross a large sandy valley with deep lose sand to reach a range of hills. We zig-zagged up the hill, initially using an old mule track. Can you imagine our elation when we eventually had lunch, surrounded by the very rare  Copiapo hypogaea. The plants were veryhard to find. The remainder of the day we tracked over seemingly endless hill tops where we found Eulychnia saint pieana with fascinating flowers, Pyrrhocactus intermedius, P. scoparius, Copiapoa bridgesii, C. mollicula and C. serpentisulcata. Botanizing and especially the photography took up quite some time. Shortly before our descend we came across Opuntia tunicata. It was not until the evening that we arrived back down, dog tired. The next day we travelled through wild canyons and eventually reached the habitat locality of Pyrrhocactus pulchellus, that often grows in the most inaccessible cracks in the vertical rock face. We carried on and later that day were able to collect Pyrrhocactus pilispinus and Copiapoa cinerascens var. intermedia (syn. C. applanata Bkg.)

Quite some distance from the main road, on hill tops along the coast, Ritter discovered his Pyrrhocactus pygmaeus, Copiapoa cinerascens and, on a remote hillside, Copiapoa barquitensis. That evening we took a bath in the ice cold water of the Humboldt current, on a deserted beach.

Copiapoa hypogaea Ritter in the high coastal mountains in Chile.
Photo Buining

The next morning we had two options: return to the Pan Americana, op try to trace almost erased tracks, more or less along the coast, heading north. It was a difficult choice as the latter option was not without risk, as we were about to discover. We did of course elect the adventurous route, where, after conquering a very dangerous sandy area, we found numerous tracks which turned out to be dead ends at the Ocean shore, so thatwe had to turn back inland and select an alternative track. The re-orientation was of course down to Ritter. He would walk on and climb hils to get a better picture of where we were. For the umpteenth time we arrived at the shore, but this time, according to our readings, at about 1,000 m above sea level!  A spectacular view, but we were hopelessly lost. Suddenly, Ritter and I, both at the same time, found some tiny cacti that were almost entirely sunk into the rocky ground. After further examination, having removed some dust and fine grit, these were small groups of almost spineless plants. First we hesitated if these were members of the genus Thelocephala or a Copiapoa, but eventually agreed that this was a previously unknown species of Copiapoa, which later proved to be correct.

(to be continued)