Opuntiads of the USA

Go to Oblog, the Cactus Blog

Sunday Sept 20 (Day 14)

We leave early from Nasca on our way to Chalhuanca.

Our first stop is a good one. All in one spot on both sides of the road are Neoraimondia arequipensis ssp roseiflora, Cleistocactus ferruguineus, Armatocereus procereus, Weberbauerocereus rauhii, and Cumulopuntia sphaerica. There was even a crested Cleistocactus. We spent a while at this site.

Then we started some serious climbing. Our next stop was for Neoraimondia candilaris. These are magnificent plants at the tops of hills with vistas behind them that are hard to believe. Growing here also was Haageocereus turbidus almost flowering, and more C. sphaerica.

A little further up we encounter Oreocerus leucotrichus, a large field of them with hair varying from almost none to completely covering the stems. None in flower here, but some fruits.

And yet a little further on Corryocactus brevistylus. These were so large it was hard to believe they were Corryocactus. Buds, but no flowers.

We stopped further up the hill at a dry creek bed with a few stagnant pools almost big enough to swim in. Here I finally saw Cumulopuntia sphaerica in flower. On the far side of the creek, the steep side, were Matucana haynei ssp histrix growing out of cracks in the rock and a flowering Oreocereus leucotrichus. We are now over 11,000'.

As we moved along we started seeing small groups of Vicuna that soon turned into large groups of Vicuna. The bus stopped when we saw an Andean Condor on the ground with Vicuna unhappy it was that close to them. One animal was charging the Condor repeatedly, while the Condor seemed not to notice. We were told not to get off the bus, but to make sure everyone got a picture of this huge bird that looked about as tall as the camelid. When everyone had taken their pictures it was decided that someone should run at the bird, about 100 yards away so we could get shots of it taking off from the ground. Of course I volunteered. I didn't even get half-way across the road to start my charge before it took off. The wingspan of this bird next to running Vicunas made the Vicunas look small.

We made a lunch stop and I wandered around and found more C, sphaerica in flower. Most of the area I wanted to look around in was fenced off with 8' high netting. Not sure what it was all about.

We made one last cactus stop when Guillermo caught something strange out the window. After climbing around a hill back to where the cliff met the road we indeed saw something strange. It was a cactus with a robust body, it looked like it could have been Sohrensia to me, but the flowers looked like Matucana. There were a few more plants on the other side of the road. Gueillmos notes said there was a possible hybrid in the area. We also saw here flowering Austocylindropuntia exaltata.

Near the end of the day we encounter a herd of Alpaca crossing the road. There are wild Alpaca here, but the pink earrings of these animals indicated that they were owned by someone. For several miles we saw hundreds of them all over the hills.

At 14,600 we saw flamingoes in a small lake. This day was the highest we would get on our trip and topped out at 14,994'.

We were late, after dark when we got to our hotel in Chalhuanca.

Craig Howe