A JOURNEY IN BOLIVIA 1988
coffee and tried to start the car, but it turned out to have problems with the low temperature. Kik pushed the car a few meters and luckily we were able to drive down a slope after that, causing the engine to start. Pushing a car at 2800 m does not seem to be much fun.
At Monte Puncu we thought we would find S. tiraquensis. It would be very common there. We climbed the mountain, which was indicated on our map as Monte Puncu and found large sulcos with large, standing, black to dark brown thorns. The altimeter indicated 3200 m.
This was an interesting find, but did we or did we not find S. tiraquensis? I had understood from Leo van der Hoeven that he had been on the other side of the road. We went there and found an unknown lobivia and a single plant of S. tiraquensis with beautiful amber colored thorns.
Of course there had to be more plants of this type, but we found nothing. Nearby campesinos were planting potatoes. We asked them if they knew how to find "espinas" and yes, they should be on the next hill. We went there expectantly, but we found nothing.
I had forgotten to take a picture of the beautiful S. tiraquensis, so I went back to this place. The moment I was about to take a picture, I discovered another sulcorebutia hidden in the ground, which did not resemble S. tiraquensis at all. We did not recognize this form and thought it possible that it was something new.
We drove back to Epizana. On a whim we wanted to have a look along the way. To my surprise, I immediately came across a sulcorebutia with a diameter of 12 cm, which is unusually large. Another new species?
Back in Epizana we wanted to go to Totora for a while. We were exempt from tolls. We drove on to Totora but returned immediately afterwards.
It had been enough for this one day. We went back to our alogamiento, where we met
with two Swiss boys. They had come from Guatemala by bicycle during an eight-
Sandra, a girl of about seven years old, lived in the alogamiento "España". She talked about school. The teacher was very strict. If she made mistakes, and she often did, she was punished. She was delighted with my cassette recorder. She sang songs and was very excited afterwards when she heard her singing on the tape. She wanted to buy the thing, but Kik promised her that I would give it to her later.
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