A JOURNEY IN BOLIVIA 1988
arrived in Epizana with the last drops of gasoline.
At the already known alogamiento España, the tire repairman was waiting with a few more sulcorebutias. With some effort he was able to point out some plants to photograph.
A campesino whistled to us. He had found rock crystal in the mountains and put it up for sale. He did not know what it was worth, but he still hoped for a nice price. I was the lucky one and for a few bolivianos I became the owner. Meanwhile it had become quite cold again and we ate our cena with our thick coats on.
Wednesday, August 10th
We spent the night in our sleeping bag on the bed. We had asked if the music could be turned down a bit, so that it wouldn't bother us until four o'clock like a few nights earlier. After ten hours of sleep, we greeted a densely cloudy day. There was no water to wash.
The toll guards allowed us to ride up and down to Copacuncho for free. There were no possibilities to look for cacti along the road and we felt a bit listless. We decided to drive back to Cochabamba.
From km 90, we regularly wanted to take a look along the road. We stopped every seven kilometers and kept finding sulcos.
At km 50 we discovered another Parodia.
In the meantime the clouds had disappeared and the temperature had risen sharply again. We had had enough. We visited the alogamiento in Punata, where we could finally take a hot shower again, this time without endangering our lives. The cena was limited: only the segundo was served: rice, a few fried potatoes, meat, and a fried egg.
Thursday, August 11th
It turned out that Kik's bed had not been completely free of fleas . By the morning it seemed as if he was therefore accepted as a good host for fleas during the night. This was not bad, but disturbing. We noticed that despite a good night's sleep, we did not get up completely fit. We decided to take it easy. Still we went into the mountains opposite Punata, because there could be S. hoffmanniana. Taking the shortest way up, we had to pass deep gullies and bushes with mean thorns, which I
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