A JOURNEY IN BOLIVIA 1988
piece of unexplored terrain between the fields and pointed to the ground. With a
lot of effort we did discover small sulcos. For us, these plants could hardly be
discovered while we were standing up due to their colour and their size. However,
the man blindly pointed them out.
It was now five o'clock. We drove on to Zudañez
in one go. At a certain point we passed an exceptionally steep gorge, which was mainly
overgrown with bromeliads on one side. We wanted to take pictures there the next
day, when we passed there again. Zudañez was further than we expected. But we arrived
at a quarter to seven. After asking several times we found the alogamiento. The boss
told us his business was not that fancy. He would have us inspect the bedroom. There
were two decent beds, so we were satisfied. And the boss too, because he didn't often
get Dutch guests. The cena was extremely unassuming and looked different from what
we hoped: brown tasteless macaroni.
After the cena, the boss curiously asked where we came from and what we were doing here. He immediately understood our arguments for looking for cacti: "Botanico." He did know S. rauschii and would look for someone who could show us the way tomorrow. Delighted, we took another cup of Dutch coffee and went to sleep.
The sleeping place was actually surprising. There were three beds in a small room. The door was 70 cm wide, the door opening 1 meter. From the bedroom you walked across a courtyard to the toilet, i.e. the place where one could imagine a toilet. You had to be careful not to trip over a chicken or a rabbit. Kik had to get out at night!
Thursday, August 18th
At the kitchen of the alogamiento I got a bowl of water to wash. The interest in my white back and stomach was almost inappropriate, but it didn't bother me. Then we ordered tea with bread and indeed got coffee with bread. Meanwhile a boy had presented himself who would act as a guide. It was close, he said, on the south side of the village. I had always understood that we had to search on the northeast side.
To the south of Zudañez there was indeed a ridge of fairly large stones. Only the height of 2400 m seemed a bit low to me. The boy searched among the bushes and eucalyptus trees. He seemed so confident that I had to believe him. We searched for half an hour, but found nothing. Still, the boy insisted that he had seen them
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