A JOURNEY IN BOLIVIA 1988

EXIT

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bloom last year. Kik had found lobivias in the meantime. Another boy joined the fray now. He knew the plants to stand on the next ridge. During the ascent  he asked again what they should look like. That was not a favourable sign. After a short while he returned with a parodia. I explained to him again what kind of plants I was looking for and that these plants had probably retreated into the ground. Now he understood completely and ran away. The ridge looked promising, but I found nothing and the boy had disappeared. So I went back to the alogamiento. Here Kik and I had to wait some time for the taxi, which apparently had some problems. And here came my last guide: he had found the plants and proudly showed two colossal lobivias!
The taxi came and we drove straight on to yesterday's spectacular gorge. The driver skidded across the dirt road at breakneck speed. We were glad that we could get out at the gorge, because our suspicion about his driving skills grew with every turn. There were many turns!

We took a lot of pictures of the gorge. Then it went non-stop to Tarabuco. I wanted to look just north of Tarabuco for a possible habitat for S. tarabucoensis. The driver did not cause any problems. He asked some people about a plant that we had in the picture. Remarkably, people said it grew between Presto and Pasopaya. But similar plants at Tarabuco only grew in the mountains near the village. Then we got a flat tire. This was an opportunity for us to look  further. By coincidence we soon ran into a plant that had turned light red due to the sun. Otherwise we might not have found S. tarabucoensis as they were hidden in its moss.

It was remarkable that the long root did not grow downwards, but to the side, quite close to the surface. There were a number of balls on the root. It was reminiscent of a rhizome. We therefore almost always saw identical cups in an area of   10 by 10 cm, which were subsequently connected by a root.

In Tarabuco we took a good almuerzo and met the innkeeper. The man was interested in our activities. He himself collected fossils found at Tarabuco. He wanted to show them. We thought it was nice that this simple man kept himself busy with such a hobby. But then we came to a surprising discovery. The man turned out to be surprisingly well informed about the origin of these fossils. If we ever had a sense of superiority, it would certainly have disappeared now.

For Yamparaez, a surprise by the women awaited us, who had started searching for plants for us. The surprise was indeed there. The espinas pequeñas were

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