A JOURNEY IN BOLIVIA 1988
Some children approached and spontaneously helped us with the search. They pointed
to places with sand and some grass. Here were the same shape plants, but with white
thorns. If it had been up to the children, they probably would have wiped out the
population immediately, but we were able to calm them down in time.
A little boy was
able to tell that larger ball cacti were growing behind his house. That was interesting
to Kik. With more and more children he went to the house and had trouble stopping
them there again. Lobivias were indeed found to grow near the house.
Our day was good again. We agreed with the driver that he could come and collect us the next day.
To eat something different, we looked for a European restaurant, where we got a varied dish with vegetables for Bs 6: our first time in Bolivia.
Afterwards someone wanted to sell me a charrango, but he was already satisfied when he got a cigarette from me. We spent the rest of the evening checking out arcade games with computer games. Many young people turned out to be very interested in these games.
Saturday, August 20th
The servant in the alogamiento Bustillo already knew us and brought us coffee with an egg sandwich. We did have to explain to him every morning that we each wanted one sandwich with one egg. We had once ordered two sandwiches together, so four sandwiches with four eggs arrived.
After breakfast we went to see the collected plants again. The bags felt a bit damp and there were traces of mold here and there. Yet the plants did not seem to be affected. Some sulcos had even grown buttons.
The taxi arrived at one o'clock. We had opted for the direction of Yotala, because no sulcorebutias had yet been spotted from that area. Along the way we understood how that could be done. Apart from the altitude, about 2200 meters, there was a lot of arable land. Still, we wanted to put it to the test and we climbed a hill past Yotala. After all, you can never know? It was a difficult, fairly steep climb over slate with a shrub here and there to hold on to. The sun was burning. On the way I wondered if it wouldn't have been safer to stay down , but I got up anyway. The top of the hill didn't seem unfavourable for sulcos, but I found
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