Argentina & Chile November 2008 - Day 10 - Uquia to La Quia

[David_L]

Pumahuasi is another one horse town on the old railway line. Hence the station sign and the old railway buildings in the background.


[attachment 18400 Pumahuasi.jpg]

[David_L]

We arrived at lunch time and found a rather dubious looking corrugated iron shack where I 'enjoyed' another rather strange if quite tasty 'stew' from which I carefully removed some unidentifiable (and all too identifiable) animal parts. The ceiling was decorated with this rather undignified stuffed condor, decked out in the spirit of fiesta I presume.


[attachment 18401 stuffed_condor.jpg]

[Stuart Estell]

David_L Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> This plant is in bud. Apparently the flowers are
> quite attractive, but we couldn't find a plant in
> flower.

Austrocylindropuntia flowers are all pretty good - this is one of the nice red-flowered ones. A. weingartiana is now sunk into Austrocylindropuntia shaferi, once considered a varietal form of vestita.

Some fantastic photos of opuntioideae in this thread David. Some of the names do seem a bit wonky to me; I might see if I can go through them all later and sort them out as best I can (although some will probably still be wrong by the time I've finished! )

[David_L]

So finally we were on to our last cactus stop of the day a few km outside Pumahuasi. It was beside the defunct railway and the habitat was very dry. Plants were difficult to find and very desiccated. It was also extremely hot. Pushing 40C I would guess. This is what the habitat looked like. Actually it was even more arid where we stopped. The slightly blurry animal is a Llama.


[attachment 18494 scenery.jpg]

[David_L]

First thing that caught my eye was this large grasshopper.

[attachment 18495 grasshopper.jpg]

[David_L]

After a lot of searching of the stony ground we eventually found this. A rather sorry looking and dehydrated Neowerdermannia vorwerkii.


[attachment 18496 Neowerdermannia_vorwerkii.jpg]

[David_L]

Despite much searching, we could only find this one plant. Here is a closer view.


[attachment 18497 Neowerdermannia_vorwerkii2.jpg]

[David_L]

After more searching we managed to find the other plant we were looking for. Again only one plant and this half buried. Puna subterranea living up to its name.


[attachment 18498 Puna_subterranea.jpg]

[David_L]

A little careful archaeology with my trusty paintbrush produced this. And before you ask yes I did cover him up again afterwards.


[attachment 18499 Puna_subterranea2.jpg]

[David_L]

That was it for plants, but a couple of lizards caught my eye.


[attachment 18500 lizard.jpg]