Contents of the Spring 2015 Northants News

On a September Thursday morning I left the Heathrow Premier Inn for an early flight to Paris, where I changed to a flight for Lima the capital of Peru. It seems impossible these days to get anywhere directly. After a 12 hour flight I landed in the early evening and made my way to a hotel where I had booked to stay for two days prior to flying on to Chiclayo to meet my fellow travellers. For the next two days I roamed and investigated the city of Lima which with a population of approx. 9 million holds almost 30% of the entire country. It has to be one of the most congested cities for traffic and the standard of driving is atrocious, even by Latin American standards, with a non stop blaring of horns for usually no apparent reason.

On Saturday afternoon I left Lima to fly to Chiclayo and met up with three of our party in the departure lounge. There was also another one on the flight but we did not realise until we arrived at Chiclayo airport and found that the taxi sent to meet us could not fit all five in with our luggage so an extra one was commandeered. After a mad drive across town where we did not even slow for blind cross roads we arrived at our hotel and met the rest of the group including Guillermo Rivera our guide.

Next morning, after heavy overnight storms which flooded many of the roads, we set off at 8am to look at the countryside and plants. Over the course of the next fifteen days we covered around 3000 kilometres stopping at many different locations. On the first day alone we saw Melocactus peruvianus, Browningia chlorocarpa, Armatocereus laetus, Armatocereus cartwrightianus, Espostoa lanata, Borzicactus serpentius, Monvillea jaenensis plus Peperomias, Tillandsias, Dudericonias Veresias, Puya, etc. many in flower. These were followed over the next few days by Matucana weberbaueri, M. formosa and M. aurieflora var. densispina. All these are better as photographs so I will not go into endless lists of dates and plants but leave you, the reader, to enjoy the pictures.

On the Saturday we visited the UNESCO world heritage site of Chan Chan, the centre of the Chimu people who predated the Incas. This is an amazing place which, because it is near the sea, has been known for centuries and has not become as iconic as Machu Picchu in the mountains. The site is vast covering about 20sq. Km and took somewhat longer to go round than planned but it was a delay that no-one regretted.

The next day saw us heading back up into the mountains which was a major feature of the trip. To get anywhere you have to wind your way up a mountain then back down the other side and many days/nights were spent at altitudes of over 10,000ft with our highest point at just over 14,000ft, just below the snow line. Everywhere we went, in villages, towns or on the open road the houses and even the rocks were covered in political symbols for the forthcoming elections. We spent the next two days in the area of Huaraz where we hoped to see Puya raimondii. There were many but none in flower only “small” specimens around 12 to 15 feet tall. This was at an altitude of over 11,000 ft where the cacti had evolved to protect themselves from the cold and we saw large clumps comprising hundreds of heads of Austrocylindropuntia floccosa, some with their characteristic red flowers. There was also a large growing Matucana haynei and we found a number of specimens nearly in flower.

Three Matucanas in Peru

This takes me to approximately half way through the trip so I shall leave it there and finish off in a later edition. I will also be showing many more pictures when I give the December 2015 talk on the trip at our meeting.

David

Ed: Thanks David - nothing like a good travelogue to get my wanderlust going!