Woke at daybreak, had coffee in the room, and left
at about 8am after paying the bill of 7,500 sucres (3000=£1),
so very cheap. Our first stop was after only five minutes, for some
tree ferns. They are just so beautiful. Realized we had forgotten
to get petrol, so left J & B prospecting and drove back past
Baeza where a full tank cost just 19000 suc. (£6). Rest of
day was spent driving and stopping and driving and stopping. This
place really is a botanist's paradise. Saw many wonderful palms,
the most conspicuous was Bactris. Stopped once at a pasture full
of hundreds and hundreds of Euterpe species unknown, perhaps E.
precatoria. They are quite beautiful, with very fine and delicate
leaflets, hanging vertically from the petiole. No fruit or even
flowers. At the bottom of this same pasture (which was very wet)
we found a Chamaedorea-like plant, maybe Synechanthus? Also, one
palm we were quite sure of: Prestoea globosa, with bright pink flowers.
On we drove, stopping for lunch of fried river trout
and rice. At this diner, we met a U. S. peace volunteer who is over
here building a generator in one of the numerous tiny villages.
Somewhere along the way we got a puncture so had to stop and change
the tyre. Twp spectacular palms deserve a mention here: Dictyocaryum
lamarckianum and Mauritia flexuosa. Don't know which is the most
unbelievably beautiful, the first with huge and incredibly neatly
cut plumose leaves, or the second with massive fan leaves like exploding
fireworks! Made many, many stops along the way, J & B getting
very excited by this or that flower, me content to wait for the
palms. Came to a small village where we had the chance to use Brad's
collecting pole for the first time, with permission, on a huge Mauritia,
absolutely laden with thousands of ripe fruit, red/brown, scaly,
and the size of a hen's egg. The pole is in 6ft sections, 3 of which
we joined together, with a scythe-shaped saw blade at the end. It's
not easy to manipulate the thing, as the top, 20 ft. up, tends to
flap about a bit, but once it's against the stem of the infructescence,
its easy and the sharp blade cuts through it like butter. There
are many hundreds of these big seeds on a single stem, and when
it comes down - watch out! This tree was in a small walled garden,
with chickens and ducks. It's probably been producing thousands
of seeds every year for years, with them all being eaten by the
hens as soon as they germinate. Finally we arrived at Tena, where
we checked into the International Moll Hotel, very nice and clean,
with clean rooms and hot showers. Cleaned ourselves up, then had
a great meal in the hotel restaurant, of fried chicken and chips
with lots of beer. Great stuff! Retired, tired, at 11pm.
South American Diary
