Day 224: Flowers in the Desert (09/09/2011)

The further north we went, the more llamas we saw.

There have been no sheep or cows for 2,000km and even the llama struggles to gain purchase in most of the wild land we have negotiated since leaving Argentina.

Crossing another plateau, we all rushed to the driver’s side for a magical twenty seconds as Cameron startled a Rhea who ran at 50kmph alongside the truck. Eventually it peeled off into the scrub, no doubt concluding that it was not going to out run the orange and white beast that roared alongside it.

Braulio guided us to Valle de Las Rocas in the mid-morning and we stopped to walk amongst the wind-worn stone stacks that rise from the dusty plain. A mere 25,000 years ago, lava flowed here. Most has been submerged by the sand or eroded by the forces of nature but Las Rocas holds out against the onslaught like a fortress and within its walls an oasis of wildlife prospers.

A strange green plant grows from the nooks and crannies, like a giant moss but as hard as rock. It bleeds sticky evergreen resin when damaged and grows at the rate of a centimetre per year. The specimen Braulio showed us was at least 300 years old, a fact that some of the crew seemed to overlook as they clambered over it for photos, and picked at its surface to make it bleed.

Chinchillas, like large rabbits with long tails, dozed on rocks in the sun and seemed refreshingly disinterested as we crept closer for photos. They took to an apple that was left on a ledge and only scampered away to their rocky holes as we got too close with the clicking of shutters and the whirring of lens drives.

The rocks have eroded into whatever shape your imagination choses to see. Braulio pointed out kings with crowns and giant chess pieces. Unarguably there was an Easter Island monolith.

Maybe there was a horse, over-endowed with a terrible priapic inheritance - but no one else could see that.

After another hour on the road, we parked up by a small lagoon for lunch with some more flamingos. They took off as soon as we climbed down from the truck, their pink wings reflecting perfectly off the mirror clear surface of the water, while seagulls wheeled about them, a thousand kilometres from the nearest beach.

Pausing only for the chance to photograph the whole team on top of the truck, we pressed on and soon left the lagoons and entered a dry desert area that stretched to the mountains on all sides.

Pylons were the only thing to have changed in 10,000 years and as the afternoon heat rose, mirages appeared in the near distance, lifting the mountains until they balanced precariously on single stalks of rock or hovered completely above the distant horizon on a sea of shimmering mercury.

The road through the desert was elevated on a small embankment but had collapsed in areas, forcing us onto the sand. We left a huge plume of dust that rose high into the air and saw the clouds of other trucks long before we head the rumble of their approaching engines.

At one of our two hourly ‘rest stops’ the perennial privacy issue raised its head again. The girls cried foul as there was no cover in the middle of the barren, flat expanse. The boys set to, unconcerned by the lack of anything to conceal their ablutions.

The girls looked on, arms crossed, and complained about the lack of privacy, as they watched the boys water the desert flora.

Bless.