In case you all were wondering: Rainy day web time

We postponed heading into Parque Nacional Madidi until a couple of days, hoping for less rain (it was really coming down this morning, has let up somewhat, but will likely continue for another day or two). This morning I hung out in a pastry shop and made some rolls with a transplanted French baker who lives and works here in town; I plan to get up early Saturday morning and try my hand at croissant dough (or at least watch and see how it's done); today and tomorrow, we're headed in to see the Pampas (tropical lowland savanna).

Back where I left off....18 January...

The view out the bus window heading to Paracas, Peru was Atacama desert in its thoroughly desolate character. There were a surprising number of human habitations along the way—mud brick houses daisy-chained one after another, with the ocasional horno – mud brick bread oven (something I would like to replicate when I come back). While there seemed to be plenty of people, and cultivation of ornamental plants (palms mostly) wherever people were living, I was still perplexed as to where they were getting their water...even the inland hill country was waterless as far as I could see.

A few kilometers{ walk outside of Paracas was a Reserva Nacional de Paracas, a peninsula of Peru protruding into the Pacific. As terrestrial vegetation is concerned, I{m not even sure what I got to see was native or introduced. A sharp line delineated where vegetation began in the park, and the first dominant species that picked up were a grass and some kind of succulent plant, which stabilized the soil into dune formations; I found several insects (a couple of fly species and a grasshopper) in addition to a lizard and bird, not identified, which took to this vegetative formation for cover and sustenance. In addition to the two plants pictured below, there was another vascular seed plant - reaching about 10 cm high with small white flowers and small leaves; elsewhere I saw tamarisks getting by near anthropogenic structures, but not much more after that on land.

In the picture below, you can see where one of the succulent plants has died, leaving a bare patch in the dune landscape. The other side of the dune mound is covered by a single plant, a main stalk sprawling with bifurcations tolerant of being buried beneath sand.

In areas with periodic inundations, the ground was moist and encrusted with salt. I'll get to some pictures later where salt has crystallized in with the sand to create a deep, parched layer of salt crust well far inland - here, the periodic arrival of ocean water gave life to algae (three pictures below), and what appeared to be a sponge (last picture).