The fiesta seemed to run whole day, so we set off for our trip to Huasahuasi.
Huasahuasi is around 2500-3000 metres (8202-9843 feet) in elevation. The surrounding mountains may be around 4000-5000 metres (13123-16404 feet) in elevation.
So it was amazing to see some great cacti growing there.
Local children with colourful costume.
We were going to visit Huasahuasi again this day, but there was a fiesta in Tarma. Thinking this was a good oportunity, we decided to delay the departure in order to see the fiesta.
According to the journals of a Spanish botanist, Hipólito Ruiz, who visited Peru and Chile 200 years ago and recorded and collected the orchids and other plants as well as recorded animals, birds, culture and their customs, local people called Masdevallia uniflora rima-rima in Queachua. This Masdevallia is called Masdevallia rimarima alba, which means the white version of the Masdevallia uniflora=rimarima.
Masdevallia sp.
Masdevallia manoloi.
Masdevallia sp.
Saul and I took a taxi from our hotel in Tarma to the nursery in Palca. S/10 (about £1.70) for about 10 km distance.
To my surprise, there was a pig on the wooden table in the nursery. They were in the middle of slaughter. Its head was already cut off and put on the other place. Although I had lots of orchids which I wanted to draw/paint and also I was under pressure to do it, I couldn’t feel easy to do so when a pig which had just been slaughtered was in front of me.
“Have they started to chop firewood?” I wondered and put my head up. It wasn’t a firewood but a head of the pig.
@@@@@@
On the way back to the hotel, we took a taxi called Colectivo. As long as space is available the taxi driver takes more passengers who have signalled and takes them to the nearest possible place. For the drivers, this will increase their income and for the passengers, this will help reduce the cost (the more passengers share the taxi, the less the fee becomes) as well as their waiting time.
When Saul and I were at the backseat of a taxi, the taxi stopped for two girls who had raised their hands. Oh, one of them may share the backseat with us, I thought, however, to my surprise the two girls came into a passenger’s seat.
In this way, the taxi fee from Palca to Tarma became one third of the fee from Tarma to Palca, s/3.
It was the last meeting in the year for the Orchid Society of Great Britain. After a brief slide show, we had nice Christmas lunch and enjoyed eating and chatting over a glass of wine.
After that was the photo competition which is held once a year in December. For me, it was the first time to attend the meeting in December, so as the photo competition. I submitted several photographs which I took when I was in Peru, and I won the first prize for one of them!
It was this, Sobralia dichotoma Ruiz & Pavón. We saw this orchid in Paucartambo for the first time, but this particular Sobralia was at the Machu Picchu Pueblo Hotel. I thought it very interesting with an insect, possible pollinator. Is this?
The prize was a nice bottle of champagne! I will drink it in Christmas.
On the third day in Peru, we saw Masdevallia uniflora in its natural habitat in Huasahuasi, which was the very flower I wanted to see in Peru most, and the following day we went back to see the flower in order to draw it, however, I couldn’t record every tiny detail of it for me to paint botanically.
Therefore I gave up going out in the wild to look for other orchids, and forced myself to concentrate on drawing at the nursery in Palca. The orchids I was interested in were Masdevallia uniflora, Oncidium bicolor, Oncidium aureum. Also Phragmipedium caudatum, which we hadn’t seen in the wild yet.
This photograph is Masdevallia uniflora. At the fiestas which are held in November in Huasahuasi, Masdevallia uniflora will be displayed everywhere, Saul said.