We woke up early the next day and headed out to the famous sand
dunes between A.do Cabo and Cabo Frio. It was really strange and
fantastic to walk on those huge white mountains of sand. Unfortunately,
we found no D.intermedia in that area. We even drove around 30km further
up the coast, but found nothing either. We turned around and began heading
for the city of Rio. We stopped at one more place along the coast, but no
sign of D.intermedia either. Though we did stop for a quick dip in the
Atlantic!
We arrived in Rio over the huge Rio-Niteroi bridge, which crosses
the Guanabara Bay (I think 14km!), already getting a fantastic view of
this beautiful city. The beaches, the Sugarloaf to one side, the
rainforest-covered mountains in the background, and the famous "Cristo
Redentor", the Christ statue standing atop an impossibly needle-like
peak. I took Joe for a tourist drive around Rio, passing by a few famous
points like Copacabana and Ipanema beaches, then we continued along the
coast to the Barra da Tijuca Beach (my favorite in Rio), where we
stopped for another dip.
After a while, we headed back and drove up to the Cristo Redentor,
where we had a magnificent view of the city, the beaches, the Sugarloaf,
Guanabara Bay, and even the Organs Range in the far background. After the
photo session was over, I took Joe to the U.longifolia and U.nephrophylla
sites I'd discovered up on the mountains last December, not far from the
statue. The former were not in flower again, but the latter were still
at it, flowering like when I was there in December. I noticed that though
the flowers were white, a few rare specimens had some purple on the
upper lip, showing they're not albino.
After this short stop, it took us around 2h to get out of Rio
because of rush hour, and we only arrived back in S.Paulo at midnight.
We'd travelled 3400km in 10 days!! Not to mention the +- 400km
we travelled around the CP sites near Sao Paulo city. Obviously my car
didn't come out as good as it began, especially because of all the dirt
roads we got, but it sure "spoiled" me to make a trip like this by car.
I'm used to travelling by bus and it was great to be able to go wherever
I wanted and stop anytime I wanted. Too bad the roads are so dangerous
around here and the distances so big.
So this many-chaptered journey comes to an end. It was an
unforgetable 10-day journey which was surely one of the best, if not THE
best, CP trip I've ever made! It was certainly a great way to say
"goodbye" to Brazil. After 6 years CP hunting intensively around here,
I'm sure gonna miss my wild explorations during the 2 years (at least!)
I'll be spending in Japan!! I leave on April 2. At least I hope to have
the time there to put all my experiences down on paper and flood the CP
newsletters worldwide with articles on the Brazilian CPs I studied in the
wild these past 6 years. Hopefully, these 2 years in Japan will result in
tons of useful information with my phylogeny studies through DNA
sequencing of Brazilian Drosera and Genlisea.
********CP TRADE!!!!!!********
For those of you interested in the plants you read about in these
past postings of mine, we have seeds of some available for trade (such as
the albino U.longifolia), and hopefully will have plants of others for
trade in the near future (U.geminiloba, U.nephrophylla, U.nelumbifolia,
etc.). A friend of mine is in charge of the CP trade. His name is Fabio
Pinheiro and his address is:
Rua Brasileiro de Campos 108
Jd. Marina 03560-160
Sao Paulo, S.P.
BRAZIL
If interested, please send him your CP list and a list of plants
you would be interested in. Or ask him to send you a list of seeds we
have available for trade. We have seeds of many other native Brazilian
species, not mentioned here.
We are still on the look-out for many CPs, including Mexican
Pings, Brocchinia, S.African Drosera, rare Nepenthes, Venezuelan Drosera,
epiphytic Utrics, bulk Sarracenia seeds, Roridula, etc.
Since I'll be leaving Brazil soon, please *DO NOT* e-mail me
asking for seeds. Write to Fabio directly.
Best Wishes to all,
Fernando Rivadavia
Sao Paulo, Brazil