Saturday 14th: the Day of Bad Luck

Now we know, the day of bad luck is not Friday 13th, it's Saturday 14th!

The locality for the day was Henri Pittier National Park, a 2 hours ride west of Caracas.

Park entrance

At the park entrance, we were checked by the National Guard, who soon found out that we were not carrying our passports, a serious crime - the military needs to know who everybody are, of course. We were taken into custody and mentally preparing for some days in jail. Luckily 3000 B's saved the day.

Sad Norwegian team pondering their destiny

The gate to the area of the park that we planned to visit was locked and a telephone call made it clear the guard was suddenly taken to hospital. We were met by a little dog, however, and allowed to circumvent the fence. All dogs are nice in Venezuela and some become your friend for the day.

The gate to the trail was also locked, but not difficult to climb.

Then we needed something in the car, some of us went back, broke the car key when trying to open the trunk, and Miguel and Mariana had to go all the way back to Caracas (in the other car, we had two) to get the extra key. Took them four hours.

The locality was nice, but probably a bit too dark for most Phyllopsoras. We made some 30 collections. The very last tree, at the place where we turned, was in fact the most interesting: Eschatogonia angustiloba (s. lat.).

Having just passed the National Guard control post, the car refused to go. It took a couple of hours to cool down the engine, switch the plugs, switch battery with the other car (the first cars battery was flat from having emergency lights on), start the engine, and switch back the battery.

Dinner