■ 
apr 
Mat.aral,but it has been cut down to use for roof timbe 
for the native huts,it being one of the fewwoody 
wh ich arenot so crooked as to be useless for roof 
timbers. There is alittle hotel at Mataral where 
clean beds and fairly: good food-may—be secured at a 
reasonable rate. The true’ e came on from Ele Tie to 
Mataral tured off there to Valle Grande,so we were 
mar owned again until a truck could "be secured going th 
through to Santa Cruz or Saroalpata. We arrived there ' 
Thursday evening arid were forced to wait until the 
following -Monday noon before a partly empty truck came 
along going to Santa Cruz. We finally secured one whic 
had come from Sucre with wine and Pisco. 
Mataral to Samainata. 
The road runs -east' from Mataral across the' wide 
valley, the small., stream being at the extreme east 
side. The vegetation in the valley is very dense, 
consisting largely of the tree bearing the huge .~. 
clusters of long sp ines inst ead of le ave s,a lth ough 
■ most of the other forms of spiny growth found at Ele- 
ETe are present,including much giant cacti and other r— 
species of ...cacti. T. >; the valley 3 climbed over 
a low range of mountains and dropped down into another 
broad’ValTey to Pampa Grande, a village somewhat- 
l a^g er than any of ...the others passed throug h since 
leaving Totora. Prom Pampa Grande we continued more 
or less east,'crossed another low range and down: into . 
a fine.large valley in which.Id situated Maipena, 
This valley runs north and south,the water flowing 
north and finally cutting through to the east. 
The veg et ation in th is va l le y is b y far the most 
luxiuriant seen yet on this trip. . The tree bearing 
long spines has now quite dissapeared,together with - 
many o the r spin y form s, be i ng r epl aces largely by acac¬ 
ias and other non-spinous varieties. The soil is 
much more' ~f ertile■ "and"apparently the- -rainfall is much 
greater here than at an y point to the west. Pi e, vall ey 
heads up in a high range of mountains to the south, 
“apparently lying -just “to the nor th of the Rio Grande 
__ X.-should have...liked to- c o ll ect in. thi s valley , 
but there was not sufficient time at our disposal. 
We continued up the valley from Faireria for some dis¬ 
tance (south), then swung east and- started .c limb i n g - 
ut> a rather high range of mountains (about 7 ,000 feet) 
As we climbed higher up this range the forest increas¬ 
ed rapidly—in— d e nsi ty—and -size of trees, a.*, wiough ox — 
the 1 dry”’' ty pe >a ir trees being de void of leav es at 
