Let’s go Pig Hunting
An adventure in the lowlands of Bolivia
3rd – 22nd August, 2005
Author: Keith Martin.
keith AT borsuk.clara.co.uk keith.martin AT rhul.ac.uk
Words: © Keith Martin; Images: © Henry and Keith Martin
Introduction
When Tony Scott announced
he was organising a trip to
Part III: Bird and Mammal List
Part I: Introduction
Planning
On my part, logistically, almost
none. Tony and Gerda put the trip together with a great deal of help from their
daughter Heidi, who has spent a considerable time in
The
People and Language
We were well looked after
throughout our stay and almost everyone we met was accommodating and extremely
friendly. Certainly Spanish would be an essential for the independent
traveller, but we had one Spanish speaker with us and always had a local guide
at hand, so our experience was somewhat pampered. On the few occasions that I
was let loose on my own, my appalling Spanglish just about got me what I
needed, but I am not sure it would have extended to a legal argument.
Conditions
In a nutshell, dry. August
is definitely the dry season and several locations on the trip looked very much
more pastel and dusty than I expect they are for most of the rest of the year.
Irritations
I’m struggling to think of
any really. Altitude sickness is probably the main one to look out for. We had
a couple of rather rapid altitudinal ascents, but these manifested themselves
for me in terms of tiredness, a low appetite and sleeping difficulties. In each
case they only lasted one night.
Itinerary, Transport and
Accommodation
The general plan was to
move around fairly regularly but to spend at least three nights at the main
locations of interest. The focus was on the Bolivian lowlands. A full trip out
along the altiplano would have required at least one further week of travel. We
took internal flights between
3rd - 5thAug Santa Cruz de la Sierra (Hotel Urbari)
6thAug Samaipata
(Los Volcanes)
7th – 8thAug Samaipata (Quainta Parai)
9th - 11thAug Villa Tunari (Victoria Resort)
12thAug La Paz (La Plaza)
13th - 16thAug Chalalan Lodge
17thAug Rurrenebaque (Hotel Safari)
18th - 19thAug Caracoles Lodge
2oth – 21stAug
Hotel Urbari was a good
base for
Relevant
[1] Lista Anotada de las Aves de
[2] A
Field Guide to the Birds of
[3]
The Birds of
[4]
Birds of Southern South America and
[5]
Birds of
[6]
Neotropical Rainforest Mammals: A Field
Guide, Second Edition, L.H. Emmons and F. Feer,
[7]
[8]
Culture Shock!
The lack of a dedicated
Bolivian Field Guide made carrying an excessive amount of literature a
frustrating necessity. Most birds that we saw were in one (or more) of [2], [3]
and [4], with [4] mainly of use at the start (
Guiding and Effort
The trip was a pleasing
mixture of guided and self-guided. In
Nomenclature and
sequence
This report adopts the
nomenclature and sequence of [1], as it is the only text that I have that is
dedicated to the birds of
Acknowledgements
First and foremost to
Tony, Gerda and Heidi Scott for their planning and arrangements. Thanks to my
travelling companions Henry, George, Cheuk, Tom, Margaret, John, Peter and Mike
for their good company over the three weeks. Our Transturin guides Iver,
Caroline and Ivan made every effort to keep the trip running smoothly. We were
particularly impressed that Iver came over to Villa Tunari to join us for a few
days off-duty and Caroline, we are still sorry for abandoning you just to see
some stupid birds! Amadio was our favourite driver, on the
Part II: Diary
Wednesday 3rd
August 2005
Santa Cruz de la Sierra is probably not
a city that resembles anybody’s preconceptions of
We piled into our minivan and took the highway into town. The suburbs were not particularly attractive, with many dirty, dusty industrial complexes. These were occasionally brightened by the sight of schoolchildren in white t-shirts emerging from classrooms into the care of alarmingly heavily-armed “lollipop men”. We joined a dual carriageway at a major junction, where girls in large hats sold rolled sticks of sugar cane to the waiting motorists, and followed the concrete channel of what in season must be a river, but was currently filled with mats of algae, piles of human detritus and occasional puddles of brown water. On the narrow strip between the channel and the carriageway were some makeshift tents, providing one of the least attractive home locations imaginable. And then suddenly we veered right into a quiet suburban street, where four-wheel drives were parked beneath flowering trees and the red-tiled roofs of urban haciendas poked over towering defensive garden walls. Here we found Hotel Urbari, a small motel with private upper floor rooms that overlooked a parched grassy park. Short-tailed Swifts swept high overhead and some pale blue tanagers perched on a nearby telegraph wire, which looked like Blue-Gray, but we later learned were the closely related Sayaca Tanagers.
We gathered to seek taxis into town in
the early afternoon. 
The square was elegantly tiled and refreshingly spacious, with a
small forest of pink flowering trees (once the home of a famous group of sloths)
providing shade to dozens of benches. The sandy brick cathedral, with its two
tall rounded towers, dominated one end of the square. The plaza seemed empty at
first glance, but closer scrutiny of the benches revealed dozens of sprawling
bodies partaking in siesta. For a major city centre it was a serene location
and oozed surprising tranquillity.
After passing an astonishing plethora of
ice-cream parlours, we found a quiet café courtyard in which to eat some lunch
and see out our own siesta. A procession of waiters poured from the back
kitchen carrying a dazzling array of cakes destined for the street-side display
cabinets, while we enjoyed jugs of blended iced fruit juice and a first
Bolivian beer in an unusual rounded goblet. Time then to visit the bank, the
Internet Café and ultimately the pool at Hotel Urbari, where Cheuk’s Olympic
strokes were almost as awesome as the bats that fluttered overhead to the dying
evening chatter of Tropical Kingbirds on the telegraph wires. We were served
dinner at a large table by the pool by a wonderful smiling host who looked as
he had stepped fresh from the set of a spaghetti western. He was clearly
delighted to have the custom and the substantial buffet was first rate. We also
rendezvoused with Aidan, an ornithologist from
Thursday 4th
August 2005
Of
course the alternative school of thought concerning first mornings in a new
time zone is that far from a lie in, it is an early start that is most
appropriate. We awoke at 05.00. The air conditioning unit rumbled quietly in
the adjacent room and a wild wind blew through the palms outside, bringing with
it distant traffic noise. The wooden window panels cast a delicate grid of gentle
shadows on the wall, waving through the rippling of the net curtain and the
dancing shadows of the palm fronds. The wind blew hard until dawn broke at
06.30, when it left in its wake a cool and still morning. Shiny Cowbirds
clinked from the tops a tall radio mast in front of our veranda and we searched
for glimpses of a tiny House Wren who sang boldly from the centre of a leafy
bush. Our insomnia at least provided an opportunity to stroll through the
grassy park and catch first glimpses of some of the commoner
Our
minibus finally departed at 08.45 and we followed one of the city ring roads
around 
Secondly it was
absolutely deserted. And thirdly, it was parched. The open area just inside the
security gate was burnt dry, although some startling yellow and red flowering
trees provided some amazing colour. Within one minute of stepping out of the
bus we enjoyed a flyover from some White Woodpeckers and various species of
parrot, and within two minutes we were admiring an eye-level view of a
Three-toed Sloth clambering around in a bush behind a low dam. Where the
gardens did not do much to impress botanically at this time of year, the large
wild area of chaco forest behind the gardens made for a fascinating walk. The
dry woodland would have passed for similar habitat on other continents, were it
not for the occasional giant cactus, which thrust from the forest floor like a
man-made sculpture. The chaco birdlife was unsurprisingly low key given our
late arrival, but we picked up around 30 species in the gardens overall, with
close views of a White-backed Fire-eye hopping around a dry creek bed probably
being the highlight. This was a location that clearly merited further visits
but, through the inevitable compromises of a first-time visit to a new country,
we were not to have the time.
We lunched at an artificially rustic restaurant off
one of the main highways into town. The waiters wore enormous white hats but
the fare was excellent, with a variety of regional dishes including rice with
cottage cheese and beans and some fiery chilli pastes. Our local guide Iver
briefed us on some local culture while I made a first (and only partially
successful) attempt to comprehend the obscurities of Heidi’s research project
in
The afternoon excursion to the 
Beyond the zoo gates, which were flanked by a pair of
plastic phone booths in the forms of a Scarlet Macaw and a Great Egret, lay a
maze of cramped cages and enclosures that belonged very much to the “old
school” of zoo management. Parrots were packed onto perches, a pair of American
Kestrels sat forlornly in a cage barely worthy of a canary and a jaguar rolled
with boredom on a concrete slab. 
A genuine attempt had been made to provide the
Andean Condors with a towering enclosure in which to spread their wings, but
the thrill of seeing this bird so close was dampened by the obvious fact that
such a relatively luxurious cage was still no fit space for such a majestic
beast. A huge free-flying aviary offered more promise and interest, but even
here the Red-legged Seriemas that aggressively pecked at the shoes of visitors
sported twisted feet from their endless pacing of the concrete walkway. Perhaps
saddest of all was the nocturnal house, where a pair of poor Burrowing Owls
were kept captive in an endless darkness that denied them their natural
preference for the light of day, and a pair of little chickens were made to
parade back and forth beneath the perch of a genuinely nocturnal owl who
watched them intently, knowing that captivity offered him the luxury of picking
his moment to put the tiny birds out of their misery. The farthest reaches of
the zoo did hold more genuine interest as the watering areas attracted small
flocks of Saffron Finches, Shiny Cowbirds and Red-crested Cardinals.
Intriguingly we also had good views of two species of hummingbird, Gilded
Hummingbird and Blue-tufted Starthroat, which we did not see again during the
trip.
We recuperated by the Urbari poolside in the evening company of our friendly chef with some chilled beer, tender pork and a crisp watercress salad. For the first (and almost the last) time on the trip, Tony attempted an evening bird list, but such is the extent of the Bolivian checklist that this process simply took far more time than anyone really had the energy for. Exhausted, I retired to bed to spend a restless night, sporadically broken by the not unpleasant sound of a distant solo trumpeter who played into the night, and indeed the dawn, while the beat of the party that he accompanied was brought intermittently by the breeze to my open window.
Friday 5th
August 2005
We were up at cockerel crow for an early
start to get to Lomas de Arena, a local nature reserve on the outskirts of 
Winding down the
windows of the van we could already hear the reedy piping of White-bellied
Nothuras, invisible in the dense low scrub of the park. The one road traversing
the park was slightly raised and offered reasonable views down over the tangled
plain of dry grassland and impenetrable thorny scrub. Telescopes were essential
to make sense of distant birds such as Chalk-browed Mockingbirds and
Wedge-tailed Grassfinches, which were propped up on protruding perches. We
hiked along a section of this road and I felt the first real thrill of
wilderness amidst this arid landscape of bewitching calls and foreign flora.
This was dampened by Aidan’s news that the low valley that we were overlooking
had just been sectioned for housing. The sprawl of
Further along this road we reached a shallow river crossing, to the right of which a small sandy track mounted a grass-clad dune and headed into the bush. This had the makings of a grand adventure but, as we ascended, the wind really whipped up and roared across the flats, making it as hard to wear a hat as find a bird. Three distant Savannah Hawks took flight and expertly surfed in the turbulent air before dropping down over the brow of the hill. As the wind had clearly set in for the day, we had little choice but to turn back. Colourful Campo Flickers perched on the fence posts around the bus and Henry spotted the first of many Burrowing Owls that were to ultimately prove the most abundant species of the day.
The minibus ploughed further along the degenerating roadway until the sand became too deep and we were recommended to continue our walk into the heart of Lomas de Arenas by foot. The populist value of this park to the local community rose ahead of us in the form of a bank of monstrous dunes, which rose, surprisingly sahara-like, a tantalisingly short distance in front of us. These were apparently highly regarded as venues for off-road riding. While the gale blew benignly at our backs on the outward journey, it was the thick sand of the track that made the going tough and gradually the party dwindled to the foolish few who finally made it to the base of the dunes. We ascended some grassy mounds to the left, flushing Burrowing Owls in all directions, and gained a view over a large, but shrinking, lagoon on which distant Brazilian Ducks and Pectoral Sandpipers could be seen through the shaking telescope and some flamboyantly plumaged Whistling Herons stalked the grassland. Mike and John, already established as the party’s action men, climbed a massive dune to the south and were already distant black specks atop a giant wall of sand. Later examination of the results from John’s digital camera revealed that a bit more care from the summit would have enhanced their bird list for the day! The walk back was a torrid and strenuous affair, directly into the inferno of roaring air and sand. We passed a magnificent gaucho on a horse who was patrolling his fence-line, armed with a vicious looking blade on the end of a long wooden pole. I didn’t dare to contemplate what he might be thinking as he glanced down at us from his lofty saddle.
After a packed lunch sitting in the
newly renovated headquarters of Armonia, the Birdlife International partner in
Bolivia, some of the party headed back into town while a few of us were dropped
off at the unlikely birding location of Kim’s Golf Course, a short drive from
Lomas de Arena. 
There were no golfers at Kim’s, which apparently only gets busy
at the weekends when some of the local Asian community take to the fairways.
Indeed this must be a course worthy of a skilful sportsperson as hazards not
only included conventional ones such as deep gullies containing rush-lined
creeks and thick rough, but golfers also needed to overcome roaming cattle, the
holes of Burrowing Owls (and the birds) on the fairways and would need to develop
a rule for balls that collided with crossing Red-winged Tinamous. Indeed we had
a surprisingly good time during the couple of hours we spent strolling around
this eccentric landscape, including a good half hour pursuing various species
of seedeater in a dry swamp. Our walk ended at a quiet lagoon where the only
major sighting was a cavorting couple enjoying some quality time in the
shallows beneath the watching eye of a Snail Kite. Back at the entrance we
fended off the excitable dogs and waited by the edge of a very productive
lagoon, whose waters were being visited by a host of bird species in the late
of afternoon, including three Limpkins, a Spectacled Black Tyrant and a tiny
Austral Negrito, which was running about like a clockwork toy on a muddy spit.
We drove home alongside a giant red sun, which was hanging weakly in a pastel sky. Its strength was so sapped that it could be comfortably studied through binoculars and three sunspots were clearly visible. As it was our last night, our patron had prepared a special fish dish and had arranged his salad patriotically into the colours of the Bolivian flag. He delivered a gracious speech that was accompanied by a parade of his family and kitchen staff and we exchanged appreciative greetings. Margaret meanwhile was in the process of downloading an astonishing 400 digital images taken over the last 48 hours onto two CDs. I tried to make a quick calculation as to how many photos she could be expected to return home with but struggled mentally to get a handle on the bewildering row of zeros.
Saturday 6th
August 2005
Hats off for Bolivian National Day! And
farewell from us to Santa Cruz de la Sierra, as we left the city, passing
John’s favourite shops (the “Niple Centre” and the store of “Senor Moron”), and
out into a much lusher and verdant Bolivian countryside. A mixed landscape of
maize and sugar cane was broken by patches of forest and tiny hamlets, where
immaculately dressed schoolchildren walked along the roadside on their way to
National Day celebrations. We passed through the busy market town of
The road passed a checkpoint and ascended
a steep dry valley that wound its way beneath sheer cliffs, the road
increasingly elevated above a rushing torrent. We had distant views of tabular
mountains and experienced a refreshing drop in temperature. At a viewpoint we
stared out over the canopy and saw our first Plush-crested and Purplish Jays,
common inhabitants of the montane forest. While the switchbacks of this road
had required some careful driving from Amadio, they were nothing compared to
the effort required from him as we took a sharp right at the top of the valley
and plunged up a red earth track that was providing tough walking for the
groups of students who were hiking up its lower reaches. The road switch-backed,
seemingly making a direct vertical ascent of the hillside for several
kilometres until it ended at a broad saddle between two mountains that was
shaped like a gentle bowl and filled by a tranquil lagoon. The trimmed lawns of
the lagoon edge and the advanced construction work of a new hotel indicated that
this beautiful spot was not much of a secret in these parts. 
The Laguna
Volcanes was matted with lily leaves and Least Grebes, as well as being home to
the relatively unusual Masked Duck, which lived in the thick rushes at the far
end of the lake. Beyond the lagoon a gently sloping lip ended abruptly at the
edge of a steep drop, over which fine canopy views of the other side of the
mountain were offered, while a Black-and-white Hawk Eagle swept silently
overhead. We followed Iver up a short trail that led to a small ridge, above
which he said condors sometimes soared. Today it was only the ubiquitous Black
and Turkey Vultures that swept low over the pass but it wasn’t hard to imagine
a condor in this place, suddenly remote from the crowds beginning to arrive at
the side of the lagoon. I wanted to lie back on a flat rock and stare up at the
clouds, listen to the wind whistle through the tuffet grass and wait for my
condor but, as always, the clock beckoned us back to the minibus all too soon.
We dropped back down into the valley and
then took another road back up the hillside. This was a broader and less
dramatic track, which climbed high up the mountainside through dry scrub and
dense new growth. The views were awesome from this track and also from the
ridge top where the bus stopped. It emerged that from here we would need to
either walk down or wait for a jeep as our home for the night, Los Volcanes
Lodge, could be seen in the small clearing of a sheltered valley far beneath
us. Walking was the choice of most and so we set off down the narrow jeep
track. No sooner had the first bend been turned than a giant vulture was
spotted gliding over a nearby peak. It was neither a Black nor a
We had a real spring in our step for the
downward hike, which took an hour and a half in total. The descent was almost
entirely soundless despite the attractive montane scrub and tall forest through
which we passed. Not a bird, not a cicada, not even the buzz of an insect.
However, when we did finally reach the clearing that we had seen from high
above, it felt like discovering a lost paradise. The soft turf of a cut meadow
led to a neat bungalow, dwarfed by domed red sandstone peaks that crowded
around the clearing like monolithic guardians, sheltering the inhabitants from
the evils of the rest of the world. A large tree stood by the edge of the
clearing, adorned in pink blossom, and Monika our hostess stepped out and
kissed a greeting to each of the weary travellers. We had found our Rivendale,
and joy was impossible to suppress.
On the edge of the clearing was another discrete bungalow enclosed by a thick mesh, beyond wish a stream gushed therapeutically. We were served an unusual lunch of meat, cheese and deep fried fruit, which all tasted far more delectable than it sounds. Afterwards we sat around the meadow and soaked in the staggeringly beautiful views. Two black specks appeared above the sandstone horizon to our east and soon the whole party enjoyed sights of our very own condors flying over the valley from their roost in a high gully in the mountains. Not for the first time in my life all I wanted was for time to stand still. However it was hard not to resist guide Carlos’ suggestion that we take a stroll along one of the forest trails on the other side of the river. Apart from a small mixed flock at the river crossing, we saw very little on this hike save for a glimpse of a Short-tailed Antthrush scuttling into the understorey. It was hard to accept that paradise could be so relatively birdless! Tony had a bit more fortune with his wise strategy of spending the afternoon birding from a hammock outside the bedroom. Dusk fell to the sounds of a White-breasted Toucan, whose haunting cry echoed around the canyon walls. Darkness slowly engulfed our magic bowl and yet even this happened in utter silence – not an owl, not a howl, not a cricket.
We emerged from the satisfactions of a gourmet dinner into pitch-blackness. However, as the guests shuffled for bed or took last drinks on the veranda, the yawning darkness was stunningly shattered by a flashing light that started to flicker across the entire sky above us. The show was continuous and unaccompanied by thunder. As the shimmering sky pulsed, so the dramatic silhouettes of the tabletop mountains all around us were momentarily exposed. It was utterly haunting and sent shivers up my spine. The more scientific might suggest that this was electrical activity high in the ionosphere, possibly the result of unusual geological formations in the area. However the locals apparently prefer to remain mystified and awestruck by this nightly display, and I don’t blame them.
Sunday 7th
August 2005
We were up before dawn for an early breakfast. The night sky had calmed down and a lone cicada sang against the reassuring gurgling of the river. Half the party had opted for a morning of relaxation, while a small group chose to follow Carlos up into the hills. The initial jungle trail followed a small gully up a steady incline. The early light was murky and few birds were heard, let alone observed, in the depths of the forest. We glimpsed the jerky thrashing in the vegetation of an unidentified antbird, heard the close plaintive singing of an Undulated Tinamou and finally saw a bird, a Glossy Black Thrush, hopping along the track ahead of us. Further up the track we heard the whirring of wings and had to jerk our heads back and forth to keep sight of an amazingly fast Yungas Manakin that seemed capable of teleporting from one perch to another. As the track climbed, so the forest thinned, and soon we partly emerged from the forest and began to hug the edge of the gully as we worked towards a saddle in the mountains. A large tree high above us was dripping in fruit and many birds could be heard moving in the canopy. Flashes of green on birds dropping from this tree and gliding down into the valley were all we saw of a party of Emerald Toucanets.
Finally the saddle was reached and the forest gave way to low shrubs, amongst which were many delicate winter flowers, which were being pursued by several different species of hummingbird. The trail ended at a lookout point, where we could gaze way over the canopy and far beyond the sandstone hills, to another remote valley. Behind and above us lay the nest of the condors, although the hour was still too early to expect an encounter. Carlos picked up a distant noise and told us that Military Macaws were coming. Sure enough, some three minutes later a quartet of giant silhouettes worked their way high over the distant valley and then almost directly overhead until they tacked suddenly and passed on the other side of the sandstone dome beneath which we were sitting. We spent some forty minutes soaking in the soothing views, with the only signs of other humans being an ominous scarring in the forest on the other side of the valley, which marked a small clearing where cattle were now grazing.
We returned by a different route,
climbing a very narrow trail that eventually straddled the top of a ridge,
which was cloaked in a drier type of forest. We watched some White-throated
Toucans far below us, although spotting them amidst the carpet of canopy was
surprisingly difficult. 
A small troupe of Brown Capuchins also provided
challenging watching as they quietly fed in the canopy just beneath us, requiring
watchers to perform unusual yoga positions in order to find the requisite
windows through the tangle of branches. Carlos performed occasional track
maintenance with his machete, almost lovingly, for he and his brother had
apparently built these trails some years ago. Finally the Los Volcanes clearing
returned to view far below us on the other side and we were able to observe
bird watchers lounging on the balconies while White-tipped Swifts streaked
acrobatically across the sky. Another unusual atmospheric feature of this
magical place revealed itself as we descended and entered the lodge clearing,
for the air cooled as we descended and we had to slip on extra layers on
arrival – it had been far warmer at the top of the ridge.
After lunch we broke camp and a jeep shuttle service commenced up the track to the bus pick-up point. Henry and I chose a later jeep and decided to walk the first part of the track. We left the Los Volcanes clearing with leaden feet, looking back more than once. Pulling away seemed to involve fighting a force stronger than just gravity. For all its charms, however, Los Volcanes had been slightly disappointing from an ornithological viewpoint as birds had been very thin on the ground. Out of the blue this situation changed, as we encountered our first mixed flock of any significance. The usual chaos reigned, with multiple species briefly showing in poor light high above the track and rapidly moving on. I put up a good fight but soon had to admit large-scale defeat, with only a handful of successful identifications. Los Volcanes had birds all right, but it would have needed the benefit of much more time to seek them out.
The jeep collected us and we ground our
way up the track to the main road, where we all waited with our bags in a very
different landscape of thick heath and bright yellow flowers, soaking in the
distant peaks. And we waited for quite some time as Amadio was late for his
rendezvous. Finally, perhaps summoned by our percussion drumming on the huge
gas pipeline that followed the side of the road, our dreams of an unplanned
further night at Los Volcanes were dashed and we were on our way once again. On
the descent we passed a large bearded man by the roadside, sporting a pair of
professional binoculars. He beamed, and waved, and for just a moment I felt he
was calling me from the bus to live another life... But darkness rapidly
cloaked the roadside and almost as soon as the thought had germinated, I was
asleep.
When I woke we were entering the town of
Monday 8th
August 2005
A chorus of cockerel and House Wren greeted a frozen dawn. The fleeces and extra layers were piled on for a wander around the grounds of the cabin park, which offered a surprisingly pleasant view across an agricultural valley. The park consisted of twin-roomed cabins, each with a shared kitchen, and was largely unoccupied. Rufous-bellied Thrushes hopped over the lawns and Rufous-collared Sparrows sung from the hedgerows, indicative of our altitude of 1600 metres. We hunted an elusive songster in a patch of bamboo at the back of the park but were never very sure if we ever located it, for the birds that we saw there appeared silent. A hearty cooked breakfast was served in the glassed patio of the grand master cabin, home to the Scott family, while a dashing Yellow-browed Tyrant foraged just yards from the door.
Iver warned us that the weather forecast was poor and that we would need to rug up further for the morning trip up to the ruins of El Fuerte. This sounded ominous as it was already cool enough, so we pulled on our entire clothing allowances and set off promptly. Samaipata township looked much more appealing by daylight. In fact it was difficult to set aside analogies to spaghetti western sets, as this was exactly what the town resembled. The adobe stone buildings with their double-hatched swinging doors could all easily have hosted decent bar-room brawls. The main square was compact and tidy, providing a shady place to sleep away a lazy afternoon on a park bench. Samaipata gave the strange impression of being both bustling and deserted at the same time.
A few kilometres outside of town the
road to El Fuerte swept to the right and traversed the side of a mountain, ascending
through an extensive plantation of monotonous pines that had been planted to
stabilise the soil. The archaeological site itself lay on a remote windswept
ridge, beyond a simple visitors information centre. 
We spent a few hours
wandering slowly along the trails of this wild place, sharing it with the
handful of other visitors who had all come to experience what my neighbour had
referred to as one of the highlights of her year spent travelling in South
America. The main feature was a massive base rock embedded into a narrow promontory
and came with the reputation for being everything from an ancient temple to an
alien landing strip. Worn carvings in the stone could be seen if you applied a very
careful eye and exercised a token of imagination. I wonder if I lack sufficient
cultural bones in my body, because the site did very little for me (but then
again I have a colleague who claims to “really not understand this bird thing”,
so there you go…). The lack of birds to relieve proceedings was highlighted by
the intense interest paid to a timid Hellmayr’s Pipit, who posed decoratively amongst
the ruins. The scrubby montane woodland that smothered some reconstructed Inca
ruins looked a more promising place for interesting birds but again we saw very
little, although the giant Red-tailed Comet hummingbirds provided some reward.
The most interesting artefact was a deep well hidden in the forest, which was
apparently used as an Incan punishment site. (Three days down there looked
about as much fun as trying to fix the waterworks at our cabin park.) El Fuerte
did however provide an excellent opportunity to wander around the Andean hilltops
relatively freely, soaking in giant views of the surrounding hill country. I
felt like the condor that we never saw there, but perhaps should have, scanning
the spurs and valleys for a micro-whiff of distant carrion.
We grabbed a sandwich by the entrance
station and then disentangled the group in order to cater for several
alternative concepts of an interesting afternoon. The “hike back to Samaipata”
action party set off down the road, the “shopping” party were dropped back in
the main square and the “more birds please” party set off in the minibus for a
village called Achira, where it was possible to walk a little way into the
hills. While in fact being quite productive for birds, this latter visit was
also in some ways a more interesting cultural experience than El Fuerte. 
Achira
was sited on the edge of the Amboro Protected Area and had been “invaded” by
Altiplano settlers some years previously, thus establishing a community of
smallholdings in an area that, for political appeasement purposes, was now
designated “dual use”. From our evidence
this concept appeared to translate as “clear at will”, but the resulting mixed
highland landscape provided an interesting afternoon stroll. We followed a road
up the hillside, encountering several Ocellated Piculets and a small flock of
Scaly-naped Parrots, and revelled in the superb views back across the main
valley to distant El Fuerte, whose prominence on the distant horizon left no doubt as to why the societies that revered
El Fuerte had chosen such a domineering spot on which to base their
civilisation. On our way up the road we passed the local baker, who was
preparing dough for baking in his outdoor clay oven. By the time of our descent
a white flag had been raised outside his house, which indicated to the valley
community that the bread was now ready. Iver paid ten bolivianos (80 pence) for
a bag of 40 mouth-watering cheese rolls, which lasted us for several days. A
small boy chased us down the road and we let him watch a Black-backed Grosbeak
through the telescope. His curiosity quenched, it appeared to comfortably
confirm to him our madness and he smiled and sprinted onwards down the hill.
I experienced a minor dose of culture
clash back in Samaipata by visiting the local Internet Café. Unlike backward
countries such as
Without warning a great tiredness overwhelmed my body and the thought of going out for the planned hearty dinner suddenly lost appeal, however another part of me agreed that food might make all the difference. Reunited as a group, we dined at an establishment that could easily have been located in the deepest Schwarzvald. Heads of hog and compost heaps of cabbage could be swirled down by gallon tuns of crystal beer. I felt dizzy and knew it had been a mistake. Amadio was kind enough to provide an early bus return to the cabin park and I embraced my sceptic bedroom as if it were a penthouse suite. ..
Tuesday 9th
August 2005
Our final dawn at Samaipata was
glorious, not just because I felt a whole lot better after a solid night of
sleep, but also because the sky was clear and the mountains radiant in the
early light, as mountains always are on the day you leave them behind. This was
primarily a travel day, commencing with a drive back to
In Cochabamba we were met be a new team
consisting of Caroline, the travel company’s local fixer, whose warmth,
enthusiasm and youthful energy was to be put to the test over the next few
days, and Arturo, a local biologist with a passion for Bolivian frogs, who
clutched a laptop packed with useful software including the biblical Aves de
Bolivia CDRom. The 157km ride to Villa Tunari started straight away and took us
on an altitudinal tour of Bolivian ecosystems, commencing with a climb up to
the paramo grassland at a height of 3700 metres and then a descent down through
elfin woodland, cloudforest and ultimately to the edge of Amazonia. 
The 
A massive cloud bank
brushed up against the steep ravines, eliminating significant views except
where brief gaps permitted narrow windows onto the fog of vapour that smothered
the lowland jungles. It was astoundingly atmospheric. The road itself was
rather treacherous due to a heavy truck load, and opportunities for getting out
and exploring the surrounds were severely limited. We were smartly waved through the official
coca checking station half way down the mountain but ended up stuck in a much
bigger traffic jam at some road works closer to the foot of the valley. Mind
you, with a trickling mountain stream, tangled tropical undergrowth and White-browed
Hermits buzzing around the blossom, it was almost possible to forget the column
of bruised road freight carriers that we were sandwiched in between.
We reached the plains at dusk and pulled
up a short driveway to the Victoria Resort Hotel, which was billed as one of
the top spots in Villa Tunari but had the atmosphere of an abandoned holiday
camp. The rooms were large, functional and airy, and all had full glass sliding
meshed windows that looked out into secondary growth forest within which the
resort was encamped. An enormous silvery moth clung to the foot of the wall out
side our room – but whether it was alive or not was hard to tell. Our evening
meal was served in the pleasant patio dining area. This was open to the cool
night and was flanked by a grimy pool, which looked far from inviting. In the
background the distant rumble of traffic on the
Wednesday 10th
August 2005
The Villa Tunari winter dawn chorus began with cockerel crows and a distant rumble of heavy traffic, but soon materialised exclusively into the screech and cackle of a colony of Yellow-rumped Caciques, who had taken advantage of some prominent trees in the man-made clearing to set up a communal nesting colony that was easily defended by its local isolation. One of the resort staff led us to a small track that circuited two clearings and led eventually to the back of a smallholding, whose owner was less than pleased to see us. Magpie Tanagers were the most conspicuous locals, but a procession of birds on the move regularly overflew the clearing, including Russet-backed Oropendulas, Epaulet Orioles and raucous Blue-headed Parrots. This was followed by an al fresco breakfast on the patio. The grounds were now bustling with bird noise and activity, although it all came from the recently awoken caciques and oropendulas as they engaged in foraging runs, neighbourly squabbles and intensive nest management.
The short drive to the edge of
This corner of Carrasco’s real interests lay hidden in the forest, along a well-marked trail. A ridge of cliffs beyond the river floodplain had eroded and fragmented into a network of caves. The first one we entered was so narrow that we had to stoop and scramble on all fours to reach the marginally roomier interior. Arturo was having palpitations of excitement, as apparently the small black bat clinging to the right of the cave was a rare Hairy-legged Vampire Bat that fed exclusively on birds. A smear of dark red guano shining in the torchlight of the floor provided convincing evidence of its diet. Meanwhile a Common Vampire Bat flew deep into the cave on our left, leaving three tiny little vampires exposed and highly vocal. The nature documentaries of my memory, where massive flying rats grasp onto the backs of cows and sick their jaws into the tough bovine hide had not prepared me for the relative innocuous creatures that were clinging to the cave wall in front of me. And yet, vampires they were, and the moment was intensely thrilling. The larger cave next door was a much more conventional bat roost, were dense clumps of Long-tongued Bats and Short-tailed Fruit-bats packed and jostled on the ceiling at the back of the cave. Our bat list was almost as substantial as our bird list for the morning.
The highlight was just around the
corner, and for me it was the fulfilment of a long anticipated wildlife
moments. The entire cliff seared apart in a narrow cleft, light from the back
of which provided weak illumination of the massive cavern walls. A bizarre
popping and hissing emanated from the highest ledges, and inspection through
binoculars revealed lines of what looked like dried palm leaves, poking out
from unlikely growing spots. This was part of one of the most southerly Oilbird
caves in
On our leisurely return from the caves
we entered a small clearing, which turned out to 
be an abandoned coca farm. The
park and the farmers are still involved in ongoing struggles but this
particular site had been abandoned for several years. A few coca plants still
grew on the edge of the forest. The sun had reached sufficient height to become
oppressive and we blinked in the harsh light while a well-photographed orange
beetle staggered across the glaring white stones, its vivid body armour intensified
by our morning of cave dwelling. The more adventurous re-crossed the river
“piggy-back” style on the Indian Jones cable, while the others returned by
cage, beneath which a Fasciated Tiger Heron stalked the rounded boulders by the
banks of the river.
Much to the great delight of the proprietor, the deserted back garden restaurant El Suribi suddenly had a dozen visitors. Suribi is an Amazonian fish and it was available on the menu in almost every sauce imaginable. I sampled creamed garlic suribi, while Dad munched on something that looked like an elephant rib, but was in fact an extremely small part of a very large local fish with which none of us fancied an unexpected encounter. As we dined we were watched by two Smooth-billed Anis, who were seeing out the midday heat on top of a bush beyond the patio. A more entertaining, and unusual, garden resident was a bad-tempered Greylag Goose who charged the bus several times and made it clear that guests were most unwelcome in the driveway.
We whiled away the afternoon at a local Israeli-owned
animal sanctuary that nestled the slopes of a hill on the other side of the
river from Villa Tunari town. 
There were relatively few creatures in captivity
here but the trails around the grounds were worth strolling. The sanctuary’s
small army of European volunteers looked severely under-employed, expect
perhaps for the Dutchman who appeared at a high viewpoint having been dragged
there by a straining Tayra on a leash. He apparently walked (or more correctly
“was walked by”) this vicious beast for over four hours each day, which fully
supports my last claim. At monkey feeding time a ménage of Squirrel Monkeys and
Brown Capuchins descended on the feeding station, closely watched by a
Double-toothed Kite, and the volunteers beamed with satisfaction as they were
mobbed by starving primates.
Back at base camp we had the now familiar confused discussions with the waiter about how much beer to serve each tourist. He was just as determined to serve us a single glass each as certain members of the party were determined to have a large bottle to themselves. Arturo powered up his laptop and we tried in vain to find the call of the mystery antbird. Meanwhile Caroline bravely smiled and agreed to join the bus at 04.30 for the morning optional excursion to a local salt lick. She probably now regards that decision as a big mistake…
Thursday 11th
August 2005
The day of the long knives started innocently enough. According to Arturo, the plan was simple. We had a drive of one hour and a half to get to the edge of the river for daybreak. We then had a 25 minute hike to reach a saltlick, where for the hour after dawn we would see flocks of macaws coming in to stock up with minerals. We’d enjoy a feast of nature, return to the bus and join those who stayed in bed for an excursion after breakfast.
The plan had fallen apart before we’d even left. The driver was sleeping in the cab of the bus and we were all up before he surfaced. He awoke in a minor panic and incredibly rapidly materialised in the driver’s seat to get us on the road, about 15 minutes late. However Arturo’s timing was based on previous wild taxi rides along this road, not a semi-conscious bus driver who was clearly unused to nocturnal travel and was extremely reluctant to overtake a slow truck in front of us, despite yawning straights that even I, a most conservative overtaker, would not have hesitated for a second on. While the Chapare slumbered, we rumbled onwards, painfully steadily, while Arturo nervously glanced at his watch, checked his GPS, and watched the darkness seep from the sky. Dawn broke as we turned off the highway and commenced a fascinating drive down a minor road, rattling over dirt tracks that skirted tiny villages. Arturo now looked less than sure of his navigation and stopped several times to ask villagers for instructions. People began to appear by the side of the road, cockerels strolled in front of the van, a man on a bicycle was caught by surprise and before he could recover had wobbled from his bike and upended in a ditch. The Chapare was no longer sleeping and 45 minutes had now passed since daybreak.
Eventually we simply could go no further as the road ahead dipped severely and broke into a series of deep ruts. Arturo said we were close, but must hurry. By his calculations we had a half-hour walk with no guarantee that the birds would be there by the time we got there. We must run, he said, which was far easier said than done. There was no trail, as the path we were required to take was in fact a river. The water level was fortunately extremely low and so the shallow water gushing down the centre was flanked by deep beds of smooth silver pebbles. The river followed a series of broad meanders and so by far the quickest route was to plunge linearly across these meanders, splashing through the water on four or five occasions. It was challenging, it was urgent and it was exhilarating. Who wouldn’t enjoy hopping across slippery stepping-stones, scope swinging from a shoulder, keeping pace with our guide, racing to see a spectacle of parrots…
We made it! Arturo crept around a cliff
and a shallow slope to our left ended in a staggering range of grey pinnacles
and minarets of salt, chewed into jagged peaks by generations of visiting
parrots. Creeping on all fours, we approached with great caution as a cry of
alarm lifted a flock of Blue-headed Parrots and Chestnut-bellied Macaws into a
squabbling circle around our heads. They fluttered, wheeled around our heads
and then performed a scattered resettling onto the salty figurines. As they
gnawed restlessly at the rock we heard a deep croaking and three enormous
Blue-and-Yellow Macaws flew overhead, making three careful passes 
before they
dropped down onto the most prominent pinnacle, spurring cameras into an excited
response. Magnificent! Adrenalin pumped, breaths were held. We were crouched
about one hundred metres from the birds, discreetly pressed against the base of
the cliff but sufficiently in line that sudden movement would easily disturb
them. Next came a small party of Dusky-headed Parrots, so that now the
mineral-rich rocks were dotted with four different species. Eventually as the
sun crept higher in the sky the main flocks took off, whirling above us. Some
departed over the distant canopy while others apparently landed further
downstream. We thought of leaving but then heard deep croaking in the distance
and three Red-and-Green Macaws came into view, gradually descending and
dropping onto the rocks in search of minerals. It was a classically absorbing
spectacle of nature.
As we turned to head back to the bus a
Short-tailed Hawk swept along the ridge top and in the euphoria of the moment the
serenity of the location became suddenly overwhelming. Here we were, far remoter
from major roads than we had ever been, just upstream from the virtual boundary
of
But where was Jenny? It was only now that we noticed that one of our guides was missing. In the haste to leave the bus, and the madcap dash down the riverbed, we had all assumed that she was with us, but now she clearly wasn’t. It turned out that she neither had the fitness nor the footwear to follow us down the stream and so we had left her in our wake, sitting forlornly on a boulder, watching her charges rushing like lunatics across the river. “Bad boys, naughty boys”, she announced on our return, probably feeling more horror at the loss of group control than genuine sadness that she had missed the parrots, and almost certainly rueing the missing hours of sleep into the bargain.
We wolfed the packed breakfast at the
bus and then collected what water we could find and said farewell to the
minivan as it bobbed back along the uneven track in the direction of the main
road. While the conveniences and company of group travel is genuinely welcome,
I found 
it exhilarating to find a little bit of space and now we had briefly
broken free, finding solitude in a wild place, no tracks, no signs, no
rendezvous. Arturo led the way back down the river, clambering over boulders at
the water edge as we hiked beneath a now powerful sun, following the torrent
one hour downstream until some dashes of red paint on a rock indicated the
Carrasco boundary. Here Arturo clambered into the forest and we found a tiny
clearing where he had apparently camped for two weeks one year previously. All
four limbs were needed to clamber up the banking behind the camp and join a
slender trail that indistinctly entered the cathedral of the rainforest. Some
Green-and-Gold Tanagers tinkled overhead and a Marble-faced Bristle-tyrant was
the only species I succeeded in locating amongst a sizable mixed flock that simply
proved invisible amidst the vastness of the surrounding canopy. At a stream
crossing we entered a patch of dappled sunlight and watched an industrious
column of leafcutter ants trotting across a fallen log. From here the path
ascended steeply and almost entirely fell away, leaving Arturo to guide us
almost by instinct rather than by visible signs. Up and up for half an hour we
climbed, scrunching through dried leaf litter, until we reached the summit of a
narrow ridge. The view was fragmented by the denseness of the canopy. Another
ridge beckoned, but there seemed no point in going on. This was indeed the adventure
we had sought and we were now somewhere that nobody would find. It felt as if the
intangible mission, whatever it was that had provoked it, had now at least been
partially achieved.
The return trip was an adventure worthy of the day. We had an enjoyable hike back up the river, broken by a short stop at a couple of bright orange flowering trees that were attracting a variety of unusual hummingbirds, including the distinctive Black-throated Mango. Hiking back out of the forest we reached the nearest village and sank a couple of dirty looking bottles of soda on a rickety wooden table outside the village store while arrangements were made for the local taxi service to collect us. The tiny shop was located beneath the stilts of the owner’s wooden house. The owner himself was clad in a Nigerian football top (no doubt there was a fine story there somewhere) while his one-year old baby dozed in a hammock that was suspended from the floor of his home. We piled into the taxi, which was already occupied by two women, and proceeded down the track at a pace best described as “hurtle”, which vastly exceeded that of the morning journey on the bus. With great regularity, as we past hidden driveways, a potential passenger would step out and wave eagerly at the driver. He considered each case somewhat at random, seemingly dependent on his passing mood. The taxi had originally seemed full with its load of six adults, but by the time we reached the main road, despite dropping off at least one of the women, we had reached a maximum of nine people and three enormous bags of coca leaves. After dropping most of the passengers in the lively square of a nearby town, the driver picked up his wife and small child and we set off at full tilt for Villa Tunari. The reason for his family joining us was apparently security. The Chapare roads are supposedly no place for solo taxi drivers, as the vehicles are highly valued and the drivers somewhat less. He clearly wanted collateral for his journey home.
Our reception back at the hotel was slightly frosty. It wasn’t clear precisely whom to blame, but the late returning bus, absence of Arturo, abandoned Caroline, and independent travellers had all caused moments of friction and anxiety. However all had ended well, a local had been found who knew his birds very well, and the day had been saved, perhaps for all but Caroline on whom the various related tribulations appeared to have landed. She was however bravely in good cheer and the long knives of the day were replaced by fish knives as El Suribi received an encore visit. Meanwhile the Victoria Resort kitchen, who were probably expecting our custom for the evening, hopefully received the subtle message about how much we had enjoyed their catering.
Friday 12th
August 2005
We left Villa Tunari after a latish
breakfast and set off back to
We ground up the steep highway, even
succeeding in overtaking a couple of trucks, as 
Just over the 3500 metre summit we
halted for a rest stop, while Brown-bellied Swallows dived overhead and a
D’Orbigny’s Chat-tyrant was glimpsed on the edge of a small coppice.
Time to say farewells again, beg
Caroline’s forgiveness one more time (so graciously rebutted!) and slap Arturo
on the back. Our short 
The lego
brick houses of El Alto, the new town built high above
The city centre was reached quickly. Its congested streets halted the traffic and it took quite a while to reach the end of the main boulevard and turn around to stop outside our hotel. The La Plaza was quite a shock, as apparently this was rated at five stars (although by the end of our visit we all had trouble wondering how they had been earned). It was tall and plush, the rooms were spacious and air-conditioned, and I was already looking forward to leaving. Still there are some advantages of such luxury – such as free coca mate in the foyer, Internet, shower and dining in the penthouse restaurant on the top floor, with all of La Paz twinkling deceivingly serenely far beneath us. It felt as if we were overflying, rather than visiting.
Saturday 13th
August 2005
The alarms were set for 04.30, but in my case it wasn’t really needed, as my night’s sleep was fitful at best. My problem was that I needed long slow breaths to get enough oxygen, I would then fall asleep and then within half an hour I was awake and breathless, presumably because in sleep I had resorted back to regular breathing. There was time for a quick breakfast and a dumping of excess luggage in the lobby, as we were all on 15kg restrictions for our next flight to Rurrenabaque. Tony was a little but frustrated on the way to the airport because the travel agents had altered the schedule and, instead of having a night in “Rurre”, we were now going to transfer directly into the jungle for an extra day at Chalalan Lodge. This seemed an extremely fortuitous change to the itinerary and so we did our level best to prevent him from trying to overturn this decision. Chalalan was to prove a paradise and an extra day there most welcome.
Our 06.45 flight, in a small jet
dedicated to our party, skipped high over the Andes and dropped down into the
steamy lowlands, eventually banking low over some low jungle-clad hills and
bumping down on a grassy airstrip. 
Rurre
was a typical bustling Amazonian frontier town, with all the attractions of a
rural river port and market centre. The one horse high-street was packed with
small traders operating out of numerous tiny stores, which sold an unlikely
conglomerate of practical groceries, household items, second-hand clothes and
plastic tack. The outside world reached Rurre on the fringes, where a couple of
dingy offices offered Amazonian experiences, faded posters of parrots and
capybaras posted in the windows. I left a message on the home answering machine
and then joined Henry, Tom and Margaret for a jug of juice at an empty outdoor
café right on the river front. Black Vultures flapped up and down the river
from their resting places on the sandbars, while a vanload of bananas was
traded vigorously at the harbour front, shoppers arriving with small carts and
loading up their fruit. Rurre felt like the kind of town a writer could easily
hole up in for several months, supping coffee by the waterfront, soaking in the
weekly routines of the town, watching people, thinking, dreaming…
We of course, being ecotourists on a
schedule, had no more than two hours to partake in this serenity. At 12.00 our
boat was proclaimed ready and we piled into a long covered canoe, whose
outboard was soon propelling us and our luggage upstream for what would prove
to be a marathon seven-hour journey to Chalalan. At first the river was
relatively narrow and deep, arching through steep-sided gorges, with
small-holdings clinging to the shoreline and laundry hanging by the river. We
kept pace with a Large-billed Tern and admired Banded Swallows as they skimmed
low over the water. The hills retreated on either shore and the river broadened
and grew shallower, forcing the boatmen to sweep in broad arcs to seek the most
reliable channels. 
Signs of settlement became fewer, although we encountered
many small fishing boats and a couple of tourist parties. Up front of the boat
I was allocated the “spotting” role: Capped Heron to the right, Snowy Egret to
the left, White-winged Swallow on the dead branch at two o’clock… Sandro our new guide was a keen birder and
was more than happy to assist the game. Our boat, however, was larger than the
normal river taxi and the river levels were reaching seasonal lows. As we entered
a more classical Amazonian landscape of flat plains and gallery forest pressing
in on either shore, Red-and-Green Macaws and Chestnut-eared Aracaris flapping
across our pathway, Swallow-winged Puffbirds high on prominent perches, so too
did the river begin to twinkle with the white froth of shallow pebble banks and
the channel choice became more and more critical.
Eventually it was deemed unwise to negotiate a particularly foamy bend with the full load and the bulk of the party were dropped at one end of a long river island and instructed to walk to the other end. Meanwhile the boat was semi-portaged upstream, with Margaret remaining on board and resembling a maharajan empress with her entourage as the boatmen heaved against the rush of the current. We had an extremely good ten minutes of value as several Sand-coloured Nighthawks were flushed up from their otherwise invisible roosts amidst the stones of the river island, while Henry and John were dive-bombed by an irate Large-billed Tern, whose beak looked even fiercer than that of an Icelandic skua. As we proceeded further up river our guides looked anxiously at progress and the estimated arrival time kept slipping back. I, for one, had no complaints at all, as this beautiful journey was not one that I was in any hurry to end. Black-Hawk Eagle to the left, Swallow-tailed Kite to the right, Orinoco Geese on the sandbar… and then as the riparian forest crept ever closer to the boat it became Speckled Chachalaca at ten o-clock, Rufous-tailed Jacamar on a branch at three o’clock…
As we crept closer to our destination
the portages became more frequent. Now all able passengers were also on call
and we regularly had to bale out and help shove the boat over the crunching
river bottom. 
We had already picked up a second guide from a returning
riverboat and now we split into two smaller boats at a rendezvous point, as our
large craft had no chance of making the last few kilometres. The sky was
starting to turn the colour of white gold as we looped our last few bends.
Excitingly our first Razor-billed Curassows deservedly halted progress and a
Blue-throated Piping Guan launched itself between canopies as we finally
reached the Chalalan landing area. Only the retreating light made journey’s end
acceptable. Seven hours in a boat sounds like an ordeal, but it had been a
thrill to pull away from human settlement and journey into the heart of
Sunday 14th
August 2005
I drifted in and out of sleep in excitement more than anything else, each time waking to the sound of Black-banded and Tawny-bellied Screech Owls calling in the vicinity of the lodge, but not closely enough to merit any attempt to find them, even in the unlikely event that I could coax my legs to leave the comfort of a cool silk sheet sleeping bag. Sandro was my type of guide as he was very keen to maximise the morning, suggesting an 05.30 start that split the group very evenly down the “yep, I’m mad enough” to the “I’m not even considering it for a second” lines.
Our group of Henry, Mike, John, Pete and
Sandro set off on time after a light snack in the main hut. We soon left the
moonlit Chalalan clearing and entered the pitch darkness of the forest,
creeping along the trail one pace at a time. Sandro’s keen ear was focussed on
picking up any suspicious rustling in the leaflitter or the canopy but, for all
our careful tread, our only truly nocturnal sightings were of several sizable
spiders. After half an hour the silence was broken by the distant pleading of a
Little Tinamou, crying to the approaching dawn. As the first layers of darkness
were peeled from the sky a procession of solitary calls began to hail the
beginning of a new day. Sandro carefully introduced us to the sounds, some of
which were to become familiar during our stay: the excited morning cry of
Bright-rumped Attilas, the archetypical roar of Red Howler Monkeys and the
mechanical winding of the Blue-throated Piping Guan. As half-light smouldered
in the understorey we saw our first bird, a Plumbeous Antbird, then the first
of many Chestnut-tailed Antbirds. With the sounds of a Gray-headed Kite
whinnying from a treetop, we reached the edge of the river at the perfect time.
The sun was just penetrating the floor of the forest and a mixed flock was
bustling its way through the vegetation, as shafts of sunlight from the open
river sparkled between the leaves of the outer trees. It was hard to
concentrate on one spot as Pygmy Antwrens and White-browed Antbirds hopped just
feet from the ground, Plain Xenops and Fasciated Antshrike foraged mid-canopy
and White-throated Woodpecker and Gray-capped Flycatcher required the craning of
necks. We stood by the landing stage in a small clearing and enjoyed a sudden
flurry of birds everywhere. By the time we had shuffled back at birding pace,
observing Channel-billed Toucans, Golden-collared Toucanets, Spangled Cotinga
and some lekking Round-tailed Manakins in the trees above us, the morning was
quite severely advanced. I was impressed what little distance we had travelled
in such an impressively long time.
Not ones for lounging around for too
long, the temptation to cast off one of the small dugout canoes and engage in a
pre-lunch paddle around 
Bands of Hoatzin hissed their protest
as we passed and we dislodged some Long-nosed Bats from their perch, lined
vertically on a protruding branch. We berthed in perfect time for lunch and
then retired for siesta, which featured a cold shower as a highlight, and being
stung by a gigantic green hairy caterpillar as an afternoon low. 
The forest was
cloaked in midday silence, save for the incessant ticking of a Dwarf
Tyrant-Manakin, one of the smallest and most insistent residents of Chalalan.
These ping-pong ball sized birds were a perfectly camouflaged drab olive colour
and infuriatingly hard to see, despite the persistent call. A real wind whipped
itself up mid-afternoon and rattled the palm fronds around our hut violently.
It was the time of day best spent in indulgent inactivity.
At four in the afternoon we gathered again and Sandro led us down a different trail. There was very little activity and sound, so we were entertained by a long story involving a buttress root, Sandro’s father, a turtle and a jaguar. More impressive was the fact that this yarn was reproduced faithfully in an old edition of the National Geographic, which suggests that it has been well oiled in the telling. At dusk we saw around six Scaly-breasted Woodpeckers all pile into the same roosting hole and Sandro picked out a Great Tinamou that had already found its perch for the night. I had been very impressed with his guiding over the day, clearly knowing his local patch pretty well.
The last light faded above
Monday 15th
August 2005
Sandro had us up for 05.00 and off again into the darkness. We glimpsed a Red Brocket Deer in the shadows and our blind march was accompanied by the beat of a muffled distant grunt, perhaps better described as a brief drone, from the depths of the jungle. Sandro wasn’t sure whether this spine-tingling sound was a Giant Potoo or a large amphibian and I have made no progress in pursuing this since our return. It was a highly unusual noise and its regular pulse provided rhythm for our nocturnal hike. In the crepuscular gloom of predawn Sandro heard a faint rustling that he was sure was a Night Monkey returning to its daytime roost but, despite our best attempts to ambush them from below, the whispers withdrew. There was no uncertainty involved in identifying the cries of nearby howlers however, and we crashed off the track to watch a small family party silhouetted against the grey light breaking through the canopy. A Tyra bolted from a resting place high above us, although all I saw of it was swinging branches.
We watched dawn break from a small
forest clearing where the woodcutting workshop for the lodge was located. A
Plain-winged Antshrike sang from a tree on the edge of the clearing and
White-flanked Antwrens made themselves busy in the undergrowth. From here a
narrow trail wound through the forest to “the swamp”. This was an interesting
track as the character of the rainforest changed around every bend, from open
spacious woodland to dense dark glades, descending into steep gullies and
passing breaks in forest cover where tree fall had opened up the light.
However, as so often happens on rainforest hikes, there was relatively little
to see on the way other than the glorious entanglement of tropical vegetation.
Despite the early hour, bird song was restricted to the occasional retreating
woodcreeper, a glimpse of a tiny Reddish Hermit and the ticking of a Gilded
Barnet high above us in the canopy. My frustrations at the relative silence had
to be forcefully suppressed by a reminder of just how privileged we were to be
here in one of the most biodiverse regions of tropical
The situation changed dramatically at
the swamp. The very notion of a jungle swamp had more than provided incentive
to complete this trail and I had begun to look forward to it immensely. “How
much further to the swamp?” 
We heard it, long before we reached it, thanks to
the presence of three Horned Screamers, whose resonant booming from the tops of
the trees by the swamp acted as a sonar marker. Stepping round the nest hole of
a Collared Trogon, we reached the edge of a ditch that fed into a small expanse
of water lilies, tangled scrub and sedge, the surface of which could be
glimpsed through the trees. Creeping silently, we edged our way along the trail
until a window opened up on our right and we were able to step out for a view.
The swamp quenched our thirst for birdlife. As soon as we stepped out onto an
insecure log that was entrenched in the mud by the banks, a Razor billed
Curassow flapped noisily into the trees on the opposite bank and a
Black-collared Hawk took to the air, grasping an unfinished meal in its talons.
Wattled Jacanas and their tiny chicks scuttled over the carpets of aquatic
vegetation and a pair of reeling Rufous-side Crakes were briefly seen chasing
one another across a prostrate log. One of the bizarre screamers was finally
located sitting atop a distant tree, presenting an astonishing profile.
Black-faced Donacobius jumped amongst the taller scrub in the middle of the
swamp and a line of Hoatzins bunched together along a branch like a motley
jury. Cream-coloured Woodpeckers flew across the swamp, landing high in the
trees opposite us, joining a pair of Swallow Tanagers. It was hard to know just where to look.
The home-baked bread rolls snatched from the breakfast table provided adequate fuel for the return journey. A much better view of a Red Howler Monkey was enjoyed just down the track from the swamp, just at the point that we ran into Tony’s group arriving up the track following a much more leisurely start to the day. The commotion generated by the two groups brought the further benefit of an unexpected flushing of a secretive Agami Heron from an invisible streambed. We also had views of a clownish Curl-crested Aracari in the high canopy, but after about ten o’clock the forest became absolutely still, with not even the trilling of insects breaking the encompassing silence of the dry season.
After lunch and an enjoyable siesta, we
set off for a late afternoon tapir hunt around the eastern shore of the lake.
Before we had time to start our walk however, the guides 
announced that
peccaries were close as they could both smell and hear them. I have to confess
to having failed with both these senses, but in due course we heard the
clicking of their teeth and glimpsed around twenty White-lipped Peccaries
slowly shuffling down the edge of a shallow gully just behind the huts. They
sensed our presence fairly quickly and broke into a stampede, crashing over the
bone-dry leaf cover and replacing the serenity of the afternoon with a nervous
clamour. Our tapir hunt was much less successful, although Sandro did claim
that his whistling had brought the tapir briefly in our direction before it had
turned away. He indicated possible tapir tracks, but he hadn’t seen one himself
for years and was perhaps guilty of trying too hard. We had all missed Tapir
Day. We were not without our luck however as we twice flushed a magnificent
Spectacled Owl, the largest owl in the region, and so strikingly unusual that
on first glance I wasn’t even sure what genus of bird I was looking at. We also
glimpsed a Brown Tinamou hastily scuttling down the track ahead of us. Paddling
tapir-less back across the lake we heard the incessant wassailing of a
Screaming Piha and we watched a party of Squirrel Monkeys bouncing and chasing
through the riparian vegetation.
At dusk the sky burnt tropical orange
and the dark silhouette of a Rufescent Tiger-heron projected itself silently
across
Tuesday 16th August
2005
The dip of Sandro’s paddle was all that
pierced the 5am silence as we crossed 
When the light broke we were on top of a sandy bank at the edge of a
tributary of the main river. It was a surprisingly scenic spot for an
environment where such postcard views are hard to come by. We dallied for about
half an hour in the hope that something interesting would come in for a drink
but had to settle for watching Pygmy and Ringed Kingfishers darting upstream.
The rainforest silence of yesterday’s hike seemed like bedlam compared to our
subsequent wanderings, which took us through a pristine ecosystem that seemed
to have had all is birdlife wiped out by a mysterious force. Only once did we
encounter a mixed flock led by Yellow-backed Tanagers, with squeaking all
around us, but very few good glimpses of birds in the mesh of canopy that
yawned high above.
Sandro was getting a bit bored as well, but
only until the ghost of his old hunting skills suddenly shook him awake. A
sixth sense froze his body, his muscles tightened, his eyes gleamed and a smile
electrified his face. “Let’s go pig hunting…” he announced and, shrinking his
body to a slight crouch, he stealthily led the way down a branch of the track.
Now even we could hear the clacking of the teeth 
of an enormous herd of peccary
on alert, and soon we could smell the rich musky smell of pig. We froze as a
couple of animals walked slowly across the track about 50 metres ahead. All
around us the vegetation rustled and a low mumbling and “ooming” emanated from
the herd who, having smelled our presence, were doing their best to cause
confusion as to their precise location. Sandro’s eyes were gleaming – “it’s a
big herd, maybe more than one hundred.” Suddenly the animals started and there
was apparent chaos as some peccaries ran to the left and others to the right of
the track. A sentinel must have sounded an alarm and this splitting of the pack
was, Sandro whispered, also a deliberate confusion tactic. After a short pause,
a lone pig crossed the track from right to left, checking if the way was clear.
Deciding this was the case, the herd began again to cross just yards in front
of us, while John lay prostrate by the edge of the path trying to capture
images of the spectacle. However once again our smell must have tainted the
peccary nostrils and this time sheer panic broke out. Three or four animals
pirouetted on the track making frightening vomiting noises and the group began
to huddle. Sandro was no longer smiling: “they’re angry”, he announced, “let’s
go”… And go we did, very promptly. Sandro’s previous tales of gored hunters
under siege half way up a tree had more than prepared us for the potential
dangers of a livid herd of pigs. Safely one hundred metres down the track we
scanned back through binoculars. The peccary sentinel now stood in the middle
of the path, shoulders twitching, staring directly at us. As I watched a Ringed
Antpipit delicately stepping through the undergrowth, the peccary continued to
watch us. For just a minute he wondered if he had unfinished business, but
suddenly a signal must have sounded and the entire herd stampeded into the
forest, earth thudding beneath four hundred hooves, adrenalin briefly surging.
And they were gone, swallowed by the vastness of Madidi. We breathed a slight sigh of relief and
wondered if the whole incident had actually happened at all.
There was a lot of coming and going at
Chalalan during siesta time. Two strange Spanish girls moved into the remaining
section of our three-dorm cabin and had a hysterical fit when they discovered
that the rooms were not ensuite and that they would be “sharing”. An Irish
couple also arrived, as did a mysterious 
tall Spaniard, who took to the lake in
a dugout while sitting on one of the dining room chairs. Sandro returned to
lead an afternoon walk, but he seemed well below par after the excitement of
the pig hunt, and the short walk to a viewpoint over the lake was by far the
most unproductive of the stay, and in fact the only one that failed to further
the bird list. From the top of the rise we looked out across miles of forest
towards a range of low hills, partially clouded by a worrying haze attributed
to extensive fires raging in the west of
Heidi had taken her family and Mike on a private day trip, heading three hours upstream to visit the village that “owned” the lodge. They returned late with tales of an exciting day, abundant birdlife on the river, and saturation of cultural curiosity. They probably dreamt that night about a different life, humbly scratching a living from the margins of the land, perhaps working behind the Chalalan bar for extra keep, guiding the occasional walk, spending every siesta in a hammock to the rhythm of crinkling palm. I dreamt of peccaries, nostrils flaring, squealing, circling, angry pigs, watching me, chasing me, as I fled into the night…
Wednesday 17th
August 2005
A
twist of fate delivered an extra morning at Chalalan. Due to engine problems
with the large boat we were to be ferried back to Rurre in two groups and so
the party comfortably split into those wishing a day in Rurre and those
desiring another forest hike. I was more than happy to remain at Chalalan and
we had the added bonus of having Alejandro as our guide for the last morning
walk. Alejandro was perhaps not as rounded and experienced a guide as Sandro,
but he had some extra skills that we were about to enjoy to the full.
So, up
in darkness once again and into the last hour of the night at Chalalan for one
last time. We had barely stepped into the rainforest when Alejandro cautioned
silence and dipped his torch to low, in time for us all to see a striped Paca
hesitantly step out onto the path in front of us and trot for cover. The
unidentified deep resonant droning again accompanied our first half hour and
Alejandro, who was to prove a master of a great deal of his local patch,
admitted defeat on this sound as well. “Is that a bird or a frog?”, he asked
us. It was turning into the proverbial question. A rustling in the canopy had
our torches sweeping upwards and this time it was my head-torch that picked out
a Kinkajou, a small cat with the tail of a monkey. Our Chalalan nocturnal
mammal list had trebled in less than an hour.
We
turned down the track for the swamp at daybreak and briefly paused beneath a
forest giant, from the top of which a loud ventriloqual crying was emanating.
It sounded like the dawn cry of a raptor, most probably a Lined Forest Falcon,
however the bird could not be located and we decided not to sit it out in the
hope that it would eventually fly. Alejandro was quick to start demonstrating
his outstanding whistling skills on some of the morning residents. First up was
a tiny Banded Antbird, whose high-pitched seeping was coming from the densely
foliaged forest floor. With absolute persistence we stalked this delicate bird
for over ten minutes, stepping as lightly as we could round the flora and
balancing motionless in the hope of a glimpse. Its bold markings proved
surprisingly effective camouflage when the tiny antbird was eventually seen,
pottering around like a forest wagtail, it seemed oblivious to the challenge
that it had been providing. Alejandro’s finest hour came at the bottom of a
steep gully when he heard the distant call of a Southern Nightingale Wren. His
well rehearsed routine swung into action and we were all lined up by the edge
of the track, while he started a performance whistle that sounded far too
sophisticated and orchestral to be repeated by a diminutive bird. Amazingly
however he got an instant reply, which crept closer and closer until a dumpy
wren that resembled a dipper stepped out onto the track, swept its neck upwards
and let rip within just metres of our “hiding” place. I was extremely
impressed.
The
swamp provided most of the treats of our previous visit, including more views
of the Horned Screamers and a much better look at an immature Barred Forest
Falcon, whose identification had dogged us the other day. We also saw some tiny
flycatchers whose call I faithfully noted and that subsequently led me into
interesting, and inconclusive, dialogues with some of
We
trekked back to the lodge for lunch and then to the boat launching area, where
we waited like stranded mariners for signs of our launch. The afternoon was
warm, but of much greater concern were the persistent sandflies that nipped
anyone foolish enough to remain inactive by the bank for too long. At a lookout
point just above the launch area, a gentle breeze provided some relief, while a
King Vulture soared slowly downstream. Finally the boat was spied, bravely
fighting up the last of the shallow rapids and docking for just long enough to
exchange one party of guests for another.
By 3pm we were hurtling down the
river, bumping gently down the reaches that we had valiantly struggled up just
days before, carefully picking a route between newly erected wooden tripods,
topped with large pebbles, which marked the navigable channel. I drifted into a
pleasant state of torpor as we carved our way round a seemingly endless
sequence of alternating bends, while
We
checked in to the Hotel Safari in Rurrenebaque, whose sprinkled lawns were
grazed not by herds of Black Wildebeest, but by a domesticated Greater Rhea
called Claudio. The expansive cane
chairs were extremely inviting, and the icy beer chest was raided as a prelude
to another highly satisfactory encounter with suribi. Sergio the Chalalan barman, on his way back
to stock up the empty beer reserves, had told us that Rurre shore leave was
best spent in the Mosquito Bar, so some of us decided that it needed to be
checked out after the solitude of Madidi. It was a fun outing, with several
local “chuflays” consumed and some very bad pool played. However the Mosquito
Bar was a bit of a disappointment as, far from providing local flavour, it appeared
to be largely a backpacker hangout, catering to the increasing numbers of
independent travellers passing through the town. At some suitably late hour we
staggered back up the dusty streets of Rurre, providing suitable bait to the
town’s vocal canine population, and no doubt talking a fair degree of nonsense.
Thursday 18th
August 2005
I woke with a slight hangover, which was
nothing that a stroll along the river to the sewage outflow did not cure…
Rurrenebaque generated morning river noise, with the outboards of a launch, the
cries of some fishermen whose jeep was parked on a distant sandbar and the
screeching of some captive macaws. Between the hotel lawns and the muddy river
was a narrow belt of “dune”, where wiry tussocks of grass sheltered a sizeable
flock of seedeaters and a 
mysterious mammal that kept vanishing down a burrow
before I had the chance to observe it properly. The sewage outflow was of
course the best spot for birds, with Solitary and Pectoral Sandpipers probing
the grime next to a Cattle Tyrant and a Black Skimmer, who swept back and
forth, scooping its lower mandible into the nutritious water. Vivid Vermillion
Flycatchers sat on the fence posts like artificial illuminations.
We were picked up promptly after
breakfast by three jeeps, and set off in the direction of
The small outpost of Reyes, where we had
to stop to pay a park tax, looked very poor. There were few vehicles and most
of the wooden cottages had roofs of thatched palm. The villagers stared
uncomfortably 
blankly at us, their domestic interiors intrusively exposed by our
lofty seats in the land rovers. Soon we
crossed a park boundary, surprisingly discovering that the emblem of the
protected area that we were entering, with its dusty plains and radiant pink
tahibo trees, whose astonishingly exuberant blossom fired the hazy horizon, was
in fact a dolphin. Journey’s end came just short of four dusty hours from
Rurrenebaque. We swung the bags down from the roofs of the jeeps and briefly
transferred to a long dugout for a five-minute swing around a river bend to
Caracoles Lodge, where a Rufescent Tiger-Heron and a departing party of twenty
American backpackers greeted us. Our dishevelled dusty selves, clad against the
possibility of biting insects contrasted sharply with the semi-naked,
white-teethed American students, bone necklaces jangling from their necks.
After the luxuries of Chalalan, Caracoles was an initial shock. The lodge looked slightly dilapidated, consisting of several large wooden huts that sheltered in a grove of palms on the summit of a gentle rise, which was hopefully beyond the reaches of the annual floods. This barren brown mound undoubtedly became an island in the wet season. We had to wait as our rooms were cleaned and the large communal dormitories and run-down exterior shower block brought a few wry grins. However the hosts were very welcoming, lunch was delicious and once the Americans departed a serenity returned that overcame any initial anxieties. Storks spiralled high above and the bird table was soon heaving with Red-headed Cardinals and a vivacious Troupial, who fought for scraps just beyond the meshed dining area.
Marcel, our host, took us out on the
first of our boat trips in the afternoon. The water levels were extremely low
and so the views from the boat were not miles of open pampas, but rather steep
muddy banks, 
with the riparian vegetation towering over us like parasols. The
river was in places only about ten metres wide but Marcel took it nice and
easy, slowing up for wildlife and doing his best to name things for us. Sandro,
in the spotting prow, was apparently blinded by his continuing hangover and was
very much missing in action. We sat in the rear of the boat and benefited much
more from Marcel’s sharp eyes. Apart from the expected range of water birds,
ubiquitous Snail Kites and flyovers from Jabiru, Roseate Spoonbill
and flocks
of Peach-fronted Parakeets, we also glimpsed an anaconda slithering into the
river and saw our first Capybara, trapped between us and the steep embankment,
eyeing us carefully and then slipping up the slope to cover. The highlight was
probably a pair of Southern Screamers whose call proved very hard to track
down, and only with some careful paddling from Marcel were we able to catch a
window in the scrub on top of the banking to see these enormous birds silhouetted
in a distant tree out on the pampas. We also glimpsed some river dolphins, no more
than a series of ripples and flashes of pink, as they swam beneath us upstream.
We were to have much better views the next day.
Our boat was worryingly taking on increasing amounts of water and so we were forced to beach while the bales were applied. This gave us a chance to look out over the grassland and admire a huge Buff-necked Ibis circling low over the plain. On our return journey two Razorbilled Curassows ran ahead of us along the shore and then flew across the water in their dash for cover. As dusk closed in, Parauques silently zigzagged overhead on their first forays of the evening.
The evening ritual at caracoles included standing under a dripping shower trying to get enough water to declare the event a shower. Parauques called all around and a shining of the torch out the back of the lodge revealed glowing orange parauque eyes by the swamp. We had a much better view of one close to the lodge and also found a mysterious rat with a long tail that stared down at us from a tree branch. I was exhausted and with another early start on the cards, retired to the dormitory for sleep, while the sounds of a loud card session eventually lulled me to sleep.
Friday 19th
August 2005
I surfaced at the luxurious hour of 04.45, in readiness for our 05.30 hike. The silence of the night had been intermittently broken by a scratching and rustling from the palms beyond my window and I had suspected Night Monkeys, but the victory of reluctant body over inquisitive mind had failed to drag me from my mosquito net to investigate. The rustle was clearly audible once more and this time I was ready to get up. I stepped quietly past the other slumbering ecotourists and padded around the back of the block with my head torch, systematically shining the beam into the heart of each palm tree, without success. The scratching was surprisingly difficult to pinpoint and I went around in circles, getting increasingly frustrated. As I stared, perplexed, back at the main hut, a voice spoke quietly from the shadows. A member of the kitchen staff smiled and pointed into a tree that I thought had already searched at least three times, saying “ormira”. I flicked on the torch and there was a gorgeous Tanandua, excavating a tree termites’ nest at the base of the lowest ring of leaves. It was a beautiful animal and I was eternally grateful – how had I managed to miss it?
We consumed a pre-walk coffee and then
filed out through the tall fence at the back of the lodge into the scrubby
floodplain. It was still dark and the eyes of Parauques were absolutely
everywhere, some proving quite approachable. We skirted the small swamp next to
the lodge and then weaved through a narrow zone of tall prickly bushes, taking care
not to catch our clothing on the thorns. 
Walking blindly through this maze in
the predawn was extremely exciting, not knowing what we would find when the
shadows parted. A reedy, scratchy dawn chorus, typical of such habitat, began
to pipe up just as the mosquitoes rose from the grassland and bit furiously for
a very brief period, just until the light began to break, We found ourselves on
the edge of a seemingly infinite grassland, the scrub at our backs and the
lodge a distant low mound of trees. There was not an abundance of birdlife on
the plains, but what was there was new to us. The slow broken whistle of an
invisible Tataupa Tinamou started steadily from a patch of rank sedge and then
descended quickly, ending in a rapid trill. Grassland Sparrows scratched from
the tops of tussocks, a Rufous Cachalote jumped along the branch of a tree by
the edge of the plain and a Narrow-billed Woodcreeper flitted between bushes of
the stunted forest that we had traversed in the dark. A huge flock of Snail
Kites past overhead, leaving their overnight roost, as did a formation of
twenty Bare-faced Ibis. We heard the distant calls of Black Howler Monkeys,
chased an unidentified spinetail and stumbled on a tiny clown-faced bird
bathing in a muddy puddle whose genus we couldn’t even guess at, until later
establishing it was a Rusty-collared Seedeater. Meanwhile a large herd of black
cattle approached us menacingly and we stood still while they sniffed the air
and then decided to shuffle off to leave us undisturbed. I was warming to this
place just as Marcel beckoned us back to the lodge for breakfast, concerned
that his plans for our day were already being delayed.
After breakfast we jumped in the boat
for a quick trip downstream to a small gully in the riverbank, where we were
able to disembark and scramble up to the plain above the river. The main
surprise was to discover a good quality dirt track that ran straight as a die
along the top of an embankment, overlooking vast flooded meadows on either side.
This was a terrific viewpoint from which to set up the telescope and scan for
birds in the rank grassland and the extensive shallow pools. T
he party quickly
split, with Marcel leading off a small group in search of anacondas. The rest
shuffled along at birding pace, combing either side of this elevated track. I
was now clear that Sandro was more student than guide now that he was well out
of his natural habitat and so we had fun together sorting out our Great Pampa
from our Wedge-tailed Grassfinches and our Crane Hawks from our Snail Kites. We
were forced to leave several small flycatchers unidentified and various crakes
calling from the swamps went unseen. A group of Roseate Spoonbills kindly
settled on a far tree, allowing wonderful views through the telescope. There
was also plenty of opportunity to stare down the throats of Spectacled Caimans
as they lay panting in the rising morning heat. The anaconda hunt eventually
returned with great stories of success, as well as having seen two Jaguarundi
further down the levy. It was now getting rather too hot for birds and
watchers, so we returned to the boat and Marcel sped us back for shade and
lunch.
I spent much of the afternoon siesta on the top of a very rickety platform that had been erected just beyond the lodge fence, overlooking the small swamp, which was almost entirely dry. The compulsory Snail Kites were resting on the tops of the surrounding scrub, but there was plenty of activity thanks to the little water that was present. Two Greater Yellow-headed Vultures dropped down for a drink and a Savannah Hawk stalked the adjacent grassland, apparently playing with a twig that had got caught up in its talons. Two Gray-fronted Doves were lurking in the small patch of reeds, while a Plumbeous Ibis and a Black-backed Water-tyrant foraged over the open mud. A man with a bullock cart loaded with logs slowly crossed the plain in the shimmering heat haze in front of me. It was a pleasant passing of a hot and peaceful afternoon.
At 3pm we set off upstream for an exploration of the opposite stretch of river. The now familiar array of waterbirds paraded past. I cursed my luck however when the front of the boat reported glimpses of my long sought after Sunbittern, but it scuttled over a bank and flew for cover before I was able to see it. Marcel landed the boat on a small beach, where a bend in the river had created a small lagoon. This was not just a chosen place for some piranha fishing, but was also a favourite feeding area for the Boto, the Pink River Dolphins that we had only glimpsed on our journeys thus far. The dolphins regularly broke the surface here, the astonishingly vivid skin colour of their flat bodies contrasting with the ashy colour of the water. One dolphin even seemed completely white. Leaving the fishing party for a brief explore, we strolled along the top of the embankment, which was cloaked in verdant waist-high greenery. The sun was hidden behind layers of cloud and the humidity at this spot was quite oppressive, water literally pouring from our foreheads, making progress very slow. Tom beamed the most joyous smile I have ever seen as he plucked a tiny piranha from the water with his handheld line, jangled it briefly for the cameras and gently let it slip back into the river. It was a real pleasure to get back onto the river and have the breeze ripple our clothing once again. We lost the light just short of the lodge, having seen enormous flocks of Limkins passing overhead just on sundown.
Dinner was a suitable rowdy affair for our last night in my preferred version of civilisation, fuelled by Marcel’s donation of two bottles of the local spirit on the house. Needless to say it was all consumed and there was a great degree of eccentric behaviour on show by bedtime. This spirit must have been pure and true for amazingly it left no hangover or regrets by the morning. Neither did it bring Night Monkeys, real or imaginary, so they again remained an animal for “next time”. Long after the festivities, the melancholy song of a Common Potoo drifted in from the bush, a farewell perhaps to wild places. Or a beckoning to return.
Saturday 20th
August 2005
Our short arrival boat transfer to the
front of Caracoles had apparently just been for show because we awoke to find
two jeeps parked at the back of the lodge, ready to take us back to
Rurrenebaque. This journey was fairly uneventful, except for Tony’s jeep
acquiring a flat tyre which led to a brief halt in front of somebody’s backyard
in
Rurrenebaque airport was surprisingly
busy, with around thirty tourists and bags scattered around the airy waiting
room and the baking veranda. The reason, it quickly emerged, was that not only
had our early afternoon plane not landed yet, but neither had the 08.00 flight
to
We eventually reached 
out
of the way and he could take over professionally to show us some real tourism.
An Andean Lapwing scuttled between the parked cars outside the terminal and
pair of Hooded Siskins flitted amongst the bushes. Now that we were visiting
Sunday 21st
August 2005
I was fairly ambivalent about spending
our last full day in
The sun broke through as we left the dreary suburbs and cast a cold milky light over the extraordinary altiplano. Vast dry plains stretched to the south, while a dramatic mountain range sprawled to the north. Small villages of adobe stone huddled on the plains and I wondered just how hard it was to make a living from this freezing landscape. After about an hour we had our first glimpse of the shores of the lake, a shimmering silvery blue bay was fringed with yellow rushes, while three fishing boats with brightly coloured sails, one red, one green, one white, scudded offshore. Titicaca was vast and it was impossible to conceive it as a whole. Sometimes it would be a strait, a shore, a sea, but only in the imagination would it ever be a lake.
At a small port we had to make a brief
ferry crossing. There was a lot of traffic across this narrow strait and strangely
no ferry of any size. Instead a constant flotilla of little boats darted back
and forth. Our bus took one, while we were piled into another tiny launch,
crowded with standing passengers, while Ivan clutched a pile of orange life
vests just in case the self-organising port traffic control system suffered
from a failure. Rejoining the bus, we crossed a high pass, where Mountain
Caracaras soared above the swaying arid grassland, and drifted briefly and
seamlessly into
Before taking to the lake we had an hour
to explore Copacabana. Apart from the crowded market, the most interesting
activity was the procession of decorated new cars approaching the 
Moorish
church for a blessing. These vehicles not only received a priestly blessing,
but were also honoured by the breaking of a bottle of beer, which was then used
to wash the car. The market stalls sold small plastic icons that revealed
everything that the local people dreamed of: from more cars, to houses, dollars
and even dolls dressed in the uniforms of professions. The church itself was
too packed to do anything other than step briefly into, but we did explore the
amazing hall of candles, where people melt wax effigies of objects of their
desire onto the walls. There were signs everywhere pleading that this not be
done, but clearly no attempt was made to prevent it either. Most touching were
the numerous wax houses scratched onto the cavernous walls.
The sun shone warmly on Copacabana and,
despite the evidence of the journey there, it was at least for a moment hard to
imagine being unhappy here. Eared Doves perched on the short lamp standards in
the town square and Black Siskins were glimpsed flying overhead. Down at the
post there was a small marina where a giant catamaran awaited us, from whose
bows we looked out over the Bolivian naval headquarters and their only boat, a
tiny motor launch, which it was illegal to photograph from land, but not from
the water! Our party were soon snoozing on the deck as we set off for the
one-hour cruise to Isla del Sol, an island of archaeological interest in the
middle of the lake. It felt like a pelagic cruise but, despite my best
attempts, there were no birds to be seen on the lake except for distant Andean
Gulls. As the island approached we suffered the indignity (for all concerned)
of being transferred to a mock bamboo man-o-war, powered either by the four
fierce Incan warriors who absent-mindedly scraped their paddles across the
surface, or perhaps by the quiet electric motor that hummed somewhere far
beneath our feet. The island was however worth the overly elaborate outward
journey as its Incan terraces had been partially restored and the gardens were
alive with birdlife. Cinereous Conebills
and Black-throated Flowerpiercers explored the blossom of the tall trees that
provided welcome shelter from the midday sun, D’Orbigny’s Chat-tyrant and
Mourning Sierra-finches hopped amongst the stonework of the terraces, even a
hummingbird, a Sparkling Violetear, had found a home on this lonely piece of
land, isolated from the distant mountains by the mirror-calm sheath of Lake
Titicaca. We pottered breathlessly amidst the ruins and the fascinating museum,
where the memory of the trap used to shape the skulls of royal babies remains
the most memorable exhibit.
It was a three-hour cruise back to the
Transturin terminal on what, at a cruising speed
of nine knots, might have been
the slowest motorised boat in the world. With almost nothing to see of interest
on the vast lake, it was simply a time to sleep, feast from the buffet and
watch Titicaca drift by. Up on deck the sunshine was countered by a chill wind,
appropriate for the backdrop of remote snow-packed peaks on the far horizon.
Perhaps this was finally the
In contrast to the sleepy morning, in
the lantern light of evening El Alto was now buzzing, jammed with people
returning from Sunday markets. Queues of minibuses and vans were jostling their
way back to villages all over the altiplano. The streets teemed with energetic
humanity. It was different place, no softer, but much more tangible. Our
driver’s assistant jumped out at a busy junction and was instantly swallowed by
the chaos. We made a last descent into
Monday 22nd
August 2005
We left a crisp winter