Let’s go Pig Hunting

An adventure in the lowlands of Bolivia  

3rd – 22nd August, 2005

FernBlue and Yellow MacawHenry and KeithButterfly

Author: Keith Martin.  55 Belmont Road, Twickenham, Middlesex TW2 5DA, U.K.

                                        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 Bolivia, and my father was threatening to go with him, the urge to join them became irresistible. Domestic objections, a lack of numbers and ultimately a health scare for my father nearly put the trip in jeopardy, but somehow it was destined. And this is what happened next…

Part I: Introduction

Part II: Diary

Part III: Bird and Mammal List

Part IV: Photo Gallery

 

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 Bolivia as part of her research career. The destinations picked themselves fairly easily, but Tony ands Gerda’s work was all in sorting out the logistics. They had a great deal of help from the local travel company Transturin, who provided us with transport and a local organiser for each of our destinations. They also had help from Aidan Maccormick, a PhD student from Glasgow University who was conducting ornithological PhD research based at Santa Cruz de la Sierra. He in turn fixed us up with Arturo Munoz, a local biologist from Cochabamba, who joined us for part of the trip. And so the whole thing fell together very nicely in the end. I did put quite some time into ornithological planning however because, horror of horrors, Bolivia had no national field guide in 2005. Good solid preparation time did pay dividends. More on that below.

 

Bolivia

The Bolivia of my preconceived imagination, jagged peaks, pan pipes and black bowler hats, forms a surprisingly small part of this extremely varied country. Bolivia has an astonishing range of landscapes and we spent the bulk of the trip in a very different Bolivia to that of the high Andes and altiplano that forms the bulk of south-western Bolivia. The south-east of Bolivia is an arid zone of dry chaco forests and chiquitania tropical scrubs and grasslands that extend into Argentina and Paraguay. We only touched the edge of this area and spent most of our time in the moist broadleaf yungas rainforest of the Andean foothills, the lowlands of Amazonia and the moxos savannah of northern Bolivia. This gave us just the slightest flavour of what this wonderful country has to offer and I hope I will be back to see some more one day.

 

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. Santa Cruz looked in dire need of a downpour and the rivers were so low in the last week of the trip that our boat trips became somewhat hazardous affairs. Of course dry also means few road access problems and no days rained off, so you take the package as it comes. It would be wonderful to see many of these places smothered in the luxuriance of the wet season, but I’m sure that comes with plenty accompanying hazards. It was often hot, but never too hot. La Paz was cool, but not too cold. There’s a lot to be said for August in Bolivia

 

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. La Paz felt a fairly safe city to walk around. There were no irritating bugs, anywhere, as far as I can remember. Ah – well – amnesia has set in after all. There were some extremely nasty stinging caterpillars at Chalalan. I had one creep up my shorts, but it was noticed just in time to stave off disaster, but in the process I received a nasty sting on the hand which throbbed for an hour or so. Don’t touch them! I suppose the juggling of internal flight times could be an irritation if you weren’t careful about checking in. We spent a bit of time hanging around waiting for planes, so I can imagine that you might spend even longer hanging about waiting for buses and trains. But by and large I found Bolivia a very comfortable place to travel around.

 

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 Santa Cruz, Cochabamba, La Paz and Rurrenebaque. We hired a minibus at each of the main locations, Chalalan’s boat service to get us to Chalalan Lodge and the Caracoles jeeps to get us out to Caracoles Lodge.

 

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   La Paz (La Plaza)

 

Hotel Urbari was a good base for Santa Cruz, with spacious motel-style rooms and a shady courtyard for breakfast, as well as having the benefit of pool and restaurant access at the adjacent sports club. Los Volcanes was probably our favourite overnight and we only regret having just the one night there. Its secluded location, breathtaking views, exceptional hospitality and delicious catering were outstanding. By contrast, Quanta Parai was a very rudimentary cabin park on the edge of Samaipata whose plumbing desperately needed fixing. The Victoria Resort Hotel was a rather soulless tourist complex with very average food, but was conveniently located and had plenty birds in the spacious grounds. We were upgraded to the five-star La Plaza in La Paz, although I think it would score less than five stars in many other countries. It was a perfectly good, if characterless, hotel, but the poor service that we obtained on the top floor restaurant left a nasty taste in the mouth on our departure. In stark contrast Chalalan was a model of hospitality and an outstanding tourist lodge, with terrific local food, friendly staff and knowledgeable guides. Hotel Safari in Rurre had a charming colonial feel and was a good place for a brief stopover, especially as it came with a free rhea. Caracoles Lodge was also extremely welcoming and what it lacked in infrastructure, it made up for in charm.

 

Relevant Reading

[1] Lista Anotada de las Aves de Bolivia, Quinta Edicion, A. Bennett Hennessey, S. K. Herzog and F. Sagot, Armonia, 2003.

[2] A Field Guide to the Birds of Peru, J.F. Clements and N. Shany, Lynx Edicions, 2001.

[3] The Birds of Ecuador: Vol II  Field Guide, R.S. Ridgely and P.J. Greenfield, Cornell University Press, 2001.

[4] Birds of Southern South America and Antarctica, M.R. de la Pena and M. Rumboll, Collins, 1998.

[5] Birds of Bolivia 2.0: Sounds and Photographs, S. Mayer, Bird Songs International, 2000.

[6] Neotropical Rainforest Mammals: A Field Guide, Second Edition, L.H. Emmons and F. Feer, University of Chicago Press, 1997.

[7] Bolivia, A.D. Nystrom and M. Konn, Fifth Edition, Lonely Planet, 2004.

[8] Culture Shock! Bolivia, M. Cramer, Kuperard, 1997.

 

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 (Santa Cruz) and end (La Paz) of the trip (although its illustrations are fairly poor). For Amazonia [2] and [3] were fairly adequate. I extracted the plates from both [2] and [3] and carried them in the field. I left the text of [2] at home as it is rather rudimentary and does not feature call descriptions. I carried the excellent text of [3] in my luggage. However the text I most often consulted was [1], which became extremely well-thumbed by the end of the trip as its complex code contains a wealth of habitat and regional information that was vital on the ground. I found the simple numeric code that described likelihood of seeing and hearing each species very useful. The few “missing” species were all featured in the excellent CD-Rom [5], which I did not carry, but did research before we left. I also added annotations to [1] to indicate which field guides featured an illustration of each species, and even a few call descriptions from [5]. Birders willing to travel with [5] will be in a very good position to research calls as this collection is extremely comprehensive and the photos of many species would also prove useful.  As on previous trips to this part of the world I carried [6] as the default mammal guide to Amazonia. The only background reading I did on Bolivia was from [7] and [8]. Neither was particularly useful as our logistics on the ground were largely catered for in advance. However [8] was an entertaining read and helped prepare me for the cultural diversity of Bolivia.  Most useful in [7] was the excellent overview of recent Bolivian history and politics.

 

Guiding and Effort

The trip was a pleasing mixture of guided and self-guided. In Santa Cruz we benefited from Aidan Maccormick’s local knowledge. Los Volcanes had a good spotter as a guide, but he didn’t know all the birds of the area and did not speak English. We were on our own at Samaipata. For the Villa Tunari leg of the trip we enjoyed the company of Arturo Munoz who had a limited knowledge of the local birds (he was an expert on frogs and bats) and part of the group hired a good local bird guide one of the afternoons. The only place we had top bird guide help was Chalalan, where both Sandro and Alejandro knew their local patches very well, although even for them some calls remained a mystery. Sandro accompanied us to Caracoles, but he was largely out of his depth there and was us much a student as we were. At Lake Titicaca we were once again on our own. Thus the careful scrutiny of Sjoerd Mayer’s CDRom and the thumbing of the Lista Anotada before we left paid handsome dividends. The birding effort was generally fairly relaxed. Where we made particularly early starts in Chalalan and Caracoles, we always had a leisurely afternoon siesta.  Elsewhere we took things fairly comfortably, although a birding eye was always roving. There are simply too many birds in Bolivia to take too much time off!

 

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 Bolivia.

 

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 Santa Cruz leg. Thanks to Aidan and Arturo for providing natural history expertise in the first few weeks. A big thanks to Sandro and Alejandro from Chalalan for all those hours of creeping around the rainforest at ungodly hours of the morning and of course for all the pig hunting. Sergio the Chalalan barman , you make a mean chuflay (and indeed all the staff at Chalalan deserve a mention for creating a wonderful atmosphere there). Cheers also to Marcel, our host at Caracoles Lodge, for all the precision paddling and the warm hospitality. I’d also like to thank Bennett Hennessey and Sjoerd Mayer for helping out with some post-trip identifications, and Sjoerd for all his help beforehand when I navigated through the “which guide book to take” dilemma. Good Luck Armonia, Bolivia’s Bird Life International partner, with all your Bolivian projects and I hope all visiting birders will help support your activities. And thanks to Anita and Kyla, who never actually gave me permission to go, but who did allow me back in the house when I got home.

 

 

 

Part II: Diary

 

 

Wednesday 3rd August 2005

 

Santa Cruz de la Sierra is probably not a city that resembles anybody’s preconceptions of Bolivia. Seen from a circling aircraft, the city is surrounded by grassy plains that in August are burnt dry, with the only visible signs of green provided by scattered clumps of palms. On our arrival the air was pleasantly warm and humid, while a savage wind howled over the flats, buffeting the palm trees in front the airport terminal and tossing a pair of Turkey Vultures as they struggled in the turbulent heat to survey the plains for carrion.

 

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. Santa Cruz is a low city and arrival in the central square, Plaza 24 de Septiembre, caught me unaware as there was little perception amidst the twisting and turning of the taxi that we had actually reached the middle of anywhere. Plaza 24 de SeptiembreThe 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 Glasgow University who had volunteered to show us around a couple of the local sites. He seemed genuinely shocked by Tony’s suggestion of a luxuriously leisurely 08.30 start, but accepted that some of the party of 12 might be a bit travel worn. Some nodding heads during his short slide presentation on Bolivia provided a degree of supporting evidence…

 

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 Santa Cruz birdlife, including a rollicking pair of Thrush-like Wrens, Saffron Finches on the telegraph wires and a small flock of Yellow-chevroned Parakeets feeding high up in what looked like a jacaranda.

 

Our minibus finally departed at 08.45 and we followed one of the city ring roads around Santa Cruz, which was ablaze with Bolivian flags as the national day was just 48 hours away. Our destination, the Jardín Botánico Municipal Santa Cruz, didn’t feel anything like its name suggests. Firstly it was quite detached from the city, lying well on the outskirts. Birding in Santa Cruz Botanical GardensSecondly 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 Bolivia.

 

The afternoon excursion to the Santa Cruz zoo brought with it a flood of confusingly mixed feelings concerning both desire and appropriateness of such a visit. The best and worst of these all duly unfolded with few surprises. Classy Macaw Phone comes in handy for phoming homeBeyond 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. Andean Condor in Santa Cruz zooA 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 Santa Cruz. The open country of fields beyond the city limits did little to flatter, as every fence and thorny bush fluttered with abandoned plastic bags. Our minibus rattled over the ruts of some very rough tracks, tacking past a number of rundown homesteads, until we reached the guarded gateway to Lomas de Arena. Lomas de ArenaWinding 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 Santa Cruz was slowly seeping beyond its current city limits.

 

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. Kim's Golf Course - a surprisingly good birding spotThere 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 El Toro, where the bus pressed past men with street-side sewing machines, women sold bags of coca leaves and a massed throng shopped for vegetables of all shapes and sizes. The Bolivian flag rippled from almost every building and amplifiers were being set up in front of institutional buildings. Internal conflicts seemed to have been set aside for this celebration of nationhood with a fervour that we certainly were not familiar with from home.

 

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. Laguna VolcanesThe 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 Turkey, and someone voiced the obvious word “condor”. The location was perfect: high ridge, jagged peak, the silence of the mountains, Bolivia. But just a few seconds later I realised that something was not quite right and that there was another choice – it was a King. Slightly disappointedly we moved on, berating ourselves for being so easily fooled into identifying the bird we wanted to see rather than the bird we had seen. Another King sailed over the peak and drifted in the thermals above the ridge. But there was something wrong with this bird as well – its white patches were only on the upperwing… “Condor” was cried yet again, this time with a great deal more conviction and authority! The condor drifted above us, accompanied by a small group of Black Vultures, and then faded to a speck in the vastness of the sky.

 

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. The clearing at Volcanes LodgeHowever, 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. Volcanes Lodge nestles in a tiny clearing in the mountainsA 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. 

 

Waiting at the Volcanes Bus Stop (high level)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 Samaipata. Its dusty streets were poorly lit and the headlights of the bus provided only unflattering images as we negotiated some back streets and climbed a small hill behind the town to find our lodgings at a rundown cabin park. It was cold and the cabin rooms stank of sewage. We ate at a rustic pizza parlour that strangely had no pizzas. Margaret was clad in such an enormous poncho that she appeared to have become an alpaca, and yet she was probably the only person suitably dressed for a cold night at Samaipata. I sank into bed with a blocked nose (in hindsight highly beneficial given the drainage defects). It seemed that the contrast with our previous night of magic could not have been any starker.

 

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. El Fuerte - where condors allegedly soarWe 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. View above Achira villageAchira 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 Britain and Japan, every town of any size in Bolivia seemed to have its public connection to the web and so messages home could be exchanged. Two almost luminous ponchos at the adjacent terminals all but covered a couple of petite blond girls who sported accents of deepest Essex, but referred to Samaipata as their “home”. It turned out that despite their electronic fascination with the sexual comings and going of a more remote “home”, they were in Samaipata on a Jehova’s Witness Mission. They admitted that religious turnover was not great in Samaipata, but I agreed that this was not much of an issue when it was such a damn fine place to spend a year or two…

 

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 Santa Cruz. The first leg through the hills was extremely scenic and came as a pleasant surprise for we had first traversed this section of the road in the dark. We made good time to Santa Cruz and arrived at the airport to discover that despite the sunshine, the air was refreshingly cool as a violent wind buffeted the lowlands. We’d heard almost as many different departure times of our internal flight to Cochabamba as gate numbers were subsequently called but, after a significant delay, much false anticipatory queuing, and a delicious hot croissant, we were airborne and looking down on a rugged landscape of washed yellows, crumbling browns and very little vegetation. After a short time airborne, we descended towards the sprawling high altitude city of Cochabamba. We disembarked to a very pleasant 20 degrees and an airport terminal that was picturesquely surrounded by postcard mountain ranges. It was a place that oozed welcome.

 

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. Top of the pass on the Chapare RoadThe Cochabamba side of the pass was winter dry and the brick villages poked out from a burnt and barren landscape, where Mountain Caracaras waited patiently on the verges for roadkill. The Villa Tunari side was cool and steamy. From the dry to steaming rainforest in less than an hour on the Chapare RoadA 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 Cochabamba road was muffled by the delicate piping of a Ferruginous Pygmy-owl. It was a surprisingly peaceful place and, as always after an arrival in the cover of darkness, promised a dawn of surprises.

 

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 Carrasco National Park took just under half an hour. Carrasco is an enormous park that follows the road from Cochabamba the whole way down from the paramo. Our visit was to the corner at lowest altitude, where the park meets the agricultural lowlands of the Chapare. The necessary registration at the park entrance, high above a roaring river, seemed to take an age and involved every member of the party signing a ledger. Administration completed, we climbed down a narrow trail for transportation across the river in a suspended metal cage. The ranger powered us across by a gloved hand, taking care not to incur friction burns as he built up the momentum to swing us across in groups of four. Arturo induced images of Indiana Jones as he opted to cross solo by means of an upstream cable, which he speedily traversed while suspended by a short length of rope. The forest on the other side was relatively birdless until a small mixed flock graced the highest reaches of the canopy. It was here in Carrasco, more than anywhere else on the trip, that I suffered my worst dose of information vertigo from trying to make sense of tiny birds against the light of a tropical sky, painfully assisted by the lack of a single reliable field guide for the region. Indeed two warblers that flitted down the trail ahead of us, flicking their tails from side to side, and running along the margin of the path, remained unidentified until weeks after we had returned home (River Warblers, for those who care). An antbird let out a beautiful whistle from the forest floor and I called back to it until it was just metres away, from whence it hopped back and forth, never revealing anything of its plumage. I described the call to many people while it still rang in my ears, but now the song has gone and the bird will forever remain a mystery.

 

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.

 

Oilbird cave in Carrasco National ParkThe 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 South America and we were in fact staring at dozens of tail feathers of this most eccentric of species, packed along grooves in the rock just beneath the cavern roof. Focussing the telescope on these birds, so high above us, was a significant tripod challenge, but well worth the efforts. Ugly – yes, musical – no, charismatic – big time.

 

On our leisurely return from the caves we entered a small clearing, which turned out to Bug on a coca leafbe 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. Squirrel Monkey at Villa Tunari Animal SanctuaryThere 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 Blue and Yellow Macaws at the salt lickbefore 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 Carrasco National Park, pulsing with a desire to lose ourselves in a tantalising wilderness experience. Mike caught the mood of the moment by voicing a dangerous idea. Why not stay here for the day and just explore? The planned agenda back at Villa Tunari included a visit to an orchid farm and late morning bird walk, but the idea of remote adventure was hugely and overpoweringly attractive. Arturo was very keen and it is probably fair to say that we didn’t think through the full manifestations, such was our urge for a bit of freedom. After some deliberation Mike, Arturo and I decided to stay and the others to return. Arturo assured everyone that we would have no problem finding transport to take us home.

 

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 Arturo and Mike in Carrasco National Parkit 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 Cochabamba. It was a glorious weather day and all the views denied us on the descent three days ago were there for the enjoying. Our only stop was a brief one, just outside Villa Tunari, where Arturo led us up a narrow village road to a Cock-of-the-Rock lek. However there was no evidence of any birds and a villager told us that we were one month too early. Nonetheless the sight of a brightly plumaged Amazonian Oropendula, close views of a powerful Red-necked Woodpecker and glimpses of a foraging Black-faced Antbird, convinced me that on another day this would be an excellent place to explore in much more detail. Unfortunately we had a clock ticking and the bus needed to move on.

 

We ground up the steep highway, even succeeding in overtaking a couple of trucks, as Amazonia sank behind us and the forest grew shorter and shorter until the stunted elfin vegetation marked the wet side of the pass. A toppled beer lorry on the Chapare Road presents these villagers with a gift from heavenJust 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. Cochabamba, famous for its water wars, seemed relaxed and leisurely, although Iver told us different tales from his time as a student here. Lunch was pre-booked at a high-class restaurant called El Campo, where we sat in a white courtyard amongst the business clientele of Cochabamba. I felt like an intruder at this excellent establishment, and Arturo confessed that in all his years in Cochbamba he had certainly not been in a place like it. Most impressively a dark beer called Taquina Stout emerged from the cellar, which washed down my spicy Pique Macho very satisfactorily.

 

Time to say farewells again, beg Caroline’s forgiveness one more time (so graciously rebutted!) and slap Arturo on the back. Our short La Paz flight left at 16.00, barely having time to rise before it slipped to the left of two snow-capped peaks and started dropping down to the airport. The classical first glimpse of La Paz is breathtaking (literally)The lego brick houses of El Alto, the new town built high above La Paz, spread out beneath us as the plane closed in on a denuded landscape of arid poverty. El Alto, home to the airport, is the relatively poor ghetto sister city to La Paz, which lay hidden out of sight in a valley beneath the altiplano. We were ready for feeling much the worse for our rapid ascent from the plains to one of the highest cities in the world, but the only symptom in the airport was a slight buoyancy from the fact that every action just took a little bit more time and needed extra breath. A minibus awaited us, along with our latest guide, Ivan, whose slicked back hair and sunglasses promised a new leadership style. We set off and suddenly, as if from nowhere, one of the great city views of the world presented itself from our windows. “Welcome to La Paz, ha ha, you see our city beneath us very good today, ha ha, everything down there you can see, ha ha”, he announced as we stopped in a lay-by and indeed had a breathtaking view of La Paz, swollen into a valley beneath El Alto and slurping and spilling up the steep hillsides that surrounded it. For all my love of nature, wilderness and open space, sometimes it is the works of man that can be most visually captivating. La Paz beckoned and it seemed as if more than gravity drew us in to its congested folds.

 

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.

 

La Paz quickly took its toll on me however. My breath was shortening and a massive tiredness drifted over and throughout me like an invasive cloud. I couldn’t understand how others were drinking wine and Pete was even proposing a big night out at a bar he had visited some years previously. I just wanted to sleep and had Friday night out only in my dreams, as the constant bleating of horns and a thumping base pumped up to our fifth floor room from the busy streets below.

 

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.  Rurrenebaque AirfieldRurre 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. On the river to ChalalanSigns 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. The Chalalan boat goes aground yet againWe 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 Madidi National Park. Our last leg was by foot, as the brief dusk cries of forest birds settling in their roosting spots led us to a clearing by the edge of Lake Chalalan just before the sudden onset of darkness. Time to settle in, unpack our gear in the stilted thatched huts set apart in the surrounding forest, enjoy a superb meal in the communal building and then retreat into the sounds of the Amazonian night. At last it was a chorus of cicadas that drowned out bangs and shouts from the nearest hut, and laughter from the main building. At last the sky was peppered with bright starlight and a tropical canopy spread its tendrils towards the flyscreen of my bunkhouse. Chalalan pulsed with the potential for adventure.

 

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. Birding by the river on our first morning at ChalalanThe 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 Lake Chalalan proved irresistible. Again we made a relatively short journey last a full hour by taking it very leisurely. Henry was our precision oarsman and proved his salty heritage with a pinpoint negotiation of submerged logs and basking caiman, as we circumnavigated the mirror-calm lake. Lake Chalalan from the lodgeBands 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. Dangerous hairy caterpillar!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 Lake Chalalan and we searched the distant bank for signs of movement. The other group had comfortably trumped us by paddling around the lake and encountering a tapir that had come down for a wash and drink. It seems that everyone in the lodge bar us had seen the tapir and we all put as brave a face on it as possible! The three-course dinner was delicious and by ten I was more than ready for retiring. Tony, Gerda, John and Pete were only warming up however and the barman was being kept busy mixing “shooglies” – a blend of sweet lemonade and a local spirit, which tasted like a poor-man’s gin and tonic to me. Sleep came this time to the serenade of a Silky-tailed Nightjar, whose lonesome call was neither echoed nor repeated on any other evening of our stay.

 

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 Birds are everywhere in ChalalanWhite-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 America.

 

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?” The Chalalan SwampWe 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 Chalalan Amenities blockannounced 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 Lake Chalalan. The cook served up a local catfish for a delicious dinner and we sank some cool beers from Sergio’s rapidly declining stocks. Life is beautiful, and sometimes more than ever.

 

Tuesday 16th August 2005

 

The dip of Sandro’s paddle was all that pierced the 5am silence as we crossed Lake Chalalan beneath a magnificent starscape, the eyes of caiman glowing from the shallows that fringed the lake. This time our predawn hike took us through new territory to the south of the lake, but the only nocturnal sound we heard was a Silky-tailed Nightjar calling close to the track from an impenetrable patch of jungle. Dawn breaks at a stream in the Chalalan forestWhen 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 Let's go pig huntingof 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 View of Lake Chalalantall 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 Brazil. We took a last paddle around the lake at dusk, straining into the shadows for signs of tapir or early owls, watching anhingas retiring to their roosts and the last silhouettes of parrots commuting high above the forest.

 

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.

 

Pacing the Chalalan trailsWe 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 Bolivia’s most eminent ornithologists about their identification.

 

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.Sunset at Rurrenebaque 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 Madidi National Park leisurely unravelled in our wake. As we entered the gorge that marked the approach to Rurrenebaque, some three and a half hours later, an amber sun was barely hanging in the sky.

 

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… RurrenebaqueRurrenebaque 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 Claudio the Greater Rheamysterious 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 Santa Rosa. As soon as we left Rurrenebaque the road surface loosened into layers of dust, which spread for hundreds of metres either side of the track, coating the adjacent vegetation reddish-brown. We were passed by a speeding truck and left in such a choking fog of particles that visibility was reduced to no more than one metre and I was exceedingly alarmed that our driver insisted on continuing to proceed, driving literally blindfolded. We quickly established a routine of winding up the windows speedily each time a vehicle approached. Beyond Santa Rosa the countryside opened out into very attractive open savannah grassland, where scattered trees dotted an arid landscape. Much of this road was slightly elevated, creating manmade strips of wetland on either side, where runoff had accumulated. These steadily produced a parade of egrets, herons and storks, and on many occasions we wished that we could more readily call a temporary halt to the journey. Most impressively the grassland was littered with raptors. Every surface pool seemed to have its own Snail Kite, perched on a branch, studying the ground intently. Black-collared Hawks and Southern Caracaras abounded. Sandro had decided to continue with us to the pampas, but looked very much the worse for his evening of festivities at the Mosquito Bar. However to his great credit it was he who awoke from temporary slumber to cry “rhea”, and we skidded to a halt in a cloud of dust, backed up the track and watched six Greater Rhea strolling across the plain. This was decreed a suitable spot for Tom, who was folded into the back seat, to have a quick leg stretch, which soon added Choco Toucan, Maguari Stork, Streamer-tailed Tyrant and White-rumped Tanager to the list.

 

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 Tahibo treeblankly 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, Marcel the boatman at Caracoleswith 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 SpoonbillCapybara and youngand 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. Grassland behind Caracoles LodgeWalking 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. TTypical Caracoles wetland scenehe 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 Santa Rosa, where we watched the chickens compete with a Cattle Tyrant for the morning scraps. We arrived in Rurre well ahead of schedule and were soon holed up at the riverfront café once again, passing time before our scheduled flight back over the mountains. Sandro seemed a different man back in his local patch and we appeared to have become something of a minor embarrassment, as he shrugged us aside somewhat in the presence of his mates from town. He was probably very relieved to wave goodbye to us at the airport at noon.

 

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 La Paz. And so the waiting began. Somehow the rustic airstrip, shimmering horizon, closed office counters and the grubby café next door leant themselves to a slowing of the heartbeat, a relaxing of the muscles and the development of a fixed gaze that combed the distant hills in search of nothing in particular. There were no actions and no consequences that would change anything. We just had to join everyone else and wait. Eventually a distant drone grew closer and a plane touched down the grassy landing strip, bumping to a halt. It was the 08.00 flight and the large backpacker group who had spent their morning here jostled quickly on board. We suspected the truth instantly. This was our plane – but not this time around. The plane took off, soon a distant speck amongst the Andes, and we retired to the café to chew on a hot sandwich and hone our patience skills.

 

We eventually reached La Paz in the late afternoon. John was suitably thrilled by the aircraft that had transported us there and Ivan greeted us warmly, now that the daft natural history part of our trip was Andes from the airout 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 La Paz properly we were seeing some real Andean birds. La Paz yawned beneath us once more and soon we were embracing it, making use of the chance to visit the shops before they closed at 8pm. La Paz felt very safe to stroll around and even the main tourist streets, steeply ascending the sides of the mountain, were benign and quiet in comparison to a typical world capital city. This time I felt a whole lot better, despite our fast altitudinal climb today, with only a light headache to show.  I obliged local expectations by purchasing some quality alpaca ware and enjoyed one of these exceedingly satisfying conversations that two people can have when neither speaks the other’s language, with the proprietor of the local branch of Discomania, on the subject of Bolivian rock music. Our last supper as a group was spent above the twinkling lights of the city once again. On top of La Paz, the city on top of the world.

 

Sunday 21st August 2005

 

I was fairly ambivalent about spending our last full day in Bolivia as a conventional tourist, but Lake Titicaca definitely sounded like a place that, given the opportunity, it would be foolish not to experience. Given that this was not a birding outing, it seemed strange to rise to one of our earliest starts yet, in order to slip into the last hour of the La Paz night, giving us plenty time for a full day at the lake. The minibus rattled through the deserted streets of El Alto, where the only signs of life were the red and green lighting of nightclubs on the upper floors. El Alto looked every inch a ghetto, its colourless brick buildings, many unfinished, looking cold and inhospitable. It was easy to imagine that these houses were packed with sleeping families, huddled in blankets as savage drafts blew through cracks in the window frames, holes in the ceiling, drafts under the door. In contrast to La Paz, there were no trees, no parks, and for many residents I had the distinct feeling, no hope…

 

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 Peru. Stopping for a view, we were checkout out by a curious Puna Hawk, while an invisible bird’s song was tossed by the wind from the puna high above us and evaporated into the thin Andean air. The road ended on the tip of a peninsula, in the bustling pretty town of Copacabana, where we were dropped at a restaurant to enjoy an unusual, but welcome, late breakfast of crackers, salty cheese and coca tea.

 

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 Breaking the beer ceremonyMoorish 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 Alapaca at Isla del Solattempts, 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 speedLake Titicacaof 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 Bolivia that all those folks back home would be imagining we were experiencing. Just before arrival we closed in on a reed-fringed point. At last Titicaca offered some water birds, with glimpses of Puna Teal, Yellow-billed Pintail, Ruddy Duck, Andean Coot, Silvery Grebe and the endemic flightless Short-winged Grebe. Back on the bus the sun was ready to descend and now Titicaca was undergoing an intense transformation of colour, turning a deep azure while the snowy peaks glowed amber. We past a mudflat teeming with birdlife, while a flock of Puna Ibis fluttered across the road and settled in a field. It had been a pleasant day and yet, somehow, I felt that everything had happened at the wrong time. We had spent the day on a lake that only really came alive at sundown.

 

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 La Paz. It had been a surprisingly good day.

 

Monday 22nd August 2005

 

We left a crisp winter La Paz day, after a last trawl of the markets and a storming row with the La Plaza reception about paying for the previous night’s dinner. It was one of these arguments that was fuelled by self-righteous anger at being mistreated, that burnt brightly at the time but which we knew would fade to unimportance within days. A party of guests were arriving as we were leaving, rugged beards, wiry frames, expensive outdoor gear, without doubt on their way to ascend some extraordinary mountains. We waited for ages for our Santa Cruz connection, where we changed planes to find the same happy-clappy Dutch school party who had been on board on our flight three weeks previously, fresh from some worthy mission. Onwards to Sao Paulo and finally the long haul back to London, where I shared the rearmost pair of seats on the aircraft with a very camp Peruvian. Varig had once again drugged the air supply and we are all soon floating in a world much higher than the Andes, way above the Atlantic Ocean. As soon as we touched down at Heathrow my new friend’s mobile beeped into action with a short text message: “Welcome to London my darling Tretito”. It was an ending fit for any adventure.