Home again

This post has two main purposes: 1) to announce that I have officially survived my 8 months in South America and 2) to steer readers (if any still exist) to my new blog: Birds on the Brain

After a 30-hour reunion with my Peruvian friends in Lima I hopped on my red-eye flight to JFK. They were a nice few days in New York catching up with some buddies from Brown and readjusting to luxurious, but expensive consumer society. Ironically about the only pictures I took were in the tropical house at the Central Park Zoo.

These are supposedly the largest pigeons in the world (and arguably the prettiest). Time to start planning a trip to New Guinea!

After flying back to to North Carolina I went almost straight to Emerald Isle for family beach week. We were delighted to learn that there were several Loggerhead Sea Turtle nests in the vicinity of our section of beach. While we missed the 3 am hatching of the closest clutch, we did get to see "turtle patrol" volunteers excavate a couple dozen survivors that were still trapped under the sand a few days later.

I'm finally back home and have just started a doctoral program at Duke's Nicholas School for the Environment. This marks the conclusion of my travels and this blog (for now). Who wants to read about environmental aquatic chemistry anyway? But for some revisiting of South American birds and updates on local bird happenings check out: Birds on the Brain (for those too lazy to scroll back to the top).

So until next time (perhaps the climate change summit in Cancun in October? and definitely the Mediterranean in May 2011) Scott is signing out.

Jungle to Jungle

I had a great time at the Durand brothers lodge. It is under construction, so conditions are really basic, which I really liked and it also meant that the price was miles below any of the competion. It was a perfect setup, just the basic things that are needed and an epic old growth forest with a great trail system.

I´ve encountered a lot of impressive trees, but none with na´vi living in them! Ok, it wasn´t quite Hometree, but you get the idea. (Sorry for the avatar references, I saw it in Spanish during one of my recent 12+ hour bus rides).

Unfortunately the Harpy Eagle nestling took off sometime in the last month and wasn´t around, but there were plenty of birds around to be seen.

Oropendulas were all over the place and came in four different types. This one has the unimpressive forename of "Olive." I think it deserves better.

There were lots of bright macaws around as well, but none willing to pose for a photo. I also saw some red howler monkeys, saddle-back tamarins and an arboreal anteater called a tamandua.

So that´s pretty much what´s been going on the past few days...living in a dirt floor hut without any electricity, wandering around the rainforest all day everyday, looking for a seemingly inexhaustable supply of exotic tropical wildlife. I could´ve easily stayed three more days or longer. In fact, I can´t wait to go back...though by the time I get around to it the place will probably be just like any other lodge: frilly, pricy and filled with tourists. Having seen the "before" picture though, it sure would be an impressive transformation. And for the sake of the brothers, I do hope things go well.

So I go from the green jungle right into the concrete incarnation: New York City. Of course I´ve got about 30 hours in Lima in between...it seems like an appropriate halfway acclimatization point--huge city, but still Latin America.

This may very well be my last blog post for sometime. Once I stop travelling I tend to lose interest in both writing and photography and thus blogging. I´ll probably start a new more bird-focused blog that will be less about me and more about birds and written less for general consumption and more for Pajareros. I´ve already got a few names in mind...any suggestions?

Hiking the gringo trail

My friend "Juan" decided to come along with me for my trip to Cuzco and Machu Picchu (he had never been to either). I think he experienced a bit of culture shock though being essentially the only Peruvian. Really the high-season tourists were almost as much of a spectacle as the ruins themselves.

We woke up at 3 am (yet another rediculous wakeup call) to go wait in line for the first bus to the ruins (at 5:30). There were already nearly 100 people in line when we showed up, so we ended up actually catching the third bus, which ended up being fine. Only the first 400 visitors are permitted to hike up the nearby peak of huaynapicchu, which overlooks the main ruins and has its own structures around its peak as well as access to the temple of the moon.

Is there really any point in putting up a picture? Everybody has seen machu picchu photos. At least this one is from a different angle (from the summit of huaynapicchu) than the cliche and includes a bit more of the surrounding topography. The views from the entire area into the surrounding peaks, a few of which are capped by glaciers, are absurd and require some sort of 360 degree camera lens to capture.

No matter where you walk around the site you are invariably ascending or descending a pretty irresponsible grade. After hiking up to Huaynapicchu, down to the temple of the moon, up to la puerta del sol (the sun gate) and then all the way back to Aguas Calientes we were pretty beat (my legs are still sore). So I didn´t really have much energy to check out the catherdrals, churches or museums in Cuzco, but these aren´t really my forte anyway.

Here´s the Plaza de Armas though, which makes for a nice photograph. If you can believe it, this was later in the day when it was less packed with tourists and yet it still looks pretty full.

Wasting no time, I hopped a night bus down to Puerto Maldonado. I´m not going into the Manu Biosphere, but another spot that should be just about as good, way cheaper and way more accessible. Last chance to see harpy eagle or contract some incurable amazonian illness.

Lake Titicaca will have to wait for my next trip I guess.

My trip up to Bosque Unchog with 66-year-old Reyes, whistling through his remaining 7-and-a-half-teeth to coax out birds, was a success. Despite a bank of clouds that rolled in around 9 am and enveloped us for the most of the day, we managed to spot our quarry just as I was ready to give up...

...the rare endemic and endangered Golden-backed Mountain-Tanager. Reyes said flocks of 7 or 8 used to be common in the area decades ago, but nowadays seeing a flock of three is cause for some celebration.

I had one last quarter chicken dinner in Huanuco before catching a bus back toward Lima.

The city had really started to grow on me and I nearly got stranded there for an extra day as the bus station was a madhouse of people trying to get places for Fiesta de la Patria, a vaguely

defined holiday period centered around Peru's independence day, July 28th.

After another 8-hour bus night I was in Chosica, near Lima, where every highschool student from the area seemed to be involved in some sort of massive marching-band-type parade. Other than that it was mostly a well-needed rest day to prepare for a trip up into Santa Eulalia Canyon.

The plan was to meet a group of avitourists coming from Lima. When it turned out that they would be getting a late start, I set out up into the canyon on my own with the assurance that they would pick me up from the side of the road around 3 or 3:30. When the sun set below the rim around 5:15 I was relieved to see an overcrowded bus winding its way up t

he switchbacks toward me. I crammed in and wound up at 3,200 meters in the cliffside town of San Pedro de Casta where I encountered a group of students from Lima planning to climb up to Marcahuasi, some Incan ruins some 800 meters and three hours up above town.

It sounded cool, so I decided to tag along rather than try to track down my lost tour group.

We set off with our 70-year-old guide at 5 am and had a gorgeous clear morning wandering around the dilapadated ruins and unusual rock formations. It was no Machu Pichu, but the views sure were stunning.

Can you spot the gringo?

We made it back into town for lunch where we discovered that the two buses that normally serve the area were both defunct. It seems most people have a "chicken bus" story from travel within latin America, but I now present to you the "cow bus."

There were three huge cows and about 20 passengers. The goal for everyone was to avoid getting trampled or covered in manure. It was a combination of hectic, hilarious and terrifying as we all lurched down steep potholed switchbacks, staring half the time off a shear 2000 meter precipice and the other half into oncoming overhanging tree branches and cactuses that raked the sides of the truck and threatened to tear desperately clinging fingers. All the while the cattle jostled and fought against their tethers like fish trying to wriggle loose from their hooks. Miraculously, through the three-hour trip, the only casualties were one tent and two backpacks (heavily fertilized), fortunately none of which belonged to our party.

My new friend, "John," a mechanical engineering student in Lima has been nice enough to let me stay with him. Though desperately in need of some decent sleep, I woke up before 5 am for the third time in four mornings to take a taxi to the marina to catch a boat out to the continental shelf with a crew of ornithologists and birdwatchers. As coincidence would have it, one of the other passengers was a profesor who completed his doctorate in zoology at Duke, where I'll begin my own PhD shortly.

Obviously a big incentive for making this trip was to see some unique pelagic bird species. But I also wanted to venture out onto the "Peru Margin" to see the area from which the sediment core was extracted that I studied for my honors thesis at Brown. What makes the sediment

as well as the marine life in the area so remarkable is the upwelling nutrient-rich water characteristic of the ocean here. High primary productivity supports high concentrations of fish and pescavores. Seeing penguins, albatrosses and sea lions was awesome, but the highlight was definitely the group of humpback whales that came up so close to the boat that it became unclear as to who was watching whom.

Whales are always hard to capture on camera, but rarely because they are too close! (I´ve uploaded this picture four times and it always comes out sideways no matter how I orient it in MS Paint...sorry).

Since I have a free place to stay and friends on holiday, I'll probably stick around Lima for some behind the scenes touring and fiesta, though this will leave me with some tough choices for how to spend my remaining time. I want to visit Machu Pichu, Manu and Lake Titicaca, but will probably only have time for one of the latter two.

I´ll be back in the US before I know it!

Bienvenidos a Peru

Turns out buses are well in abundance here. Parks however can be tougher to come by.

I blasted out of Tumbes for an 18-hour haul to Lima...not nearly as bad as it might sound.

I checked into this cool hostal that had pet tortoises and parrots running around its roof deck restaurant. This Red-and-Green Macaw was trying to protect David's nether regions from an incoming pigeon poo I guess But I didn't even stay the night as it turned out. Given advice from eminent Peru-based ornithologist Gunnar Engblom, I hopped on another bus--this one a 10-hour jaunt to Huanuco. From this area supposedly one can access some of the best areas of remaining cloud forest in the country. The city, Huanaco, is not even mentioned in my Moon guidebook for Peru. This is probably because the area used to be a haven for Sendero Luminoso until recently, so it has been more than off the Gringo trail. Given my track record, this forgotten corner of the world should be making headlines any day now. I just have to find where they're building their drug smuggling zeppelins.

Huanaco is quite a bustling place and the swarms of three-wheeled taxis buzzing around through the narrow street gives it a bizarre southeast Asian feel (not that I have been). The surrounding desert hills remind me more of the Himilayas (and I haven't been there either) than the Andes I know. Anyway, it's a loud rather confusing place.

And the nearby cloud forest that brought me here? It turns out to be an hours drive away. Finding a ride there isn't too difficult unless you're on a birdwatching schedule. I arrived there over an hour later than I had hoped this morning (though this was more to do with my alarm not waking me up...maybe I didn't get as much sleep as I thought on the previous two nights' bus journeys). There were a few birds around, but the forest, at least that along the road and anonymous trails is in pretty awful shape.

While Ecuador's abundant national parks are not always managed so well, they are miles superior to the lack there of offered by Peru. And this is some 11 hours from Lima in what is supposed to be one of the best sites the country has to offer for this sort of habitat. I can't say I wasn't a bit disappointed. It is always fascinating, though sobering, to see the interface between pristine wilderness and encroaching distruction. Apparently much has changed since a team of ornithologists from LSU surveyed the area back in the 70s and disovered a handful of previously undescribed species bringing (relative ornithological fame to the area).

I did manage to see this Masked Fruiteater, one of the area's endemic specialties, right by a freshly slashed-and-burned patch of former cloud forest.

And tomorrow I'm visiting a different even more remote and (hopefully) more intact section of higher elevation cloud forest with none other than the original guide that lead the group from LSU back in '74. So it will be quite the early morning...4 am wakeup to try to get to Bosque Unchog for 6:30. Let's hope it doesn't rain!

park bus park bus park bus

A series of long bus rides punctuated by a stop in Bahia de Cariquez to catch the world cup finals brought me to Cuenca where I successfully encountered "Mike," (the Danish birdwatcher who had beena volunteer at Bilsa).

We immediately left for nearby Cajas National Park.

It was gorgeous and had its share of interesting birds despite the rather srubby and windswept habitat. On our way it a thunderstorm came out of nowhere and pelted up with sleet/hail? Whatever it was, we went from being very hot to very cold in a matter of seconds.

We thought about harvesting some wool from this llama (or is it an alpaca? - I´m better with birds than mammals)

Next another quick 5 hour bus ride to Loja where we hiked around a park owned by the local University. Thanks to some tainted peanutbutter, I lost my breakfast and lunch (unbeliveably, my first throw up in Ecuador!) on the way up to this peak overlooking Loja.

On to Zamora, but we broke up this bus ride with a stop at Arcoiris Cloud Forest Reserve, part of Podocarpus National Park. The place was deserted, which was fine with me, because that meant nobody to collect money and free access to trails.

Zamora is probably my favorite town in Ecuador. We ended up staying at this inexplicably inexpensive hotel with an awesome roof deck that yielded great views of the town´s immense clock imbedded in the hillside.

(it says, "Zamora, Ciudad de aves y cascadas")

From here we went to (where else) another national park. Actually it was still Podocarpus, but a different section at much lower elevation than Arcoiris (900 meters vs. 2100) meaning different climate, ecology and wildlife. We didn´t find exceptional numbers of birds, which I blame on this white-faced capuchin monkey that followed us around for the better part of an hour shaking branches at us and no doubt scaring away all sorts of birds that consequently remain unknown to science.

We doubled back to loja and parted ways. "Mike" directly south to Piura, Peru on a mad 7'day mission to some remote volunteer outpost in Bolivia and myself on to, yes, another park. Though this one gets special mention as it is the largest petrified forest in South America. The significance of this claim is not really clear since the petrified trees don´t actually form a forest...they are mearly fossilized remains of what was once a forest some hundred million years ago. There is of course a new forest growing over the fallen ancients that has some impressively thick and presumably quite old bottle-shaped green Ceiba trees.

Today I crossed into Peru and I am already missing Ecuadors busses and national parks. There are supposedly some well-protected reserves near Tumbes, but they are apparently rather inaccessible without arranging a private tour with an agency. As a single traveller this is costly and apparently alltogether impossible to arrange on a Sunday. So I will probably forego the entire region and dive right into some more long bus rides down to Lima.

More Buses and more national parks!

In the land of emeralds

Before we get started here´s a pcture of Pululahua Crater that I wrote about last time around.Believe it or not there´s a charming little hostal down there with a wind turbine and solar panels and a 70-something retired electrical engineer trying to start an organic farm.

Far from this eden-like paradise down on the sticky-humid northwestern corner of Ecuador lies a gritty frontier backwater called San Lorenzo where I wrote my last update. Many concerned readers have contacted me regarding the secret drug-smuggling submarine factory that was discovered in the mangroves near this town. Indeed it was no coincidence that the 150 militia raid came on the heels of my visit to the area. Check out this photographic proof:
Above you can see the manglares de mataje where the base was hidden and below the town of San Lorenzo.
I´ve been working for the DEA all along. I can admit this now that I´m done in Manabi province where the Colombians can´t reach me for retribution. Bird watching is the ultimate cover for any spy. It´s an excuse to visit far-flung out of the way places and carry around high-end optical equipment and cameras.

But this blog post is going to focus on the past week I´ve spent in the province of Esmeraldas, meaning "emeralds." Enterprising Americans supposedly relieved the area of all its precious stones years ago, but the name still sticks.

With my work finished in the mangroves, I headed south down the coast to Sua.

This was the view from my private room that cost $8. I sure will miss the Ecuadorian prices when I´m back home.


From Sua I backtracked briefly to head inland toward Bilsa Biological Station that contains one of the largest rare patches of remnant lowland wet forest left in Western Ecuador and the Choco mega-diverse bioregion. En route I met the first gringo I had encountered in several days, a lovesick and hungover Swiss guy who scarcely new where he was going. His goal, Baños, being some 12 hours distant (it was at this point 2 in the afternoon) I suggested he come with me to Bilsa.


We made fast friends and promptly got stranded in Quininde where we had missed the last camioneta for la Ye de la Laguna. Fortunately it was Saturday night and the grand finale of Quininde´s cantonization day. Some sort of a celebration of political independence celebrated by fireworks and of course Salsa dancing. It made a perfect substitute for the 4th of July that I was missing back home, only it came a day early.


The fireworks were probably the most exciting I have ever seen. Not becaus eof theirhigh quality per se, but because of an almost complete disregard for the safety of spectators . They numbered in the thousands and pressed close to the arsenal of mortar tubes stationed in the city park, a concrete slab surrounded by a 12-foot high steel fence, just to make sure nobodycould escape ground zero should anything go awry. Many of the mortars seemed to have blast radiuses greater than the height that they ended up exploding so that glowing fireballs were raining into the crowd. Car alarms were going off everywhere fromthe shockwaves and everyone was constantly dusting fallout from their heads and shoulders.

The next morning "Dan" and I got up early to catch the pickup to la Ye, a 2 hours ride, which was followed by a 3-and-a-half-hour tromp down the muddy clayey "road" to the Bilsa station. That bulldozer was there to graded the road to make it passable for vehicals with 4WD, but most transport is made by horse or donkey.

The station had a few confused volunteers and researchers, but the folks who would have resmebled volunteer coordinators or directors were away on vacation unfortunately. Of course, I didn´t need any help or coordinating and set right out each and every day to look for rare Choco endemic birds with a Danish birdwatcher who used my presence to get out of volunteering responsibilities.

On my first day I got some great looks (but but no pictures) at the famous and rediculous-looking Long-Wattled Umbrellabird, an endangered species I had been trying tofind for some time. On my last day I saw probably the rarest bird I´ll ever see anywhere (except for maybe Okarito Brown Kiwi), the highly sought-after, but seldom encountered Banded Ground-Cuckoo. A large endangered terrestrial bird.

From Bilsa I left for Mompiche, a quiet off-season surfer village, and then to Bunche to visit some interns from Great Wilderness who had been working on community development projects with cacao farmers there all the while I had been at La Hesperia.

I´m currently blitzing my way south to try and dodgethe Colombians and meet up with my new Danish friend in Cuenca so we can do some birdwatching together in Podocarpus national park in southern Ecuador.

Hopefully I can sustain my phenomenal luck.

¿que pasó?

I just cannot seem to find spare moments to write this blog.

So much has happened since my last post and I sent all my photos home with my parents (they came to visit for two weeks by the way) so this will be a wall of text, unfortunately. But I´ll try to just touch on a few of the highlights and milestones to keep it from becoming excessively overwhelming.

I finished up my La Hesperia work and responsibilities about three weeks ago. But a managed to cash in my last few vacation days I had saved for a excursion down the east slope to the Tena area in the foothills. I ended up mostly visiting other volunteer projects, which I really should have been doing months ago befor finishing my work as coordinator of a volunteer program.

One, El Arca (like Noah´s Arc) was an animal rescue center with all sorts of caged Amazon animals the proprietor had rescued from indigenous digestive systems by exchanging fish and chicken for what in many cases were pretty special animals (i.e. nocturnal currasows, macaws, an ornate hawk-eagle, monkeys, an American Crocodile, etc.). The volunteer program was barely off the ground and the friendly owner was very excited with the prospect that I might somehow bring her lots of volunteers.

The other, Jatun Sacha (meaning big forest) is one of the oldest private reserves and volunteer programs in Ecuador. La Hesperia up until last year used to in fact exist under the Jatun Sacha Foundation´s umbrella. The most remarkable thing about my visit, other than the insanely precarious canopy tower that made for some splendid bird-watching, was the derth of volunteers present. Other than a couple confused gap-year girls fresh of the boat from New Brunkswick, the place was dead. Given this, I am impressed that La Hesperia has been able to maintain such a decent-sized (8 to 18) volunteer population during my tenure. I have heard that the San Cristobal, Galapagos Jatun Sacha Reserve usually has 25 to 30 volunteers.

On the way back toward Quito I met up with "Colorado" and "Komandatey" in Tena and managed to blagger my way into a rafting trip with them for less than half the dvertised price. This was my first ever serious rafting trip and the river was super-high (it´s name, Jatun Yacu, meaning "big water" was very approprite), so I found the intense sections and biggest towering waves thouroughly exhillerating. And when I was knocked overboard I found myself laughing maniacally. With 8 people in our boat we had 8 nationalities represented (though not all had qualified for the world cup - see Poland and Austria).

Speaking of la copa mundial,...after watching the US fortuitously tie against England with a crew of volunteers in Quito I went back to the east slope to check out some legendary birding spots that I had skipped out on to go rafting. I rushed back from Cordillera de los Guacamayos, one of the Ecuadors best bird watching locales, to meet my parents at the airport.

I took them straight away to La Hesperia so they could see what I had been up to for the previous 5 months first-hand. We all kept insisting that they had chosen the perfect time to come, the "dry season," despite the fact that it rained all afternoon all three days. "Komandatey" and the directors threw me a surprise going-away party one night. Somebody bought me a machete and everyone signed the blade. "El Vaquero" made me an awesome leather sheath for it as well.

I think just being at La Hesperia and seeing all the work and maintenance everywhere that needed to be done exhausted my parents. Luckily they had signed us all up for a comparatively luxurious cruise around the Galapagos. Despite the archapelago´s exalted reputation, the visit really exceeded all expectations. The wildlife was all rediculously tame and abundant. The hardest part was avoiding stepping on a camophlaged marine iguana or nesting booby. Our little (20-passenger) boat´s staff really made the trip special though. It wasn´t long before we were all repeating our favorite naturalist guide´s catch-phrase exclaimations in genuine or mock-enthusiasm (and unfortunately the Ecuadorian accent doesn´t translate into text): "Oh my goodness!"..."Take a Picture!"..."Come Quickly!"

It was sad to see my folks go, and not just because of the dramatic increase in food and accomodation budget. At least they didn´t have to leave me on the side the road with my thumb in the air like they did in northern New South Wales.

Nevertheless I started to feel oddly homesick the day of their departure, so I blitzed out of Quito for Mitad del Mundo for a change of scenery. It´s about as close as you can come to tourist-trap in Ecuador with indigenous displays of questionable accuracy and gimick demnstartions designed to prove the magic of the ecuator robed in speudoscientific explanations such as the Earth´s oblate spheroid shape and the coriolis effect. It was reasonably entertaining to pick these apart in my head. A couple Australian girls were blown away, but I thought it better to let them believe in magic than to reveal to them that the tooth fairy isn´t real.

I had read about a nearby crater, Pululahua, that had been made into a national park, so I hoped a local bus and then hiked up a long deserted road to the entrance. The park warden encouraged me to stay the night at the hostal. Not quite understanding the implications of this advice I wandered over the mirador. Several hundred meters below lay a patchwork quilt of farmland. If it were not walled in by shear mountains it could have passed for somewhere in rural America.

I estimated it would take the better part of an hour to descend the steep winding trail down from the rim, and then more for the return. At this point it was already 4 pm, so I heeded the warden´s advice, provisioned myself for a night´s stay, ditched my large pack in his office and started my steep decent.

It turned out that one of the owners of the hostal at the bottom is a bird guide. He didn´t offer to take me out anywhere, but he did give me some advice on what trails to cover the next day. He´s got a pretty nice Ecuadorian Bird Blog: birding-ecuador-responsibly.blogspot.com

After a tiring trek out of Pululahua, I road a series of buses to Otavalo, the most prosperous indigenous population center in all of South America. It is most famous for its markets, though for me at this point in my travels, I´m not exactly looking to pick up a thick wool tapestry to lug all the way down to Peru.

I considered trying to sign up for some sort of tour to one of the nearby high altitude lakes or the raptor rescue center, but when the recommended travel agency had not opened by 10:30 I decided to move on. I will be making my way back to similar highland environements later and these sort of things are best booked with a group anyway.

So I took a bus to Ibarra and then straight downhill toward the coast. The decent was stunning with the andes seeming to never end. Finally, I arrived this afternoon at the remote mangrove outpost of San Lorenzo. It was only recently opened to overland transportation and is a world apart from everything else I have previously seen in Ecuador. I may as well be in a different country.

Tomorrow I plan to hop a ferry through the mangrove archipelago to La Tola where I should be able to visit the tallest mangrove forest in the world.

Congratulations if you made it this far and doubly so if you are still awake.

I promise pictures will be featured next time around.

Conferences, Cotopaxi, Children, Cock of the Rock

Conferences, Cotopaxi, Children, Cock of the Rock

All kinds of stuff has been going on since I got back from Colombia a million years ago:

1) La Hesperia hosted 25 exchange students for a conference.

2) I climbed Ecuador’s 2nd highest peak, Cotopaxi.

3) A group of 17 11-year-olds visited from their private school in Quito.

4) I visited Angel Paz’s refugio de aves.

I also published my first book, Birds of the Tyler Place.

I’ve been working pretty hard on writing up information about the bird inventory here at La Hesperia. That, along with everything else that’s been going on and the usual power/internet problems have kept me off the blog for far too long.




There isn’t too much worth saying about the conference, especially since I don’t have any pictures. There were a lot of presentations about projects students had worked on all over Ecuador, but I was pretty busy and only got to see a few.

Afterwards I went to Quito with vague plans to travel around and see some birds for a bit. I hadn’t had a day off in three weeks so I was ready to take some time away from La Hesperia. But I ran into a bunch of the visiting students and some volunteers in Quito who were planning to climb Cotopaxi. After several aguardientes I decided to tag along. And that is how these sort of mountainous decisions are best made: quickly. That way if any of the multitude of potential snags (bad weather, injury, hypothermia, altitude sickness, etc.) gets in the way, there is less feeling of failure or loss.

Anyway, Colorado, Monkey Dentist, Charmadizzle and I all dragged ourselves out of bed early Saturday morning to acclimatize.

We hiked around in the park on a gorgeous afternoon with this white-capped beast looming in the background.

I haven’t read the manual on altitude acclimatization, but I hoped that my physiology would be able to keep up with the schedule. I am well used to living around 1400 meters (the elevation of the Volunteer House at La Hesperia). I then spent one night in Quito (~2850 meters), one night in the Cotopaxi park hostal (3750 meters) and then a night in the refuge (4800 meters). Though that last night of sleep was really only about 4 or 5 hours.

While the top generally gets plenty of snow to feed glacial advance on all sides, during a sunny day, the snow and ice begin to melt and the risks of avalanches and of ice bridges collapsing into crevasses increases significantly. Therefore one who hopes to summit must depart from the refuge around 1 am with a head lamp in order to leave the glacier by noon.

I awoke at midnight with a splitting headache (probably a result of brain swelling from the altitude) and had no appetite for breakfast (altitude also tends to be hard on the digestive system). But once we starting hiking up I started to feel much better. After an hour-and-a-half or so of hiking up loose gravel and stones, we stopped to slap on crampons and tie on our ropes.

The next four hours were spent trudging slowing up the steep glacier intermittently wondering how much time might have elapsed and how much further we would need to climb, though our guide, advised us not to worry about time or elevation. We began under a clear night sky with the handle of the Big Dipper and Quito lights at our backs and Scorpio visible just above the mountain face in front of us. Around 6 am the sky began to lighten and we could see Cotopaxi’s perfect pyramid shadow stretching out toward the western horizon.

After just under six hours we finally reached the caldera rim.

We saw some fumaroles venting smoke confirming the volcano’s active status and minutes later we saw a huge cloud of ash billowing from another volcano some hundred kilometers to the south.

After only a few triumphant minutes of soaking up 360 degrees of views that included views of essentially every other significant Ecuadorian peak, we had to begin our decent. While we were exhausted and walking down steep glaciers is rather difficult, the weather was brilliant all the way.

Just after we got back to the refuge, an Andean Condor flew by as if to congratulate us.

I’m no mountain climber, though after Cotopaxi I can certainly understand the allure of the pastime. While I’ve somehow learned to derive satisfaction out of spotting a particularly rare bird, reaching the pinnacle of a mountain with whatever superlative attached (second highest peak in Ecuador, world’s tallest active volcano, etc.) is a real thrill that anyone able to achieve such a feat can appreciate.

I missed a couple days of work with the Cotopaxi trip, but made it back just in time for 17 11-year-olds to show up for a few days from the British School in Quito. I taught them about birds at La Hesperia (their favorite was the Ruddy Pigeon because it says “what’s the problem?”) and took them camping.

For the weekend me and Colorado took off for Ecuador’s unofficial bird-watching capital, Mindo, to visit the highly regarded Angel Paz. His Refugio de Aves is a private plot of primary cloud forest where live a startlingly high density of rare and endemic bird species. He really put on a show, introducing us to all his “friends.” It started with a group of lekking blood-red Andean Cock-of-the-rocks (unfortunately a tour group of 8 grizzled Brits tromped in late and scared them away before the sky lightened enough for good photos). Next, a close encounter with the rare Giant Antpitta, “Maria,” that he feeds worms (this day his other antpitta friends found their own food, as can happen this time of year). At the fruit feeding station, Angel hand-fed bananas and grapes to mountain-tanagers and Toucan Barbets and tossed scraps down to eagerly waiting wood-quails and quail-doves. Topping it all was probably the hummingbird feeders around which at least 12 species swarmed like bees.

It was all capped off by a sighting of the rare Orange-breasted Fruiteater eating berries in the Mora patch. One photographer had come specifically to photograph this bird and while the guide urged us all (and especially the Pommies) restraint, Colorado charged in and snapped a few decent shots before the bird flushed leaving the professional empty-handed.

I've only got a couple weeks left at La Hesperia, so I've got to make them count.
This is Cayambe, another volcanic peak I probably won't get to climb, the evening before we climbed Cotopaxi.

Colombia, where everyone is a millonario

I made it back to La Hesperia from Colombia with a few bug bites, but no kidnappings, muggings or trouble with drug cartels or paramilitary groups. I think the bites were worth this spot.

With my visa problems finally solved after a fifth trip to the Ecuadorian consulate, I went straight for gorgeous Tayrona National Park where lush jungle meets the Caribbean Sea.

I was fortunate to find a pack of crackers and some cans of tuna somebody had left in my locker. In the park food costs 3 to 4 times what it does pretty much anywhere else in the country because it has to all be brought in by horse along well worn (and fertilized trails).

While trekking the coastal trails that turned from jungle to beach and back again I encountered several groups of these critically endangered Cotton-top Tamarins.

You can see where the name comes from. I happened to have studied this same species at the Providence Zoo for an animal behavior class a few years ago. To see them in the wild was an awesome surprise.

From the park I went back to Santa Marta, an old charming colonial city that lives in the tourist shadow of nearby Cartagena.

This is where most of the tourists brave enough to come to Colombia spend their time and its no wonder why. The city is a working exhibit in colonial architecture and surrounded by 12 kilometers of ramparts that afford views of city, sea and sound. I spent a full day wandering the maze of narrow streets drinking cheap and ubiquitous freshly squeezed fruit juices.

I was sad to leave the coast and sadder that I missed Colombia’s coffee region, but also looking forward to getting back to La Hesperia. Also another chance to spend some time in Bogota was nothing sneeze at.

For a city that’s probably just before Baghdad on many-a-person’s list of places to visit, it really deserves a second though. Everything is cheap, public transport, though perhaps a bit too “exciting” at times for some, makes getting around a snap, and the people quite friendly for such a dense city.

I rode the Teleferico up one of the nearby mountains my last morning and discovered its just too big to take in with one photo.

One final note: the Bogota futbol team I watched play earlier is called millonarios. But 1 million Colombian pesos is only 500 US dollars, so their name would really translate into something like thousandaires.


Go to Colombia and you´ll instantly be a millionaire!

Bogota  is a bit like Quito with its old colonial-era quarter, ugly concrete barrios and a backdrop of stunning Andes peaks, but it packs more than 4 times more residents within its limits.  Riding around on the mini-buses (colectivos) is as entertaining as many a Disney World ride and costs just 65 cents.  

I visited El Museo de Oro yesterday to see what pre-Colombian trinkets were salvaged from Europe{s ransacking of the regions precious metals.  I also dropped by the gallery of Botero art (he{s the Colombian who painted the fat people see below)

They also had some work by Picasso and Dali and entrance was free.  

Last night I went out Salsa dancing and this afternoon I went to a thrilling football match in which the local Bogota team "Millionarios" won 2-1.  Colombian soccer fans lived up to expectations for craziness.  In the proper sections (which I was told specifically to avoid; muy peligrosa!) they jumped and chanted the entire match.  

Like Ecuador, essential goods and services are quite cheap by US standards.  For example, at the salsa club last night four Cerveza Costeñas,  cost just 5,000 pesos (2.50 USD).  Back home you might be able to buy a PBR out at a bar for that price if youre lucky.  

Tomorrow morning there will be a moment of truth when I find out for sure whether my visa problems are solved.  If all goes well I will celebrate by making a b-line for colonial Cartagena on the Caribbean coast and then on to beautiful Tayrona national park.  

I have now successfully met up with former Tyler Place staff in four continents.  Asia and Antarctica will be tough to pull off though if I want to complete the circuit.  

Again, no card reader, so you{ll have to use your imagination.  

Life in exile

I stayed to the bitter end of my 90-day visa in Ecuador and nearly didnt make it out in time as downpours caused landslides that closed the highway to Quito.  

I ended up booking a flight in Quito two days ago for Bogota (they seem to be quite cheap last-minute), but found out as I passed through immigration that without applying for a new visa at the Ecuadorian Embassy I would not be able to return to country until January 2011.  

So I went straight from the Bogota airport into a helter-skelter multi-bus journey through a concrete jungle of 7 million inhabitants in search of an Ecuadorian flag.  Despite knowing the cross streets and asking a dozen or so strangers I could not seem to find any Ecuadorian Embassy (it wasnt even in the phone book).  It turned out to be on the 7th floor of a random office building within a block of where I was looking.  I caused a bit of a log-jam in the foyer security checkpoint as my bags were searched (I still had all my stuff with me), with slick suits muttering "permiso" and bustling past what must have looked to them like a lost hiker.  

I stepped off the elevator and was immediately told by the guard (?) wearing an ornate uniform, epaulets and all, that I needed to visit the Ecuadorian consulate rather than the embassy.  

Half-an-hour later at another random office building I found out that the Ecuadorian consulate shuts promptly at 1 pm (it was by this point nearly 4).  

Anyway, this morning I arrived at the consulate early enough to get in and get the laundry list of required documents and forms to complete (which included fees totalling 162,000 pesos {about 90 USD} but no bribes), then run out and complete the scavenger hunt in time to return before the place closed.  

I should have my passport back with a visa in it Monday morning (keeping my fingers crossed).  My plans for Columbia have to change though; this means making some tough decisions about what to scratch from my itinerary.  I really wanted to spend some time on the Carribean coast, but also to see Medellin and a bit of the coffee-growing region.  The country is so spread out and mountainous that bis travel between ny two locations takes roughly a day.  Being in Bogota for the weekend isn{t the end of the world though.  I have four Colombian friends here, one of whom just graduated from a masters program in teaching English as a second language, so I have a party to go to tomorrow night.  

Sorry for the wall of text.  My computer is back at the reserve and there is no card reader on this computer, so pictures will have to come in the for of an addendum...perhaps tomorrow.

Elementary my dear Hoatzin

I met Pedro at the Quito airport and we took off the next day on a 9-hour trip (involving a plane, a boat, a pickup truck and another boat) to Tiputini Biodiversity Station, a remote research outpost in the heart of a huge swath of pristine old growth lowland tropical rainforest.

The lack of hunting pressure on local populations of macro-fauna makes it a phenomenal place for seeing big game such as monkeys (we saw 8 species including this Squirrel Monkey…


…And these bite-sized Pygmy Marmosets…

…), curassows (we saw seven individuals in one day) and capybara (the world’s largest rodent).

The reserve’s Laguna was also home to bird that through the shear smelliness of its innards has managed to avoid most sources of predation all-together.

This Hoatzin or ‘stinky turkey’ is the only bird in the world that has a diet consisting entirely of leaves. It is also the only bird that has a prehensile claw on the wrist joint of its wings. Depending on which taxonomist you ask it belongs in an order or at least a family of its own.

A lot of other resident birds proved to be at times difficult to see given the immense height of the canopy (some 160 feet) and the density and darkness of the undergrowth. After six days of rather intensive bird hunting Pedro and I managed to collectively see about 170 of the reserves 550 or so species. Our list included some truly fantastic birds that are impossible to see most anywhere else in the world and would impress even the most cold-hearted bird-hater; see Scarlet Macaw, Salvin’s Currasow, Paradise Tanager and Bartlett’s Tinamou (sitting on a nest). Many-banded Aracari may or may not belong on the same line with the previously mentioned birds, but I got a decent picture of one (yes, he looks much like the Pale-mandibled from last time, but they’re just so photogenic).

If you think my photos are any good, then you’re wrong. You should see the ones Pedro has bagged with his 500 mm howitzer. The image quality comes at a price of course…both in cost and in weight. While he has to worry about lugging around an apparatus roughly 20 times heavier and costlier, I’m not sure if his images are actually 20 times better. There is some subjectivity of course. We’ll get a link to some of his best shots up soon.

We got back to Quito just in time to catch Duke’s nail-biting victory over Butler that earned the school its fourth national title.

There was no time to celebrate (we were exhausted anyway) as we got up the next AM several hours before dawn to make our way to La Hesperia for a 30-hour bird-a-thon. I took Pedro all the way from the highway (1100 meters) up to the summit (2000 meters) to see the Choco-endemic and near-threatened Plate-billed Mountain-Toucan (see below) and we saw some 75 other species along the way.

It was really too bad Pedro didn’t have more time to spend down here since he has 1400 or so more birds to see. But he did manage to help me find a couple of new species for the La Hesperia list and adding to those a handful of others found over the weekend while camping at the summit, the official total is now well above 300.

Well I’m sure that’s about as much birds as anyone can handle for one post (it’s Pedro’s fault). Next time around things will be different. I’m leaving this week on trip, destination unknown to renew my visa. I’m thinking Columbia, but possibly Peru. Any suggestions are welcome.

In the meantime I’ve got to decide on what I’ll be doing for the next 1 to 5 years of my life. Please, no suggestions.

Sunday, March 21, 2010

The computer has been broken for awhile so I have no idea when this post will get out to all my concerned and alert readers.

I spent the weekend at La Hesperia, which meant no chance to watch March Madness, though the chances of watching Duke, I figured, were pretty low anyway from previous experience. For all I know they are playing at this moment for a spot in the Sweet 16.

Instead I got to go camp up at the summit of La Hesperia.

A beautiful spot and we got to hike back down through a portion of the reserve’s Bosque Primario the morning after.

I got to see flocks of the near-threatened Plate-billed Mountain-Toucan which, of all the1600+ species found in mainland Ecuador, is the one that is featured on the cover of my field guide.

Unfortunately none of the pictures turned out that well (too many orchids and clouds in the way). But here’s a good one of a very cooperative (and sad-looking?) Crimson-rumped Toucanet I found just by the volunteer house.

We lucked out on weather though and had the first non-rainy 30-hour streak I’ve experienced so far here.

Undoubtedly our good fortune was granted by this leprechaun disguised as a baby Ecuadorian Thrush that Jorge-Luis caught just as we were departing.

A lot has been going on…

In the past week we’ve built a caterpillar apartment in which we have begun a breeding program.

So far we have about 10 larval monarch tenants, two of which have already made cocoons. We’ll start planning and building a proper butterfly house soon.

Two Canadian farmers have completely renovated the organic garden and foolishly left me in charge of keeping it maintained.

Here’s the shot just after they completed their work. After a few weeks of misguided volunteer efforts I’m sure we can reduce these smooth rows into a smoldering crater.

Fortunately I’m off to the Amazon for a week come the 29th so I’ll be able pass the blame off to someone else!