Blogs

From the Pampas to Patagonia

An Argentine Birding Trip

 We`ve just completed a six-day birding tour organized by Aves Patagonia, as a pre-conference trip to the South American Bird Fair. The journey was close to 2,000 kilometres from Buenos Aires to San Martin de los Andes. What a time we had. There were five birders on the tour, our birding guide, Federico, and two different drivers in a 14-seater van. We enjoyed time with a couple from France and an Argentine woman. Federico is a wonderful guide, very knowledgeable and eager to please. The group dynamics were excellent and we had a lot of fun. All of us are avid birders. We had some difficulty because of our less-than-perfect Spanish language skills, but I now know a lot of Argentine birds by their Spanish names. Our conversations were a combination of Spanish, English and French, although mostly in Spanish, or Spanglish. It worked, although next time we would like to learn the names in English. We missed a great deal of the small talk.

 The first day we covered almost 600 kilometres, but after that most other days we traveled an easy 200 kilometres or so. On a typical day we were up early, and after a quick breakfast of medialunas (tiny croissants) and coffee, were on to our first birding site, generally close to where we arrived the previous night. Sometimes we saw birds in the hotel parking lot. For example, from the town of Carhue we went to Lago Epequen where we saw dozens of flamingos and Wilson’s phalaropes. After we’d seen all we could in an area, we would pile into the van and drive for a few more hours to the next location, stopping along the road by little ponds or marshes if we saw unusual-to-us birds or animals. We stayed at Carhue, Santa Rosa, Puelches, La Roca and Piedra del Aguila.

 As we drove along, from his thermos of agua caliente Fedi would prepare some mate and would pass it around with everyone drinking from the same straw-like spoon. Mate is the local drink Argentines consume like coffee; it wasn`t our favourite because to us it tastes like medicinal herbs. We birded all day, stopping only for lunch and coffee and would arrive into the new town pretty late, around 8:30 or so. Dinner would be around 9:30 or 10 or later, very late for us. Then we would drop into bed at 12 or 1 to be up and ready to go by 7 am.

 Birds

We saw parrots and hawks, tinamous, flycatchers, owls, tyrants, cowbirds, thrush, ibis, ducks, phalaropes, flamingos and roseate spoonbills, swallows and dozens more- about 150 species in all, with about 40 to 50 bird groups a day and usually around eight new birds every day. On the lakes and marshlands it’s easier to spot birds. Typically upon arrival at a cliff or desert site we saw very little. However, after a few minutes of being there and merging in, we would get a sense of the place and where the birds might be. We traveled across five of the ornithogeographical zones of Argentina. These include the Pampas, the Chaco and Espinal, the Monte, the Patagonian Steppe and the Araucano Forest.

 Geography

We drove through apple, pear and wine regions, by dry salt lakes, and in another region saw buttes or montes and high cliffs in the distance. We went through lots of desert and scrubland, and in the high desert areas the 360 degree vistas were amazing. We experienced a brilliant red sunset one evening, and silhouetted in the distance was a red-backed hawk on a pole. Patagonian swallows dove in and out of the dry volcanic cliffs and we learned that rock doves live in, well, rocks, or cliffs. We spent time high in the mountains, by lakes and rivers, in provincial  park, for example, Parque Luro and national parks such as Lihue Calel, and explored a town abandoned after the nearby panoramic mirador dam site was built. We visited a Museo Paleontologica in Neuquen province and learned of the history of the area. On display was an Argentinosauros, part of the Titanosaurs, as well as Gigantosauras. Argentina also has dormant volcanoes, with the glistening snow covered peak of Mount Lanin rising near San Martin. The geographical changes were reflected by the various birds in each region, Austral birds, and desert birds for example. The dry flat pampas is similar to the southern Okanagan.

 We had a few strange experiences. We wandered through a crumbling and decrepit graveyard, its tombstones leaning and damaged. It had emerged from Lake Epequen three years ago, after being submerged for 25 years. Lining a path to the graveyard were tall white barren dead trees, standing stark against the sky. A women living in a nearby trailer nearby asked us to sign a petition about saving the area.

 Animals

We saw calm guanacos silhouetted on the mountain tops, standing as sentries for their herds. We stopped to take pictures of tortugas or turtles and tarantula on the roadway. There were red deer with huge antlers and wild pigs in the fields, along with plenty of gauchos on horse-back, tending their cattle or traveling. After being bitten by red ants while standing on their ant hill, I learned to look before we moved forward. Seeing tarantulas on the road a few times convinced us not to go into the desert with open-toed sandals.

At first we couldn’t figure out what our guide Fedi was doing when he leapt suddenly from the van and ran like crazy into the dry bushes. We didn’t recognize the Spanish word for armadillo which someone called out as we drove along. They are hard to spot and harder to catch. After a couple of misses, he got one before it had a chance to dig itself into the sand so we were able to look and photograph it. The little critter must have run away at 50k per hour. The sun was often fierce and the van`s air conditioning spotty; once it was 40 degrees inside the van at mid-day.

 I took dozens of flower pictures, from cacti to alpine beauties, and I hope to have a web-album of the birds, animals and flowers soon.

 Our final destination was San Martin de los Andes, a gorgeous small town located in a valley. Talk about broom or forsythia - complete hillsides were a brilliant golden yellow and the roadsides were lined for miles. The snow covered dormant volcano Lanin shone in the light above the clouds. It felt and looked much like Whistler, with huge evergreen pine and cedar trees and snow-capped Andean peaks. Similar to Ecuador, the altitude and temperature create ideal rose growing conditions and dozens of varieties lined the streets and houses. The alpine houses were built in the classic “snow-resort” style: lots of cedar, wooden windows, huge stone facades, steeply sloped snow roofs and curved doorways. As we sat and gazed at beautiful Lake Lacar we commented that we could have been in Horseshoe Bay, except that it’s sunnier.

 San Martin has a completely different atmosphere to Buenos Aires – cool alpine air, clean and very middle class. The city has a small village feel although the streets were lined with high-end adventure clothing stores, restaurants and coffee shops and there are plenty of adventure tours available: rafting, wind surfing, snowboarding, canopy towers, skiing, hiking, and horseback riding, and of course, skiing. Both San Martin and nearby Bariloche were settled by Europeans. In the general area there is a Swiss colony, called Colonia Suiza, and the words Edelweiss, Tirol, Alpine were amply used. Fondues and chocolate are regional specialties.

 Feria de Aves de Sudamerica

The South American Bird Fair or Feria de Aves was exciting.There are about 30,000 birdwatchers in Argentina, and it is quite an organized activity, with training and accreditation involved. There were also many people from the tourism industry as the organizers plan to make this an annual event.

The bird fair participants had a great respect and understanding of nature and are involved with protecting and nurturing the environment. For example, one couple, an engineer and his wife, are running an NGO, involved in land and seed conservancy and in clean energy. Our poor Spanish language skills precluded talking to many other people in great depth. Argentina has a ten year environmental plan to preserve Argentina`s natural resources and they are creating new natural reserves and parklands. We found the countryside of Argentina to be in good shape.

Travel makes you more aware of who you are. We didn`t realize we were such passionate environmentalists because we took things such as a clean environment for granted. Involvement with birding takes us to natural places as well as the big world cities. Unfortunately, respect for the environment is not uniform, with much of the third world awash in garbage. Plastic bags and tin cans litter the countryside. The Argentines have a better handle on it than many countries.

The conference had about 25 sessions on all aspects of birding; anatomy, evolution, photography, conservation, and birding information about Columbia, Brazil, Peru, and Chile. There were photography and painting exhibits and four early morning birding trips to the surrounding area. We met producer of The Path of the Condor, filmed in the Andes and saw this amazing piece of work.

 The author Tito Narosky spoke and autographed his new edition of the Field Guide of the Birds of Argentina and Chile. Written in both Spanish and English, with both photos and drawing and a CD of bird songs included, it’s a major accomplishment. The fair organizer, Horacio Matarasso, did a wonderful job and his two teenage sons participated. Our biggest disappointment was that very little was in English so we missed the sessions. They would have been fascinating. Horacio has plans for improved English communication for next year.

We are developing a more in-depth feeling and knowledge of the Argentine people after spending more than a year here. Many Argentines have a rich intellectual life. They read a lot, are involved with their interests and are happy with their lives. In my opinion Argentina is the most cultured place in South America, with a large, but shrinking middle class.

We enjoyed a lovely final evening at the home of an American couple who are building a home in the hills of San Martin on a bluff overlooking a mauve and purple lupine meadow and the alpine mountains. It’s always interesting to share stories with other couples and see how we have all arrived at where we are in life.

 And so our birding trip and the bird fair ended and off we went to Bariloche. It was our first extended birding trip and we are hooked.

It’s been months since I’ve written a newsletter, not that we haven’t been busy. My book is finally finished and available on Amazon.com and Smashwords.com, but at this moment only as an ebook.  The printed book, or, to use a new term, pbook is coming – this takes months to work its way through the printer to the distribution channels.  I’m working through how to sell it on my website because I don’t want to deal with HST issues.  As well, I’ve uploaded quite a few short videos to You Tube - just type in thelaughingboomer, no caps and no spaces.  I’ll send more information on the book soon.

 Since Chile we have been to about 10 countries, on two cruises, and spent quite a bit of time in the United States and Canada.  Our first cruise was from Chile to Miami, stopping along the way in Peru, Costa Rica, and Jamaica and through the Panama Canal, which is fascinating achievement.  We’ve spend time in these countries before, especially Costa Rica and Panama, so it’s enlightening to see how things change.  We finally completed a trip I’ve wanted to do for several years, and that is drive up the East coast of America, which I’ve detailed here.  After that we spent quite a bit of time in New York, Washington and Chicago, all fabulous cities, and then returned to Vancouver where Ken promptly had a heart attack.  It was a good thing we had advised the BC  government when we were leaving and returning (BC residents are allowed to travel two years out of five, as long as they continue to pay their premiums),  so he was in on Saturday, had the stent put in on Monday and out by Tuesday. He found there were much less repercussions with his heart attack then when he broke his back whale-watching in Ecuador.  He’s as good as new now. My, haven’t we had fun!

Now on to our East Coast US trip.

We drove from Ft. Lauderdale up to Jacksonville, which is near the top of the Florida panhandle. We’ve traveled much of Florida before, which I will detail in another story. At any rate, Jacksonville was somewhat depressing: the downtown core was grungy and felt a bit dangerous, with a prison right in the centre and rough looking people hanging about. The revamped waterfront had a great boardwalk and lovely new restaurants but was basically empty. We felt this town was hard-hit by the recession.

Savannah was perhaps the most magical of the places we visited: we were not looking for magical, but there it was. The old section was built on a grid and has beautiful old homes and buildings, while the streets were lined with great ‘live oak’ trees covered with Spanish moss. It is not truly moss but lichen from the pineapple family. The hop-on-hop-off bus tour introduced us to the Confederates side of American history, with lots of firsts here and important places there where the early presidents and Army leaders such as General Lee stayed and made important decisions. We saw the Mercer House, home of the songwriter Johnny Mercer’s family. Moon River is the new name for the nearby Vernon River. The movie Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil was filmed here. The long brick and cobble-stoned riverside stroll is full of excellent restaurants, street stalls, vendors and of course, tourists.  It was a bustling fun place to be. The seafood such as oysters and she-crab soup was delicious, but the gulf oil spill had restricted supply.

The geography of Georgia, South and North Carolina coast was new to us. It is called “Lowcountry”, often shown as one word, and is a mixture of salt and freshwater marshes, low lands and snake-like rivers, tidal streams and inlets and little ponds. In North Carolina it’s comprised of “ocean beach, barrier dunes, salt marshes, fresh and brackish water ponds and impoundments, as well as creeks and bays.” It’s a different beauty than we are accustomed to, but a great beauty nonetheless.

We took a day trip to nearby Tybee Island, a coastal barrier island, which is one of the nearly 500,000 acres of salt marshes in Georgia.  Tybee Island has been populated for over 100 years, and has the usual large homes in older beachside properties and then many small cottages on stilts and the typical motels and restaurants of a vacation hot spot.  We were glad we went out of season. We wandered the seashore for a few hours and saw a several shorebirds:  oystercatchers, gannets, plovers and black skimmers, so called because they skim the water to catch fish.  Their lower beak is longer than their upper beak.

 We drove on to Charleston, which was slightly disappointing after Savannah.  Part of this was the weather, which was unbearably hot, and also our hotel was on the other side of the river, theoretically a mile from the town center, but completely inconvenient. Charleston also has lovely old homes and gardens, huge streets, lots of museums and many art stores featuring Lowcountry artists.

On the way out of Charleston we spent a morning at an old slave plantation Boone Hall, originally around 4,000 acres but now 750 acres.  The grounds were interesting – the half-mile of live oaks were used in the movie Gone with the Wind. Viewing the slave area was very sad and strangely moving. The current owners have enlarged to poster size many of the documents from that era such as the wills, lists of slaves, slave auction posters and ships records. On a ledger called Slave Ships to Charleston 1711 to 1858 for example, in 1739, showed one ship, Amoretta, and Captain John Crode brought slaves from Right of Biafra and Gulf of Guinea Islands to South Carolina, with 258 embarking in Africa and 207 disembarking. The owners of the house, Mary Boone, owned 34 personal slaves in and her husband Thomas Boone had 26. She left various slaves to her children and grandchildren, along with her silver tea service. Another enlarged document showed later residents Horlicks 1854 slave inventory and yet another listed the value of people, with Syllah and her four children worth $500. A few cottages remain on the now-named Slave Street, and we were able to walk through and image how it might have been. We could hardly imagine how this could have existed.

We also visited The Center for Birds of Prey, in Awendaw, S.C., where we were treated to a long walk through the sanctuary and then a falconry presentation, with a peregrine, Sagar hawk (mid-east desert hawk) and red-tailed hawk. An endangered Mississippi kite flew overhead, much to everyone’s excitement and made the day for the biologists there.  With many types of owls and hawks in huge cages or compounds, these birds are mostly in rehabilitation and unable to survive in the wild. The center does education, research, conservation programs and breeding of endangered species for sale or trade to other sanctuaries operating on the same premises. Some abandoned owl and vulture chicks were being cared for and it was amazing to be within a few inches of them.  One chick leaned against a young girl’s leg. What a great day.

We received mixed reactions when we told people we were going to Myrtle Beach.  The old Myrtle Beach area has stately older homes and hotels and is quite lovely; fortunately our hotel was in that area. Myrtle Beach is famous for its golf courses and there are hundreds of condos and lovely single family neighbourhoods, but much of Myrtle Beach is quite commercial, with an ugly “Kingsway” like business area and plenty of fast food restaurants and strip malls. The town has made quite an effort to attract families, with at least a dozen amusement parks and an awful-to-us Broadway at the Beach outdoor mall full of gimmicky restaurants and tourist trivia. However, the long straight beach with its new boardwalk still reflects the draw of this lovely geographical area – the sea and relaxed seaside living.  Why would you need amusement parks when you have the beach? We drove on from South Carolina due north.

Nags Head is part of the Outer Banks of North Carolina – a region replete with bird and animal reserves and long strands of Outer Banks barrier islands. It’s called Nag’s Head because in the past pirates would lure ships to shore with a lantern draped over a nag. The actual town is highly overbuilt with many large, season homes and even an outlet mall.  I would imagine the summer would be very busy but our stay was wonderful –a comfortable but rustic seaside motel overlooking the ocean with martins nesting in a large “condo” birdhouse nearby. The Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge, 10 miles south, has bird-watching trails and we saw green herons, black-bellied plover, dowitchers, pelicans as well as the usual egrets and ducks. Pea Island, midway on the Atlantic Flyway, is used for resting, feeding and wintering birds, similar to the Reifel Bird Sanctuary in Delta, which is part of the Pacific Flyway migration route. I would go back in a minute in the quiet season.

From there we meandered north on secondary roads, stopping along the way as we wanted, and drove through towns with strange names like Kill Devil Hills, to arrive in Raleigh, N.C.   We enjoyed the Carolina Natural History Museum as the building design allowed for large trees and dinosaurs inside.  As birders it is helpful to see stuffed specimens and the woodland area showed the birds in their normal habitat.  We were able to go from floor to floor seeing which birds would nest and live at each level of vegetation.

After that and a bit of shopping and then forged on to Virginia Beach, getting lost along the way. Virginia Beach again has miles of wide walkway along its long ocean front and statues of giant shells, huge blue fish and a colossal statue of Neptune and other displays every couple of blocks.  Virginia Beach is a military town, with 11,000 people working at the US Naval Aviation Station Oceana. The excellent open-air museum along the beach detailed the Naval Aviation history, something about which we knew little.  Strangely enough as we walked along the beachfront dozens of ladybugs landed upon us and we saw hundreds on certain plants and squashed upon the sidewalks. Apparently they bite although we didn’t notice. At Virginia Beach we finally bought a GPS and what a difference it made. The structure of many of America’s towns is that many of the hotels and chains surround the city and the maze of freeways is truly scary. Our drive to Richmond, Virginia was sooo easy we wonder why we didn’t do it before; but we know the reason why – one more thing to carry.

Richmond, Virginia has just completed its expansion of the Virginia Museum of Fine Art to 545,000 square foot, at a cost of$150 million dollars.  This major art gallery ranks amongst the best in the country with special collections of Art Deco and Art Nouveau and American art. We joined a free guided tour given by a retired computer programmer and art lover. Of interest to me was the large collection of Art Deco decorative art, glassware, and furniture and Ken raved about the excellent Oriental collection.  Art galleries this size need several days. There was a great buzz about this gallery and many diverse groups were enjoying the day. Close by is Carrytown, a neighbourhood of old homes and historic streets with little old shops and unique bookstores, similar to Georgetown in Washington. As much of America is malls and wide highways we enjoy the opportunity to appreciate the historical places. We also spent a day exploring Richmond’s city centre and old town and impressive state capital, designed by Thomas Jefferson and searched for birds along the James River and visiting Henricus county. 

We drove from Richmond to Washington and dropped the car at the airport, but that’s a story for another day. America is a great country for independent car travel and our three-week trip was one we’d like to repeat in other areas of this great country. Driving along the gulf coast from Florida to Texas is next, but who knows when?  We would highly recommend this trip.

Hi -

I've finally figured it out.  It's not how much rain a city or area gets, but instead how many hours of sunshine it gets.  For example, Vancouver is a microclimate, which means the amount of sunshine and rain varies considerably, but in general Vancouver gets 1928 hours of sunshine a year.  Buenos Aires, one of our favourite cities, gets around 2533 hours of sunshine.   They both get quite a lot of rain, around 50 or 60 inches, but the difference in how it feels is amazing.  In Buenos Aires it's generally quite sunny, even though it may be slightly cold.  When it gets ready to rain, the skies become very, very dark and then it pours, but afterwards it's sunny again.  It's so much more positive when the sun is shining.    Here are a few other  cities and their sunshine hours

Victoria 2,223

Denmark 1,496.

Hi

Well, after getting thoroughly lost, we finally arrived at our hotel in Virginia Beach.  We were beginning to wonder if VB actually had a beach, but indeed it does.  It's typical Atlantic - miles long and straight but this town is old and the beachfront is well developed.  It has a wide beachfront walkfront and the morning I was out, full of walkers, joggers, and even a group of yummy mommies - young women, probably 15 in total jogging as a group with their baby carraiges out front. 

A few interesting differences - first we noticed all the aircraft overhead and it turns out this is the cornerstone of US Naval Aviation.  There is an outdoor museum along the beachfront which details the Naval Air Station Oceana and its role in training, starting in 1938 on to today's activities.    Every other few blocks there was a break in the blocks with interesting sculptures - one of neptune, for example, and also seashells, fish, and other displays every few blocks.  It makes for an interesting walk.

Another unusual aspect is ladybugs. I noticed one on my shoe, and then three more on my clothes.  Then I started to look and there are hundreds flying around, squashed on the ground, and all over the place. I've never experienced this before.  Of course , and  ladybugs  are used for natural pest control as they eat bugs, but it certainly is different to go for an oceanfront stroll and come back with ladybugs on my clothing. 

Off to buy a pedestrial/driving GPS.  No more getting lost.

Mahara

Hi

Well, it's been months since I've blogged.  We were in Buenos Aires for three months and just moved to Chile last week.

We were pleasantly surprised, as we'd read all sorts of other blogs about petty crime and watching your back.  We found a pretty good hotel through Trip Advisor, although the room was small and so they offered us a one-bed across the street for $80 US a night.  Nice to have a kitchen and livingroom.

Yesterday we went up to the Chilean equivilent of Whister. This popular ski resort is about an hour's drive from Chile. What's a bit scary are the 60 hairpin curves up and down, each one marked so after a while we started to count them. curva # 24, curva #25, etc.  It's late summer here so there is no snow and the place was mostly deserted. Only one restaurant was open, charging high prices, but the food was good.  There's also a lake- the return trip is over an hour's walk and we didn't have the time. You can either eat or walk, but not both. 

The view is spectacular.  It sorts of reminds me of the Grand Canyon, striated levels of earth, although the colours weren't vivid. We saw an Andean Condor, a huge bird whose wingspan can be three metres, and surprisingly, wild horses. This ski mountain has four ski stations and we went to the top, Valle Nevada, which is about 3,000 metres.  I didn't notice the thin air but Ken did.  Apparently about 300,000 people live up there in the snow season.  We met a couple of women who own a resort there who were contemplating opening year round.

We are off today for a six hour bus ride across the Andes to Mendoza Argentia.  Apparently this bus ride on the top of the world is not to be missed.  We'll just stay overnight and return tomorrow.

Mahara