The third and final part of a blog recounting a trip to Ecuador and
Northern Venezuela with Nick Preston in summer 1986. More
unreliable memories (some good, some not so) and scanned degraded slides that were not very good, and almost bird free, to start with.
Rio Palenque, Tinalandia & Papallacta
(18-23 August)
On 18th
August we drove from Santo Domingo to Rio Palenque in the rain, arriving mid
morning. We spent the rest of day on the
trails. As well as being wet it was hot
and sweaty as we were not far above sea-level, with a quite different set of
birds. With the rain easing off it was
absolutely brilliant and probably the best day of the trip. The next day was almost as good and we stayed
a third although by then the law of diminishing returns was taking effect. Despite being an isolated forest patch it retained
a number of excellent species, surprisingly so in the case of some of the
larger ones. During our visit we saw
Rufous-headed Chachalaca, Laughing Falcon, Ruddy Quail-Dove, Band-tailed
Barbthroat, Purple-crowned Fairy, Rufous-tailed Jacamar, Rufous Motmot, Barred
and White-whiskered Puffbirds, Orange-fronted Barbet, Pale-mandibled Aracari,
Choco and Chestnut-mandibled Toucans, Pale-legged Hornero, Great Antshrike,
Dot-winged Antbird, White-backed Fire-eye, Black-headed Antthrushes each day,
Purple-throated Fruitcrow, White-bearded Manakin, Tawny-collared Gnatwren, Bay
and Nightingale Wrens, Grey & Gold Warbler, Orange-billed Sparrow and
Crimson Finch. We also saw Little
Tinamou and another larger darker tinamou we thought was Cinereous until we
realised we were on the wrong side of the Andes. It is replaced on the Pacific slope by
Berlepechi’s for which there were reports from Rio Palenque. We left Rio Palenque late afternoon on 20th
driving back to Santo Domingo where we stayed in Hotel Roma the first we came
too.
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| Santo Domingo in the rain |
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| Rio Palenque, a superb but rather small and isolated patch of forest |
We left Santo Domingo
early on 21st and drove the short distance to Tinalandia. We spent most of day on trails seeing almost
80 species. It as was at a moderate
elevation and a much more pleasant temperature it had some different
birds. We saw Bronze-winged Parrot,
Esmerelda’s Antird, Golden-winged Manakin, Slaty-capped Shrike Vireo,
Golden-bellied Warbler and Grey & Gold Tanager. We also saw what we identified as
Broad-billed Manakin, now known as Sapayoa.
It had been reported from Tinalandia previously and I have since
wondered if we were right. We returned
to the pickup hoping to find the start of old road to Quito but Nick had left
its lights on and the battery was flat. My Spanish was marginally better than
Nick’s so I should have been better placed to take the lead but I’m afraid to
say that my reaction to this news was to fling the phrasebook at him and tell
him to sort it out. I was pretty tired
by then, at least that is my excuse, but doubtless Nick was too! He walked up to the lodge which we had parked
just short of and found a very helpful lady who spoke English and came down
with a jump lead to do just that. By the
time we got away it was dark making it hard to find the old road and we soon
gave up and returned to Santo Domingo for the night.
We left early on 22nd
August but again failed to find the old road to Quito so continued on the new
one, through Quito and up to Papallacta.
We made many roadside stops from pass down towards Baeza but ran out of
light and completed the last part in darkness.
We stayed in Baeza and retraced our steps with many stops back up to
Papallacta Village. Here the pickup
failed to go any further and it was my turn to ‘sort it out’. We asked in the village but there was no
garage. I tried phoning the car hire
company for advice but the only phone was in an isolated and deserted hut on a
hillside. The hut was unlocked and I
tried the phone but it was dead, maybe it only worked at certain times. We decided to abandon the car if a bus came and
return to Quito to let the car-hire company know where there vehicle was. With a flight to Caracas the following morning
we felt that there was no alternative.
While waiting by the car for a bus a local kid arrived and asked if we
needed a mechanic. We said yes without
any great hope but he soon returned with his dad who quickly got to work. I then realised in asking for a garage the
locals must have thought we’d run out of petrol which was why they couldn’t
help. The mechanic quickly seemed to think
it was a blocked air-filter (quite likely given how dusty the road was) and he
seemed to be making good progress in cleaning it when the bus appeared. We quickly decided that Nick should go back
on the bus and I’d follow either on a later bus or hopefully with the pickup. Nick disappeared, the mechanic soon had the
pickup fixed and drove it down to the bottom of the village and back to
demonstrate. I gratefully paid him, gave
him an old jacket I no longer needed and an armful of oranges - the back of the
pickup was awash with them as a result of a misunderstanding on my part and we
gave them away at every opportunity.
Driving back to Quito from Cotopaxi I saw someone by the side of the
road selling oranges. It seemed a good
idea to get some as our diet was pretty poor so I stopped and started
negotiating with him and handed over what I thought was the money for 10. Before I knew it had bought over 50 but at
least with a pickup they could go in the back out of the way although I wished
I had an orange squeezer. Back at
Papallacta I got back in the pickup and drove after the bus as fast as I
could. Fortunately it was struggling
going up to the pass and I soon caught up with it. Getting past on a narrow hairpin road was
another matter and my constantly beeping the horn had little effect – I was
hoping to see Nick peering out of the back window but knowing him and buses he
was probably asleep already! I got past
after three or four bends, parked by the road and nonchalantly leaned on the
bonnet. The bus went past but didn’t
screech to a halt so I had to jump in the car and repeat the process. Again I got past after much tooting, again
the bus sailed past me by the road.
Fortunately this time it did stop a bend further down and Nick got off. I hope the driver and passengers thought we
were crazy Americans! We made further stops
up to the pass and down the other side but by now we had pretty much had enough
and we returned to Quito and handed the pickup back late afternoon before
getting a bus into town and finding a hotel.
Our two days on Papallacta Pass had produced Torrent Duck, Purple-backed
Thornbill, Tawny Antpitta, Rufous-breasted Flycatcher, Tufted Tit-Tyrant,
Rufous-breasted and Brown-backed Chat-Tyrants, Red-rumped and Smokey
Bush-Tyrants, White-capped Dipper, Red-headed Tanager, Hooded, Scarlet-bellied
and Buff-breasted Mountain Tanagers, Black-backed Bush-Tanager, Mountain
Cacique, Band-tailed Sierra-Finch, Slaty and Pale-naped Brush-Finches and
Plushcap.
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| view from the new Santo Domingo to Quito road |
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| we wondered if the old road went through any of the better habitat we could see |
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| the road to Papallacta Pass |
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| near the pass at Papallacta |
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| White-banded Tyrannulet |
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| Black-crested Warbler |
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| approaching Baeza |
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| scanning the river for Torrent Ducks and White-capped Dipper, it eventually paid off |
On 24th we
had an early morning walk around Park El Ejido in central Quito but it was
almost birdless with Sparkling Violetear the best of just five species
seen. We got the bus to the airport and
caught our late morning flight to Caracas.
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| view out of the rear bus window heading for Quito Airport |
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| Quito Airport |
Venezuela/Henri Pittier (24-27 August)
We arrived in Caracas
mid-afternoon and hired a car for three days.
We got a Renault 5 with 150 free kms per day. We were heading west to Henri Pittier
National Park but to avoid Caracas we decided to take the mountain route to
Maracay. It quickly got dark and in
Colonia Tovar the car couldn’t manage a very steep hill (we didn’t think to try
and reverse up it but my reversing is pretty chaotic at the best of
times). We couldn’t face returning to
Caracas in dark as we would have to to get onto the main highway so we slept in
the car just outside Colonia Tovar. We were up at first light and drove back
towards Caracas before picking up the main highway to Maracay. We quickly found our way to the road to
Ocumare and stopped at Rancho Grande in Henri Pittier. I had hoped it would be occupied and we could
persuade someone to let us stay. I even
hoped that Andy Field might still be there, a Brit Steve Gantlett and I had
befriended there several years before.
We parked by the entrance and found a way around the locked gate. The place was deserted although it had looked
somewhat derelict when fully occupied as a research centre. We birded along the trail behind the research
centre but it was more overgrown than I remembered. I was shocked to come across a memorial plaque
to Andy Field by one of the biggest trees, he had been about my age and full of
life. I recalled him telling me of his
helping get David Attenborough 100ft up to a platform he had built in the
canopy of that tree for the filming of Life on Earth. He had a system of ropes and pulleys leading
to a small platform but both Steve and I declined his offer to go up with him.
We ended the day
birding along the road before finding somewhere to sleep, the problem being
there was nowhere to get the car off the road and out of sight. The next morning, Nick’s birthday, we
concentrated on the trails, birded the road each side of the pass and climbed
up to Pico Guacamayo. We again slept
near the entrance to Ranch Grande, Nick in the car and me in a bivy bag a
little way outside it. At some time
around midnight, or later, a couple of passing policemen stopped to investigate
us and woke Nick up. The commotion woke
me and I went over to see what was going on.
We had the usual ‘its not safe here … there might be bandits’ (yes and I’m
beginning to wonder if you are two of them) etc. I couldn’t understand much of what they were
saying but got the impression it was along the lines of ‘if you pay us money
you can stay’ or maybe ‘if you pay us we’ll keep an eye on you’. Either way it seemed rather menacing and was
a good time for me to play dumb - it didn’t take much acting! I asked what their names and numbers were,
trying to see it on the nearest guy’s lapel.
They quickly realised what I was doing, returned to their car and backed
away with the lights off so we couldn’t read their number plate. All rather unsettling and the thought,
probably entirely unjustified, that they might tip off our presence to some
rogues didn’t encourage us to stay there.
We knew there were few options to get the car off the road without
driving for miles and we were reluctant to leave the car and sleep out well
away from it so went a couple of km back down the road and parked by the only
building in the area, a café. We got the
car as far off the road as possible and found a couple of bins to but in front
of it, sleeping on the pavement by it.
Fortunately the local dog was mostly quiet during our manoeuvres and we
eventually got back to sleep. A couple
of hours later we were woken by the army, so much for the bins hiding the car. ‘It’s not safe here … bandits (yes we’ve just
met some in police uniforms) … insectos, serpientes’. They were much more
friendly about it, accepted we knew where we were wasn’t ideal but our best
option and soon left us in peace.
Strangely knowing the army were on the road was reassuring and we went
back to sleep. Our last morning in
Venezuela started with a final look around Rancho Grande before driving back
down towards Maracay. In our two and a
bit days at Rancho Grande I’d seen one new bird but it was a good one -
Moustached Puffbird. We had also seen
Band-tailed Guan, Venezuelan Wood-Quail, White-tipped Quetzal, Grove-billed
Toucanet, (new), Grey-throated Leaftosser, Black-faced Antthrush,
Scallp-breasted Antpitta, Handsome and Golden-breasted Fruiteaters, Andean
Solitaire, lots of tanagers and Chestnut-capped Brush-Finch.
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| view from forest trail at Rancho Grande |
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| looking south towards Maracay from Rancho Grande |
On my previous visit
we’d stopped in some dryer more scrubby habitat near the entrance of Henri
Pittier where there had been a decent trail behind a rather official looking
building. We tried it again but were
soon apprehended by a guard and when they realised we were foreigner’s we were
taken to see the chief. He spoke
excellent English and told us we had been trespassing on private land. I told him I had been birdwatching there
three and a half years earlier and had been told by a friend at Rancho Grande
that it was OK. We were told that was no
longer the case. The friend was Andy
Field and we learned that he had been found dead at the base of his tree having
fallen out of it. Such a waste and a
really friendly guy. At least he had
been doing what he loved. Having established a rapport with the chief I’d hoped we’d
be allowed to continue birding in the area but that was not possible. We didn't really discover why not but were
told that much had changed for the worse in Venezuela in the few years since my
previous visit. We continued down to
Maracay and birded the gardens of the rather posh Hotel Maracay. Here we saw Barred Antshrike, Stripe-backed
Wren and a returning American Redstart.
Going up a ravine a little way from the hotel we saw two rather
suspicious looking characters ahead of us with a gun. They were probably hunters but by now we were
feeling a little paranoid and were pleased to keep quiet and out-of-sight until they had
gone. We soon headed back to the car and
drove to Caracas. We were back at the
Airport with two hours to spare so drove along the coast to Catia for a
seawatch, seeing Brown Pelican, Magnificent Frigatebird, Laughing Gull and
Royal and Common Terns. We returned to
the airport for our early evening flight home and handed the car back having
done 449km, just one below our 450 free allowance. It had been a good trip although we had found
Venezuela hard work and had me wondering how I had survived 2 months on public
transport with Steve Gantlett! The trip had cost me £785 in total, of which £490 was the airfare. Between us we had seen just over 500 species
in Ecuador and another 70 odd in Venezuela and I had had over 140 new birds.
