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bolivia trip report part 5: you have the right to one phone call on the blue and gold macaw 2009-10-31 - 9:23 a.m. all photos © 2009 by elaine radford a jaguar phone in the buena vista town plaza Peachfront's note: This is part 5 of my Raptor (Bird of Prey) research tour of Bolivia. To start with Part 1, please click right here. If you missed any previous installments, well, here's Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4. A bird list will be coming along one of these fine days. October 23 At some point, S. explains to us that Argentines eat four meals a day. I was actually starting to wonder, since it seemed like we so often had two lunches. Today, as we headed off toward Buena Vista, we stopped in the marketplace, just in case there were no restaurants along the way. Hey, you never know. It could happen. It was just a regular marketplace, for the locals, with cheap clothes and backpacks that might have been fashionable (but probably weren't) in 1972. Chunky older women in frumpy full skirts and hats and/or pigtails or both. Not bowler hats. I saw only two bowler hats the entire trip, but probably I wasn't in the right place. Just regular straw hats for the most part. Heaps and piles and more heaps and piles of various bananas, with some other fruits randomly thrown in there for good measure. S. bought some bananas from a banana seller and a pineapple from a pineapple seller, and both ladies cracked up laughing because D. couldn't resist taking pictures. They came all the way from Argentina and never saw a banana before? The price of fruit was pennies in U.S. dollars -- a coin or two in Bolivianos -- and yet fruit sellers, the pineapple lady among them -- could chat away on their cell phones. All I can figure is that cell phones and/or cell phone minutes must be cheap beyond belief there, because (for instance) the cell phone contract that IMOM and I have for $195 a month would probably keep you in groceries, beer, AND cell phone minutes for a month in your random Bolivian village and probably with mega-bucks left over. Oh, there are still the cute public phone booths around, but I have to wonder for how much longer? When we arrived at Buena Vista, there was a huge public plaza complete with a shiny new red brick pavement, a jaguar phone booth, trees with neat little signs telling their names, and a cathedral/church tower of some type over all. The emergency supplies weren't needed, since we were soon consuming a full course meal complete with soup and dessert in an open-air cafe. I guess it's as good a time as any to describe Bolivian cuisine, although the prix fixe menu that day actually featured the fettucine for an entree. But if you didn't want surubi, which seemed to be the national fish, then you generally had your choice of meat (probably beef) with an egg on top of it or else something "milanesa," which varied semi-randomly, from breaded chicken with or without ham and/or cheese on top, or breaded beef that looked suspiciously (to me anyway) like chicken-fried steak. So the food might not impress Bradley Ogden, but it seemed to have sufficient protein, and the flavors ranged from OK to pretty darn good. Unlike Madagascar, no one was going to lose any weight on this trip. Vegetarians will be eating a lot of fettucine and omelets though. There was also a souvenir store, but a closer inspection proved that the store was aimed at the Bolivian tourist, not the foreign tourist. It mostly sold swimsuits, random souvenirs like fake Venetian glass, and lots and lots of completely impractical shoes. When asked about postcards, the storekeeper wrinkled his brow, considered the idea, and finally opined that it might be possible to find such a thing in Santa Cruz. I'm getting the idea that the Bolivian mail service is not held in very high regard among the locals. Maybe they pay all their bills in person -- or, hell, electronically, in an internet cafe or on the cell phone. They don't seem to get the gag that, Hey, we can raise some revenue by having cute money and stamps printed up in that factory in Canada that all the other poor countries use. I'm not saying the money is any more unattractive than U.S. money. They're both pretty much the same degree of unattractive, with pictures of random dudes that nobody wants to look at it. But, let's face it, the United States is a big rich country that can afford to get away with having ugly money. Bolivia? Not so much. I'm not saying put a bird on every bill a la Trinidad and Tobago, but you could have at least a few cute bills with a toucan or something on them, for the tourists to pocket. OK, that's my big dumb idea of the day for helping out the Bolivian economy. Oh, speaking of money, here's where we learned from the restaurant that someone had passed S. a counterfeit 10 Boliviano bill. Seriously. It doesn't seem worth the effort, since a 10 Boliviano bill is worth less than U.S. $1.50. I offered to give them a real 10 Boliviano bill, and I would keep the fake to make into a bookmark, but they insisted that I not give them a real bill in trade. So I had it for the asking, which was nice. I'll have DH laminate it into a nice bookmark this weekend.... We arrived at Flora and Fauna, and the owner and his wife were there to welcome us with a fridge full of water and beer. I'd actually found a rather highly ranked site on Google, discussing Amboro National Park, which said that he'd been run out of the country. Not true at all. He's still there, with plenty of stories to tell and plenty of new beetle species to describe and name. So don't believe everything you read on the fabulous internets, especially if the writer might be repeating a rumor instead of describing an actual trip. The first thing we encountered as we piled out of the SUV was a tug-of-war between a bright blue wasp and a hairless baby colored spider. The spider was huge, not tarantula huge, but nothing you'd want to meet in a dark alley, and at first I just assumed that the spider had caught the wasp. Not so. It was entirely the other way around. The wasp did not escape, it was letting go and then zooming in for another attack. And then another. Eventually the spider was killed, and the wasp got what it wanted -- not clear if the wasp was laying eggs in the body of the spider or just drinking its blood or whatever -- and then the meat of the poor spider was left to the ants. There was a lot of wind, too much wind for birds, so we were invited to nap, drink beer, or whatever. I climbed one of the towers and inspected the greeny-blue mountains from above, but it was still too windy, although I saw a nice landscape and also lots and lots and LOTS of Eastern Kingbirds. Yes, we'd come to the major stomping grounds of the Eastern Kingbird. I don't know if they are all migrants, or if some of them actually live there, but there were lots of flocks here and there. Wind or no wind, our time was limited, and later in the afternoon we headed out for the marsh, which seems (as others have noted) to have dried up in the drought. The bird blind was actually locked up, so we couldn't use it. We did get our first Toco Toucan, a decent sighting of a Savannah Hawk being mobbed by Tropical Kingbirds, and a pair of cuddly Chestnut-Fronted Macaws, but the location wasn't currently as good as it could be at the right time. As we headed back through the forest, we encountered our first White-Eyed (Aratinga) Parakeets and Speckled Chachalacas. The gem of the outing was, to my mind, the pair and then the single Grey-Necked Wood-Rail. They didn't tease and conceal like rails usually do. They gave us a great look. In fact, the odd bird strolled boldly along in front of the SUV, not caring a whit if he brought "traffic" to a standstill. His confident tameness gave us all terrific views. Back at the cabin, I discovered that ants -- a LOTTA LOTTA LOTTA ants -- had invaded my bed. What the--? I was assured that I just needed to give them time to get bored and un-invade, a process that supposedly takes a half hour or so. Meanwhile, I went to the overlook near the house with a too-large bottle of beer that I'd snagged from the fridge. I didn't exactly need more food or alcohol, but the owner's wife proved to be an excellent cook, so what do you do? Oh, and before dinner, the owner showed off some of his collection -- starting with a huge monster beetle that was several inches long. It sure looked intimidating, since it came complete with horns, but apparently it's all a big show, and it wouldn't hurt a fly, although it wouldn't object to eating some of your smaller trees that you happen to have standing around. It was completely dark by the time we'd finished eating, drinking, and talking, and I practically stumbled over a huge possum on the way back. Hell, it was so huge that I almost didn't think it was a possum. "It moved like a possum," I said. "But the tail wasn't skinny." Hell, the tail wasn't skinny because the whole thing was big enough to stomp and eat an entire family of Louisiana possums. It was skinny enough for a body THAT size. October 24 After wine with lunch, beer before dinner, wine with dinner, and too much food, once the ants were gone, I was ready for the proverbial long winter's nap. Alas and alack, about two hours after I went to sleep, I woke up in a cold sweat. Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! I actually thought it was someone pounding on the door, but after I lay there frozen for awhile, and nobody yelled out the Spanish version of Federal warrant! You're under arrest! or even tried to peek in the windows, I concluded that it couldn't be that. Then it came again, and again. Oh Christ, it's gunfire, I'm thinking. On and on into the night. And the village looked so peaceful. L. later asked if I'd thought it was revolutionaries. No, I'm from New Orleans, I just thought it was gang warfare. The usual battle over drugs and territory. Yes, yes, of course, it was fireworks, and it was the night of the village's annual festival. But I didn't really figure it out until the next morning, when I stepped outside and could hear the sound of the drums. Since it was Bolivia in 2009 and not some bad 1950s movie set in Africa, then I was pretty sure that the villagers weren't drumming to put a curse on five humble tourists. Too much work for the worry, right? And, at breakfast, the owner confirmed that it was indeed festival time. Oh, here's a cute thing. While hanging at the lookout, I saw a decent-sized male hummingbird come in pretty close to the house. It was my life Fork-Tailed Woodnymph, at least as far as I'm concerned, although I may have seen another and not been able to ID it correctly at Los Volcanes. OK, but listen to the cool story I heard from the owner about this guy. Like most hummingbirds, he's a little ball of anger and aggression issues, and this one has learned to chase much bigger birds into the wall. He has, on three separate occasions, caused a bigger bird to run into the house so hard that it broke its neck and died. I forget the other two species, but the largest victim was a Guira Cuckoo, which is not exactly a small animal. Yikes. I wonder about the glittering eye of this particular hummer. Was he looking at ME with murder in mind? The wind was still whipping up, so it wasn't good conditions for birding, but we were there when we were there, so we tried anyway. S, D, and I went on a hike with a local guide to check out some reported raptor nest sites. Neither nest was in current use, and when S. said that one of the nests looked like Swallowtail Kite to him, I had to agree based on what I've seen around here. In the mammal line, we had decent looks at Agouti and Howler Monkeys. Oh, and we saw a couple (pair?) of reddish squirrels playing chase with each other. In the raptor line, we encountered Swallowtail, Plumbeous, and Snail Kites, Black and Turkey Vulture, and Short-Tailed Hawk. The other two went with the owner on a short walk to a manakin lek, where they did see the target, although I'm told the birds weren't displaying. We got back around 10:30 or so, and the owner was happy to offer more beer or wine. He assures us that entomologists are far more thirsty visitors than we are, but I did try to hold out until at least 11 A.M. at which point I broke down and accepted what turned out to be a huge glass of red wine. Oh well, we all know that the world wasn't explored by teetolalers. If we wanted to live forever, we probably wouldn't be in Bolivia in the first place, tee hee. The owner's wife cooked another excellent lunch, and I think we all ate too much, but I know I did. There was even a huge layer cake for dessert. A long drive toward Concepcion. There was a funny part where the GPS said that we were driving over a river. If we were, it had dried up. We kept looking for the ferry across the aforementioned river and eventually reached a small patch of remaining water with three flat boats placed end to end to make an impromptu bridge. It worked well enough with a local guy there to guide you where you put your tires -- kind of like the guy at the car wash, except you don't fall in the remaining remnant of a river with five or six Bolivians swimming in it, if you miss the footing for your tires at the car wash. Oh, and everywhere we went in Bolivia was toll roads, with some toll booth manned by a guy in a Vias Bolivia vest, surrounded by several hordes of kids, women, and even sometimes grown men wanting to sell you food or beverage. However, at least twice, just beyond the official toll, there was an additional bit of rope strung up along the road, and you had to stop and pay off some dude who may or may not have been a genuine local police officer. Um, you didn't get a receipt for paying that particular contribucion. On the other hand, since it was only 10 Bolivianos, who really cared? That's less than $1.50, remember? So I entertained myself by trying to figure out how much profit could really be in the scam by the time you paid off the kids who were helping to raise and lower the rope, and then bought beer for all your buddies hanging around with nothing better to do but play eyewitnesses to your various acts of public corruption. I guess there's some money in it, or who would do it, but Peachfront's rule of thumb is that scams and cons are never as profitable in reality as they look to the outside observer, and I bet the profit is surprisingly small after all the pay-offs go out. Locals, by the way, seemed to be allowed to pass without paying and without comment. You could tell the kids recognized particular cars that they allowed to glide through. No use pissing off somebody who can actually stick around and report you to somebody higher up the food chain. At a pond along the way, we observed a most excellent Black-Collared Hawk -- a handsome bird indeed with his pale head, black bow tie of a collar, chestnutty body and attractively black-edged wings. Great light on him too. I called Roseate Spoonbill at another pond, and we backed up so that everyone could see. And our first pair of Golden-Collared Macaws were posed together on a bare limb, shining in the sun as they nuzzled each other -- a true WOW bird, especially in the perfect golden light. A weasel or an otter ran across the road, but nobody seems to know which. I sure don't. It was dark and muddy in that special red mud way by the time we reached Concepcion. We kept turning wrong corners, because they were re-doing the roads, probably in honor of the 300th anniversary of the old cathedral, but we kept reaching dead ends that were blocked off because the street beyond was simply a deep puddle of red muck. Then, somehow, we made a turn, and in the darkness, we could see into the gold and orange light of the cathedral. It was very beautiful but also very welcoming because of the warm quality of the light. You have just read Part 5 of my Bolivia bird of prey trip report. Stay tuned for the exciting conclusion! back - next All Rights Reserved, Copyright 2002-2017 by Elaine Radford