Monday 5 October: Happy Birthday to ME

Itinerary:  San Pedro area. Early start to see the Cock-of-the-Rock from a viewing platform above the mating display area (lek), one of the most glorious exhibitions in the whole world of nature. Day spent in the cloud forest viewing wildlife; Woolly Monkeys are a good chance here. Accommodation in a rainforest lodge further down the mountain – 1500masl.

The itinerary got a tad discombobulated here as the Cock-of-the-Rock viewing platform was scheduled for the following day, but as will be revealed it didn't matter at all.  At the start of the day I did not 'fess up to the birthdayness of the date even though another member had done so the previous day.  I just didn't want a fuss made (not that it was likely).
After a good nights sleep, despite my elevated position - we did have an earlyish start to walk down the road from Acca Lodge to see what was around.  My notes record many good birds with Scarlet-bellied Mountain-tanager the pick for most lurid (possibly of the trip, at least in the single-bird category).  {As a parenthesis it is noted that Peruvian birds are the sort of thing that keeps the hyphen and capitalisation police on their toes.  It took me about 4 goes to get avibase to deliver that page.} Unusually, there is only one image in that avibase page but it hints at supporting my claim of luridicity.  I have included a really bad photo - taken by me - of a Golden-collared Tanager which was a luridness contender.


On getting back to the accommodation we had our first experience with Mandrake's approach to breakfast.  A very good spread with the chocolate porridge being an addition to most people's dietary experience, but a very well worthwhile one I might say.   The group also introduced an innovation to an innovation in the shape of  chocolate porridge sandwich: no names, no pack-drill but the perpetrator of this cholestrerol enhancing device survived the experience.

After checking out the view - a great set of interlocking spurs showing no glaciation in this valley - We then rumbled off to explore one of the tracks hacked into the forest by the researchers.  To say they had done a lot of work on this is a massive understatement.  While the elfin forest is not high is is thick and the hillside the track traversed was not a gentle slope.  A key feature of the forest was the absolute profusion of epiphytes, mainly orchids and bromeliads growing on the trees.  The first few kilometres were not that good for birds- I'm not sure they could fit their wings through the vegetation  - but the diversity and spectacle of the plants made up for this.  I have again put my plant photographs on separate page.

Towards the end of the walk I did quietly comment to Ian that the trail seems to have a distinct bias in terms of down.  He assured me that we were walking down to rejoin the bus before riding back up to the lodge.  At about this point the birding picked up quite a lot with several elfin forest specials entering the list.  This had the usual effect of our speed dropping quite a bit and we were greeted with some applause when we finally rejoined the non-birder members of the team.  Sorry, guys.

After a large lunch we were back on the road again.  This time I was on the side which got a good  - but not too close - look at the rivers.  I noted that the road got rather thin on my side.  I definitely did not think about the great movie The_Wages_of_Fear during this part of the trip.  This was particularly the case when the driver negotiated the site of the occasional landslide, giving a clear view of several elements of the switchbacks.   There were also a few tunnels t be negotiated where one of the tributary streams and a rock outcrop coincided.  This was not a problem for our bus but we did wonder at times how some of the trucks made it through them.  Juan commented that the drivers were all very experienced and knew what they could get through.  The image is of a bit of road just after going through a tunnel - our bus is the more distant one (I had permission from the leaders to go back to take this shot!) .

Certainly our driver was another magician in terms of knowing the territory and what he could do safely.  The classic exposition of this was when he met a wider than usual truck in a narrower than usual bit of road.  He hopped out and walked to the back of the pull off area on to whih he'd have to reverse.  On getting to the edge he jumped up and down a few times and decided where it was save to go.  He then built a small cairn which he could see through his mirror and backed up to it.  The truck driver wanted him to go back further but got no reaction, so he had to go closer to the uphill cliff.   Tough.  As I have said our driver was brilliant.

As well as stopping for oncoming traffic we also stopped for good birds.  One of these was a Highland Mot-mot (see left, and I am not at all sure of the correct hyphenation there) and the final one was for a lek of Cock-of-the-Rock (hyphenation all present and correct, but I have no idea of the plural for this species.  Options include:

• Cocks-of-the-Rock;
• Cock-of-the-Rocks; and
  
• Cocks-of-the-Rocks.

 Does it matter?  Probably not.  I saw a Cock-of-the-Rock lek on my birthday as promised by the Itineraray and as far as I am concerned that is the extremely happy end of the story.

We ended up at the Cock-of-the-Rock lodge just as evening fell.  In addition to the vino tinto which Juan had thoughtfully brought along this place had enough electricity from its solar system to sell cerveza fria (ie cold beer).  Magic.
 
A slight annoyance was the behaviour of one member of another group staying at the lodge.  He seemed to be a gear-freak who left his (probably expensive) kit strewn all over the communal area.  This became an issue when he couldn't locate his flashlight.  Instead of assuming he had misplaced it he immediately seemed to start pointing comments at our group that we had something to do with the disappearance of his "$150 flashlight".  My first thought was that he defined 'ugly American' and my second was that anyone who spent $150 on a flashlight was a dickhead anyway.

Whatever.  Another great meal and and a good evening.