Peru – Land of the Incas and much more

Deborah M. Buehler – Travel Chronicle

My heart sank as I rounded the bend and was faced with yet another bank of steep Inca steps. I had been trekking for hours and still the trail climbed upward. With every turn I imagined the camp around the corner. Then just as I thought I could hike no more, I saw tents in the distance – I had survived Day 1 of the Inca Trail! Before me lay a stunning view of snowcapped peaks and between them a green valley with the winding trail that I had just climbed. Added to the view was a keen sense of accomplishment, a ton of endorphins from the climb, and a pleasant bit of light-headedness from the attitude – Ah what a feeling! 

Two days later I was again overcome by the beauty and power of the Inca Trail. This time I was standing amid one of Peru’s most recently discovered ruins - Huiñay Huayna. The name means “forever young” and the site is a small collection of peaked structures clustered amid velvet green terraces and thick cloud forest. Like Machu Picchu, the site was not found by the Spanish (in fact it wasn’t discovered until 1941, long after Machu Picchu’s 1911 discovery), so it remains almost entirely intact, but unlike Machu Picchu it is rarely visited and so, to me, it retains more of it’s ancient magic. Standing amid the Inca stones and gazing at the lush valley and tumbling waterfall that the Incas themselves once pondered, I could feel the natural power of the site flowing through my body. The experience solidified my belief that the Incas had a deep and powerful connection with the natural world, much more so than our culture can imagine.

 

Most visitors come to Peru to explore the ruins of the Incas. But the civilizations of Peru span beyond the Inca Empire and glimpses of these mystery shrouded civilizations can be seen throughout the country. In the northern desert near Trujillo, the ruins of the Chimú capital of Chan Chan seem to rise out of the sand. Built about 700 years ago these intricately decorated adobe compounds still retain some of their original splendor. Nearby lie the Moche temples of the sun and moon. These ruins predate the Chan Chan by about 700 years and the Huaca del Sol (the sun temple) contains 140 million adobe bricks and is Peru’s largest Pre-Columbian structure. There is something indescribable about standing atop the Huaca del Sol at sunset. Although the sprawling city of Trujillo now dominates the view, one gets an inkling of what the ancient Moche people might have seen.

 

Culturally southern Peru is no less stunning. On the south coast visitors and scientists, most notably German mathematician María Reiche, are still trying to decipher the Nazca lines - enormous geoglyphs etched into the pampas. In the high passes of the altiplano one still finds stone figures called Apachetas. These sculptures were first built by the Arriero pre-Incas to give thanks to the volcano gods for water. Today they are built by tourists who use them to make wishes. The Apachetas contrast the Arriero’s belief in giving thanks and our current culture’s unending need for more. At the southern end of Peru in the deep blue waters of Lake Titikaka one finds the floating islands of Uros. Although no pure blooded Uros remain (the Uros people intermarried with Ayrama speaking indeigenous Peruvians), their floating culture persists. The Uros people began their floating existence to escape invading Colla and Inca armies during pre-Columbian times. Their lives are literally “interwoven” with the totora reeds that grow in the shallows of the lake. The reeds are used to make everything from boats, to houses, to the floating islands themselves! Walking on the islands was quite an experience and gave me the sensation of walking on a firm sponge.

Yet even beyond cultural history Peru has much to offer. Peru is South America’s third largest country and can be divided into three geographical regions. To the west is a narrow coastal strip that is mostly desert, yet contains most of Peru’s 27 million inhabitants. Agricultural centers are found in oases within the desert created by rivers draining from the highlands into the Pacific. The Andes lie in the middle of the country, rising steeply from the desert and reaching heights of 6000m just 100 km from the coast. The mountains of the Cordillera Blanca to the north are a climbers dream and hold Huascarán, which at 6768m is Peru’s highest peak. Descending the eastern slope of the Andes cloud forest gives way to the lowland rainforest of the Amazon Basin. Occupying half of Peru, the Amazon region is one of the world's top 10 biodiversity 'hot spots', is awe inspiring to the ecologist and tourist alike. As an ornithologist both the highlands and the jungle delighted me. I’ll never forget the experience of watching eight Andean Condors (with 3m wingspans) soar around me in the Colca Canyon, or the sight of four Scarlet Macaws battling over a nesting site in the rainforest of the Tambopata-Candamo reserve.

Peru is a nation steeped in cultural history and natural beauty. It is the land of the Incas, but it is also a country that offers the visitor much much more. Within Peru lie the foundations of many great civilizations and it was recently discovered that even the Amazon River originates within its borders. An international team of scientists traced the mighty river to a stream beginning on Nevado Mismi, a mountain in Southern Peru!

Experience Ecuador – El Mitad del Mundo

D. M. Buehler. 2004. Roof-top perch is a rail travel adventure. The Toronto Star. January 29, 2004.

At 8:30 pm on my first day of travel in Ecuador, I found myself seated in Quito’s glorious Iglesia de La Compañia de Jesús watching the Andean Instrument Orchestra play Bach on quenas, charangos and pan flutes. As the orchestra switched to the haunting tones of a traditional Andean ballad, I sat back to admire the golden interior of the church. La Compañia is decorated with over seven tons of gold, taken from the Incas by Spanish conquistadors centuries ago. Yet today, traditional music is being celebrated here amid the gold, played by Ecuadorians of both indigenous and Spanish descent, the music and the gold, strands of Ecuador’s historical fabric, woven together once more. This celebration of culture, past and present, is part of what makes Ecuador so attractive to the visitor. Ecuadorians have a lot to be proud of, and the fact that I was invited to an exclusive concert by complete strangers mere hours after landing in Quito, is a testimony to the kindness of the Ecuadorian people and their eagerness to share their country with visitors.

 

Lying along the equator with Columbia to the north and Peru to the south, Ecuador is no bigger than the state of Nevada, yet it has some of the world’s most varied geography. The country can be divided into four regions, a low coastal region to the west, the Andes running north/south in the middle, the jungles of the Amazon Basin to the east, and the Galapagos Archipelago off the Pacific coast. My Ecuador experience mirrored that of many budget travelers and focused on the Andean highland region.

The Andes Mountains bisect the country and hold the majority of the country’s 13 million inhabitants including its capital city, Quito. At 2850m Quito is the second highest capital city on earth (after La Paz, Bolivia) and with its modern tram and bus system I found it easy to explore on my own. The northern part of the city, known as the New Town, is modern and houses major businesses, embassies and travel agencies, but I gravitated towards the colonial Old Town to the south. With its narrow streets, beautifully restored plazas, and gorgeous colonial churches the Old Town is a delight, and was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1978.

But Ecuador offers much more than beautiful cities. Three days after my arrival in Quito I found myself near the summit of Volcan Cayambe, gazing in disbelief at the spectacular lobes and crevices of a glacier on the equator! It was hard to know whether my breathlessness was from the beauty or from the fact that I was hiking at 5000m. At 5750m, Cayambe is the highest peak in the world which lies on the equator and is a wonderful discovery for travelers who want to avoid tourist crowds at the only slightly higher Volcan Cotopaxi to the south.

Slightly more touristy, but a wonderfully different way to see the countryside, is the train from Riobamba to Alausí. Although passenger cars are available, most people ride on the roof. When I first heard of roof-top riding, I pictured a roof-top sitting area … imagine my surprise as I climbed a thin ladder up to the sloped roof of a box car, armed with nothing but a small plastic cushion! Although it felt a little precarious at first, my rooftop position offered a perfect view of Ecuador’s rich farmland, a mosaic of velvet greens blending with rich browns on the mountain slopes. The ride finished with a hair raising descent down el Nariz del Diablo (the Devil’s Nose), a sheer rock face that the train navigated by advancing and backing up on a zigzag of track cut out of the rock.

A single experience marred what was otherwise a wonderful excursion and it highlights the importance of responsible tourism when visiting developing countries. On the train many vendors walked the roof and a few of them encouraged tourists to buy candy for the children of the mountain villages. The children gathered around the train and vendors as well as tourists threw the candy to them. Obviously, the tourists felt that their gift was bringing a bit of joy into the children’s lives, but the result was just the opposite. The kids scrambled all over one another on the ground like dogs for the candy. The scene brought tears to my eyes. I have seen a great number of poor people in my travels and one thing that always strikes me is their dignity. But throwing cheap offerings to children as if they were animals robs them of their dignity. It teaches them that the people riding high on the train are better than them, it teaches them that tourists will give them treats for nothing, it teaches them to beg.

When traveling it is important to think about how your actions affect the cultures you are visiting. For example, giving candy to children in a mountain town with no dentists often causes more pain than joy, even if it is donated face to face in a dignified manner. If you would like to give something to the country while traveling, better options could be donations to local schools, or recognized agencies which provide food and housing in poor neighborhoods. Another avenue for donations are conservation agencies that train locals as guides.

Ecuador may be a poor country in terms of GDP figures and other measures of economic growth, but in terms of history, culture and natural beauty it is very rich. During my visit the country and its inhabitants delighted me; from wandering the colorful Saturday market in Otavalo, to soaking in the hot springs at Baños after a day of hiking around Volcan Tungurahua, to gazing in wonder at a towering Podocarpus tree (now Prumnopithis montana) in Podocarpus National Park. From its equatorial location in el mitad del mundo (the middle of the world), Ecuador offers a bit of everything and is a joy to visit.

I left a piece of my heart in Panama

Lose Your Heart to Panama’s Beauty

D. M. Buehler. 2003. Lose your heart to Panama’s Beauty. The Toronto Star. October 4, 2003.

It is said that the word Panama stems from in an indigenous word meaning “the abundance of fish”, or “the abundance of butterflies”, or even “the abundance of a certain species of tree” – for me Panama simply means “abundance”.

I got my first peek at Panama’s “abundance” as my plane descended through a thick layer of cumulus clouds in May of 2000. As we broke through the clouds, an expanse of tropical forest was visible through a thick curtain of humidity. I would later discover that Panama’s forests harbor more species than any New World country north of Columbia, species that include jaguars and harpy eagles! The forest gave way to kilometers of mangroves and mudflats as the plane arched over the Pacific coast. This coastal habitat east of Panama City supports hundreds of thousands of shorebirds every year. Below the plane the ocean was dotted with hundreds of boats waiting to enter the famous Panama Canal, and in the distance I could see the Canal itself, a golden ribbon flanked by green mountains. As we circled back east, the skyscrapers of Panama’s capital city gleamed in the setting sun. In stark contrast to the glass towers, the ruins of the old city gave me a hint of Panama’s rich colonial history, a past rich in Peruvian gold, gold that was carried across the Isthmus to the Caribbean Sea by Spanish conquistadors, and often intercepted by pirates. In only a few minutes I had glimpsed a few of the wonders that Panama, a tiny country only about 2.5 times the size of Vancouver Island, has to offer.

Since I first landed in Panama, I have spent almost two years living and working in this beautiful country. My experience has been that of both a tourist and a local due to my status as “casada con panameño” – married to a Panamanian. I met my husband quite literally in the jungle where we were both working as Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute scientists. Our first date is a stunning example of what can be seen in a single day in Panama.

The date began with an excursion to Campana National Park, located 60 kilometers west of Panama City, in the foothills of the western mountains. After exiting the Inter-American highway, we drove up the mountain on a dirt road as far as the car would take us (this definitely required 4 wheel drive). The trail to the summit, over 1000 meters in altitude, cut through a beautiful patch of cloud forest. I felt is if I were walking in an enchanted and moss covered forest that one reads about as a child, brimming with a myriad of exotic birds and plants. The view from the top was exhilarating. We could see miles of foothills to the west, and the Pacific Ocean to the south. Black Vultures, American Swallow-tailed Kites and even a White Hawk rode the thermals around us, soaring by at eye level. It rained hard on us during the hike down and we arrived at the car caked in mud. For me the morning was like having permission to be a kid again, to get absolutely covered in dirt, to play, and to wonder at life like a child.

After the hike we drove down the mountain and to my astonishment within forty-five minutes we were at the beach! The Pacific beaches in Panama are interesting because in some places the sand is full of iron and it is black. It is absolutely beautiful to look at (picture ground coal covered in silver sparkles) but you definitely need sandals to walk across! That afternoon we swam, lounged and watched flocks of Brown Pelicans and Magnificent Frigatebirds go by. I was in absolute awe as I watched these huge birds, with wingspans of six feet, skim over the waves. They have pelicans in Panama like we have Canada geese in Toronto! After the beach we drove back to Panama City and danced until the wee hours of the morning in one of Panama City’s many nightclubs. When I talk about this first date, most people understand why I married the guy, and almost two years later at the wedding, many commented that my heart had been stolen not just my husband, but by the country itself. They were right.

Since that fateful first date I have seen more wonders in Panama than have most Panamanians. I have marveled at the magnificent blue green tail of a male Resplendent Quetzal in mountain forest 2500m up, and then swam in clear Caribbean waters only 80 km away in awe of hundreds of iridescent tropical fish. I have wandered through indigenous Kuna villages where huts can be constructed in a day (many of them with TV antennas jutting through the thatch roofs), property is passed along from mother to daughter, and all Kuna government decisions are made lying in hammocks! Panama has even opened my eyes to a few cultural issues at home. Dating a Panamanian taught me the trials of bringing a foreign boyfriend home to meet the folks, when we were faced with a year long battle with Canadian immigration to obtain a simple visitor’s visa! But on the bright side, Panama (and Canadian immigration) meant that I was married at sunset, on a beach by the Pacific, to a man I know I love since we had to fight hard to be together. Our wedding rings are made from titanium to symbolize strength, and engraved with the inscription “Love without borders”; our battles have made us stronger.

For me Panama means an abundance of everything, sights, sounds, smells and feelings. It is forested mountains, white sand beaches, gleaming skyscrapers, and people whose smiles can melt your heart. Panama is a place that gets inside your soul, a place that must be experienced.

For more information on Panama visit: www.panamatours.com

Arctic Adventures (May and June 2002)

Deborah M. Buehler – Travel Chronicle

The trip began May 30^th with a very short flight to Montreal where I was to meet the rest of the shorebird team: a big boss from the Shorebird Conservation Plan, a grad student at the University of Alberta, and a grad student at Simon Fraser University. The purpose of the expedition was to get information on shorebird breeding densities in arctic Quebec (as well as information about any other bird species we might encounter). The morning of the 31^st we boarded an Air Inuit Dash 8-100 twin propeller plane and headed north. Through the window we could see the forests change from mixed deciduous, to boreal, to taiga until they finally petered out all together. Beyond that there was nothing but snow-covered tundra as far as the eye could see. A single word came to my mind – vast. As we flew over Hudson Bay I could see cracks appearing in the seasonal sea ice. The melt was just beginning near the tree line, but farther north where we would be staying, the ice was still frozen solid.

Just after noon we landed in the Inuit community of Puvirnituq just north of the 60^th parallel. The town was well organized and equipped with a new school, a hospital and a hotel. Newly constructed duplex houses replaced the caribou hide tents and igloos which were once the trademarks of a more mobile Inuit community. An Inuit man named Aliva Tulugak, who owned the hunting camp where we planned to stay, met us at the airport. The camp was located 60 km south of Puvirnituq and we had planned to fly there in a small Twin Otter aircraft. Unfortunately there was still at least a meter of snow on the ground and the landing strip was covered. Plan B was to reach the camp by snow mobile. I was ecstatic. Riding on snow mobile over the ice of Hudson Bay and the surrounding tundra was an exhilarating experience! Three Inuit men took us to the camp using their snow machines and sleighs which carried our gear. Not long ago, the sleighs were pulled exclusively by dog teams, but today most Inuit people opt for faster and more powerful snowmobiles. Along the way we stopped to chat with other Inuit locals and were given tea and bannock. We arrived at the Tuksukatak River Camp at around 9:30 pm. The sky was still bright and the landscape covered with snow. I was astounded to see that the camp’s buildings were surrounded by huge three meter drifts. Obviously the land was still in winter’s grip. A large common cabin was central to the camp. It was heated and had a living room, a dining area and a well equipped kitchen. Around the main cabin were smaller sleeping cabins each with four single beds and a diesel heater. These were luxury accommodations for arctic fieldwork. Upon our arrival at camp we met the CWS Goose team which consisted of husband and wife and three other students and field technicians. Together we made nine people at the camp and it was somewhat like living with the Brady bunch.

Our first few days at the camp were fairly low key. We were unable to do any shorebird work due to the snow cover. The snow melted very slowly and the weather didn’t help. Daytime highs hovered around four degrees with cold northerly winds, and each night the temperature dipped below freezing, suspending the melt. One night I awoke to a snowstorm and found a small snowdrift developing on the inside of our cabin! Blowing snow was accumulating through a small crack between the door and the doorframe.

The downtime gave us lots of time to explore the camp area if one was willing to slog through the deep snow. Each day I went on long walks trying to learn the tundra plants which grew on exposed ridges and the songs of birds as they slowly arrived from the south. Some of the snowdrifts reached my waist and I was very grateful to have hip waders. During the winter the snow’s crust is hard and thick, thus walking on the snow is not a problem. However, in spring daytime temperatures above freezing soften the crust. I sunk a lot! During these long walks through the tundra I saw my first Arctic Fox and Caribou as well as many new birds including Rock Ptarmigan, Golden Eyes, various Mergansers, Oldsquaws, Pintails, Green-winged Teals, Short-eared Owls, Snowy Owls, Long-tailed and Parasitic Jaegers and a variety of passerines. The first shorebirds to be seen were Semipalmated Sandpipers and Dunlins. Later came American Golden Plovers, Black Bellied Plovers, Semipalmated Plovers, Least Sandpipers and White Rumped and Baird’s Sandpipers migrating through. A few Ruddy Turnstones passed through along the coast but sadly no Red Knots (my study species).

During our waiting days there was time for our Inuit friends to hunt and fish and we had a few excellent dinners of Arctic Char and Snow Goose (the snow goose populations have exploded and they few over us in the hundreds and thousands during migration further north). Everyone at the camp knew how to shoot a gun, many of them because they had worked in regions with polar bears and others because they or their family members hunted. I decided that since there was a lot of down time I would learn how to shoot a gun and I received lessons on both rifle and shotgun training. The rifle had barely any kick at all but the shotgun certainly wakes you up when you shoot. Surprisingly though neither hurt my shoulder as I had expected. Now at least I know what it feels like to shoot and I feel that if I did have to work in a region with polar bears (there were none where we were) I would be able to do a descent job in a gun training course.

The nights were nearly non-existent and although the sun was not above the horizon at midnight (one needs to be above the Arctic Circle for that), it did not slip below the horizon until 10:30 at night and the sky was still edged in a pink and golden light at midnight. It was like a five-hour sunset/sunrise as the sun hung just below the northern horizon before rising like a fiery red ball just before 4 am.

On June 9^th the snow had finally melted enough to begin work. We went to five different 10 ha plots a day and surveyed for as many territorial or nesting birds as we could find. Each day a coast guard helicopter arrived to fly us to our plots. I have never in my life ridden in a helicopter for so much time (almost 30 hours in all) and at it was spectacular. I loved the feeling of flying, simply floating off the ground without a runway. The freedom to hover, to land anywhere and to spin in circles while surveying was a huge benefit was exciting. We flew at approximately the soaring height of a large raptor and I felt that it was the closest thing to flying without aid that I have experienced (I will need to try hand gliding!). Below us the tundra looked endless and we could see small groups of Caribou migrating north. The ground was crisscrossed with their migration trails. Also clearly visible from the air were hummocks, frost boils, tussock wetlands, and in a few places tundra polygons and eskers. All of these landforms are the result of glaciers or permafrost. As the days passed, more and more snow melted causing fast flowing melt rivers to cut impressive gorges through snow filled valleys. On Hudson Bay water formed over the thick ice producing a stunning shade of aqua blue. Each day the helicopter dropped each of us at a different plot and we had just over an hour to survey. The first few times I got tingles as I watched the helicopter fly away and realized that I was completely alone is this barren and at the same time vibrantly alive landscape.

Although we did not find any shorebird nests due to the late spring thaw we were able to get data on territorial pairs and I learned quite a number of shorebird aerial displays. We did find a few passerine nests and to my utter delight I found both a Rough-legged Hawk nest and a Snowy Owl. Both nests gave me stunning views of the adult birds as they circled and called at me for my invasion.

All in all it was for me a very successful trip. I met a lot of interesting people and our camp had an excellent group dynamic which made it fun to live there. I didn’t even miss showers! I saw many new things but missed enough (for example full midnight sun, the northern lights, musk oxen, phalaropes, gyrfalcons and perhaps polar bear) to want to do it again.

Tierra del Fuego Tales (November 2001)

Deborah M. Buehler – Travel Chronicle

I started the trip off in style thanks to my supervisor’s Elite Aeroplan status. With his card we through first class check-in and then into the Air Canada Elite members lounge. It was very posh with complimentary drinks, snacks and reading material. It certainly made the wait for boarding the aircraft more enjoyable.

The flight from Toronto to São Paulo, Brazil took 10 hours and was uneventful. Much to my delight the in flight movie was “Bridget Jones’ Diary” (Kristin you were right I loved it). I was quite excited to fly into São Paulo as I was wondering what a city of 16 million would look like. As it turns out I didn’t see much. Apparently a city of 16 million with a temperature of 30 Celsius looks like brown and murky. The smog was so thick I could barely make out the buildings. Happily the view of Buenos Aires after another 2.5 hours of flight was crystal clear. Buenos Aires has at least 12 million people but was only 24 degrees and was having favorable winds when we flew in.

We spent one night in Buenos Aires and it was spectacular – a huge city filled with culture and vibrancy. We were there on a Wednesday night but the streets were alive all night long and the activity looked more like Toronto on a holiday weekend than on a Wednesday. During my short stay I was able to see La Casa Rosada where Eva Peron (Evita) gave her ground-breaking speeches and where thousands stood to watch when Juan Peron brought her dying body out onto the balcony for the people to say goodbye. I also strolled through La Plaza de Mayo (after May 10, 1810 – the start of the revolution against Spain) where every Thursday a groups of mothers meet to protest and mourn the loss of their loved ones during the dictatorship. Later in the evening we walked down Via Florida, which is a long pedestrian shopping district lined with cafes, shops and street musicians. On the way from the airport we also drove along the famed Avenida 9 de Julio (the widest street in Buenos Aires, named for the anniversary of Argentina’s independence from Spain in 1816) where we saw the Obelisk (very reminiscent of Paris).

The next morning we took one final flight to the island of Tierra del Fuego (affectionately called the “end of the world”). The flight took 3 hours (for a total of 15 hours air time Toronto to Tierra del Fuego) and as we landed I got my first glimpse of the barren and windy Patagonian Steppe and the town of Rio Grande (base camp for our work). The landscape was made up of golden brown grasses dotted with scrubby bush vegetation including Calafate and Michay shrubs. There was a complete lack of trees due to the cold, dry and windy climate. It looked and felt like a cold desert.

Our first few days at the “end of the world” were filled with activity as we prepared equipment for catching birds and began the catches themselves. We made our first catch using canons and a large net on Nov 4th. It was a large success and we were able to get re-trap data on a umber of birds as well as measure, bleed and flag over new birds. All in all over 200 birds were processed. Unfortunately, after the first catch it seemed that our luck for catching had dried up. We were out smarted by the birds for 4 days before our next successful catch. Scanning birds on Atlanitc beaches and extensive tidal flats occupied the unsuccessful days. Generally we looked for flags first (colors representing the countries where each bird was banded – Orange=Argentina, Blue=Brazil, Red=Chile, Blue=Brazil, Green=USA and White=Canada). After seeing the flags we looked for color band combinations that would tell us the year and place of capture. Our next successful catch came on Nov 10 after days of planning strategies and following the bird’s movements. We set the net on a sandy outcrop called Punta Popper and using a team of visitors and locals on foot and on ATV’s herded the birds into the catching area. A group of us waited, shivering in the firing position (where the firing box which activates the canons is located). I was on the box was the one who got to push the button after hearing; “Arm the box! Switch in the canons! 3-2-1-FIRE!” It was quite a rush. That second catch trapped ~370 birds and our team processed 299 of them. It was a much deserved success.

On Nov. 11th I got a day off and took the opportunity to go to Ushuaia (the southern most city on the planet). The drive alone was spectacular, beginning with swaths of barren steppe habitat where I saw my first Guanaco (a large land ungulate related to llamas) and a vast variety of steppe birds. As we drove further south the golden brown grasses of the steppe gave way to shrubby and then full sized trees which made up a forest much like the beech forest found in New Zealand. This forest was made up primarily of trees in the genus Nothofagus and included Lengas, Guidos and Ñires. The trees were covered in a variety of mosses, the most striking being “old man’s beard” (Usnea barbata). We drove through the town of Tolhuin (know as the heart of Tierra del Fuego) and were presented with the stunning vista of the lower Andes towering over the huge fresh water Lake Fagnano. In Tolhuin we lost the pavement and began our ascent into the Cordillera on a road of winding gravel. The mountains were craggy and majestic with the tree line coming approximately halfway to the summits. The peaks were covered in snow and glaciers could be seen. At the height of the mountain pass we stopped to take pictures and were rewarded with a glimpse of the spectacular Andean Condor gilding gracefully through the peaks on a stunning 3 meter wingspan. The road then wound past stomach tightening turns with steep drop offs and the utter lack of guardrails taking us down into vast peat valleys whose floors were a rusty red from the deposition of Sphagnum mosses. Finally after 4 hours of postcard vistas, the road descended to the waters of the Beagle Canal and the town of Ushuaia.

In Ushuaia I took a 3 hour tour of the Beagle Canal (named after Fitz Roy’s 1826-1830 voyage of the Beagle– he was joined by Charles Darwin on his second expedition through the canal in 1831-1836). On the water I met a variety of back packing travelers and saw colonies of nesting Antarctic Terns and King Cormorants. Chilean Skuas and Giant Petrels soared overhead and on the rocky islands fur seals and sea lions sunned themselves. To my left and right on either side of the canal mountains towered (Argentina to the north and Chile to the south). It was a spectacular day. The type of day that reminds me why I love to travel and replenishes my wonder at the magnificence of the world we live in.

The day after our return from Ushuaia we piled into a car and headed for the border. The crossing was uneventful and by mid morning I had a Chilean stamp in my passport. Our work in Chile was centered on Bahia Lomas, a huge tidal bay with mud flats 7 to 10 kilometers long. The work was cold and windy but I was in field heaven. The landscape was spectacular. Each day we drove a 4X4 overland into the steppe past herds of guanacos and a plethora of birds – it was like being on safari! The beaches were littered with hundreds of nearly complete skeletons of False Orca (Pseudorca) dolphins, the remains of a mass beaching in 1989 and we hiked kilometers out over Salicornia fields ribboned with tidal canals, and slick mud flats in search of Red Knots. It was cold, windy and dirty – real fieldwork!

At the end of our trip to Chile I talked my way into a road trip to the mainland – Continental Patagonia. The overnight excursion included a return crossing of the Straits of Magellan (named after the first expedition to the southern latitudes by Hernando de Magellanes in 1520 – he actually coined the name Tierra del Fuego most likely in reference to the fires lit on the island by indigenous peoples). Along the way I saw tiny Commerson’s Dolphin’s frolicking in the ship’s wake and two Magellanic Penguins! On the continent we took a detour to see a colony of nesting Rock Cormorants and hit the Patagonian Steppe just as the sun was beginning to set. At this time of year in the southern latitudes sunset seems to last forever and the steppe was golden under a big blue sky for hours. The landscape opened up in all directions, the Strait glistening to the south and the ridged and rolling steppe to the north. All along the drive on the mainland Lesser Rheas (related to Ostriches) grazed in fields. What a magnificent site.

After returning to Argentinean Tierra del Fuego (an 8 hour bus trip from the town of Punta Arenas on the mainland). Our team again attempted to catch Knots. We were foiled twice before making a successful capture the morning of my flight home. A mere hour and a half before I was to be at the airport I was lying down in a hide on the beach waiting for a call to fire. We captured over 500 birds that day and had them safely extracted by the time I left for the airport. For the safety of the birds many were set free without processing but as I flew north over the beach I could see the team working. They successfully processed over 140 birds that day. All in all it was a very successful expedition both from a scientific data-gathering standpoint and from my own sightseeing standpoint. For those of you with a travel bug (and I know there are many) I highly recommend Tierra del Fuego. It is a wonderful place to see a variety of rugged landscapes and interesting flora and fauna. During the austral summer the days are very long (the shortest night in December being a mere 2-3 hours) allowing for maximum touring and working time. My only caution - dress warm and be prepared for high winds daily in what may be the windiest place on earth.