Birds birds birds

First of all, my laptop finally kicked the bucket yesterday, so my posts might be a little less frequent during my travels. It had been threatening to go for about a year now, so it´s no surprise, but still a bummer. Fortunately I backed up all my stuff before I left on this trip!

July 11th
I woke up early in the morning to try to find a special place just outside of town that a guy at the hummingbird garden had recommended to go birding. I did find it, and it was some great dirt roads through the jungle outside of town. I found some good birds, and I also met up with two other birders who are nature guides for the area, and they were scouting out places to take their clients. They were very friendly, and we birded together until it started to rain. I kept birding some, then went back to the hummingbird garden to hang out out of the rain, but still watch birds. After shopping for some food, I caught a bus in the afternoon to the town of Andrecito, a little town about two hours away, but it is close to another park in the area. The bus ride was pleasant, and after arriving in Andrecito, I found a hostel, chilled around in my room for a while, and had a good night´s sleep.

Andrecito is a town that´s based on the production of yerba mate, a drink that I´ve mentioned before. It´s a holly, and they grow it as a bush. I was told that they can harvest 10,000 kg of leaves out of a hectare each year. After the bushes get too big, they cut them all down to their stumps, and then they re-grow. I also bought some "andrecito" brand yerba mate, so you all can try it when I get back.


July 12th
I got up really early to catch a bus before dawn to the Provincial Park Urugua-í. It´s a huge reserve of jungle, and a fantastic place to visit. Unfortunately it was raining all day, but I still managed to see a wide variety of birds, and I got up to my 1000th species! The lucky bird was a Chestnut-headed Tanager skulking around in the bushes. My book says that they normally,"stick to the shadows", go figure. I walked around the park until early afternoon, when I got tired of the rain, and took a bus back to Andrecito. I ended up walking around the town for a couple hours, and I also walked around a yerba mate plantation. I´m pretty tired from walking around all day, but I enjoyed it a lot. Tomorrow I´ll go back to Urugua-í, then go back to Iguazu, and hopefully meet up with a friend and his brother who I´ll be traveling with for the next week.




Yerba Mate bush


Hummingbird Garden


Gilded Hummingbird