Hiking Around Puerto Varas

Imagine Rotorua. The town is on a lovely lake. Would you call Rotorua a port? I wouldn´t, but in Chile it seems that any settlement by the water can be called Puerto something.

I did walk along the lakefront, but I mainly stayed in Puerto Varas and explored from there.

On Thursday I took a guided trip to Parque Nacional Alerces Andino. The organisation of the tour was a farce of non-communication and mismatched expectations. I was under the clear impression that I was to be picked up from the hostel at 9:00am and returned at 5:00pm. The minibus actually showed up at 9:30. Not because it had been going round hotels and hostels collecting other tourists, though. I was the only one. That explained the steep price tag at 40,000 pesos (US$80).

A rather fat woman collected the cash from me and the van set off with the driver, the lady with the cash and me. The route to the park went through Puerto Montt (a proper port on the sea), where we paused for diesel. 15,000 of the pesos went into the fuel tank and some more into a cubby hole in the dash board. There was then a protracted argument between Senora Fatty and the driver, Enrique, until the lady was delivered to her premises in Pto Montt.

Next, Enrique insisted that the tourists had to pay for the guide´s lunch. It wasn´t expensive, he bought rolls, ham and a bottle of mineral water at a small store, but it was quite unexpected. And when we got to the park I had to pay admission charges for both of us. It was only $2 per person, and admissions are customarily "not included", but previously the guide has been admitted free (or paid out of the trip price). These little extras were beginning to mount up.

Then, on our return, Enrique drove to Pto Montt and refused to go further without an extra 10,000 pesos. This was absurd, since the fare on the local buses is only 700 pesos. He explained that he had only been paid 30,000 pesos (half of which went on fuel), which was his normal fee for starting and finishing in Pto Montt. He was already out of pocket on the morning pickup and refused to do another round trip to Pto Varas gratis. I could see his point of view and, equally, Enrique could understand that I had been promised more than he was prepared to provide.

Eventually he dropped me at the Pto Montt bus terminal and I got one of the micros that leave every 5 minutes for Pto Varas for 700 pesos. At this stage I suspected that Senora Fatty had promised more than was reasonable to secure the booking and her massive 25% commission.

Back at the hostel I related as much of this as my Spanish would allow. Oh yes, was the reply. You paid the Pto Montt fare. From Pto Varas it is 50,000 pesos. And yes, he knew the pickup was at 9:30, not 9:00. Aaargh. If only someone had used some wits, I could have cought a micro to Pto Montt in the morning for 700 pesos and no-one would be feeling aggrieved.

However, Enrique was pushing the boundaries on the lunch. Tourists sometimes chip in for the guide´s lunch, but it is not obligatory.

Aside from all this drama, the visit to the park was delightful. Enrique knew the park well. Whilst the trails were easy to follow, they were ofetn steep and frequently treacherous. Much of the way we were walking on planks or half logs covered in moss or decayed leaves, making them very slippery. I skidded a few times, including one keystone cops routine when both feet slipped, I thrashed wildly and miraculously finished up still on my feet beside the track. Even the guide stumbled and once ended up hugging a tree to stay upright. Enrique related that many gringos get lost on the park when they go tramping by themselves. I´m not averse to a solo hike on easy trails, but on these paths that´s just stupidity.

For a nature guide, Enrique was unreliable about birds. When I asked him which bird we could hear singing he replied that it was a swallow (unlikely) or a thrush (definitely not). And he pointed to a group of birds flying across our field of view as woodpeckers. If those weren´t pigeons I´m a Dutchman. He retrieved some prestige when he motioned me to be quiet and a chucao was ahead of us on the trail. This is a small brown bird with a red chest, not entirely unlike a european robin. It regarded us with a bright eye and hopped down the path to get a better look before disappearing into the undergrowth. He also told me that there were hummingbirds in the forest, which I later confirmed through my binoculars.

But we had really come to see trees and here Enrique seemed to know his stuff. The park is named for Chile´s tallest tree, the alerce. Like NZ´s kauri, it provides wonderful timber. There are houses with alerce shingles over 100 years old and still in excellent condition. Again like the kauri, it was logged aggressively until finally receiving state protection. Unlike the kauri it grows extremely slowly and is not regenerating well.

Fitzroya cupressoides is a relative of the giant sequoia, with similar soft bark and distinctly reddish timber. It grows very straight and rather skinny. Enrique led the way to a very nice stand of these trees and I took lots of photos from various angles.

My guide seemd to know most of the other trees almost as well. He had a great enthusiasm for taking my picture when we reached points of interest. It´s a shame it wasn´t matched by skill in composing a photo. Never mind, when I get back to NZ I can crop them to just the important bits.

On the return journey he demonstrated the edibility of a plant something like a hairy rhubarb. Peeling away the outer layer reveals a stem less crunchy and more refreshing than celery. I´m sure we shouldn´t have eaten one growing in a national park, but it is a herb that grows abundantly in the region.

I was also surprised that the park ranger had a cat, a young and lively animal that smooched readily when stroked. I´m sure thay are forbidden from NZ´s protected areas.

Friday was organised quite differently. I took a local bus to Petrohue. It dropped me at Los Saltos de Petrohue, i.e. the local waterfalls. They were very watchable waterfalls, with the river splitting into many channels that funneled back into two main falls, with many chutes in the arrangement, lots of white water and plenty of noise. Bridges and fenced paths allow good views of most of the turbulent water and encourage the visitor to take large numbers of photographs. I really wanted to get a picture of the whole network, but that would require a helicopter. There isn´t even a postcard.

There are some other tracks through very picturesque bush. They are safe and easy to follow, so I wandered happily for a couple of hours. Since I was in roughly the same latitude as NZ´s South Island and there is plenty of rain from the prevailing westerlies, the Chilean temperate rainforest is very similar to ours. The Chileans don´t have tree ferns, though. I described them to Enrique on the Thursday and he had never come across a fern with a trunk.

After the waterfalls I had a 6 km hike to downtown Petrohue, which comprises a hotel, a general store, a souvenir stall and a dock where fleets of boats take tourists out on the lake. It is part of a very scenic route into Argentina. You are eventually delivered into Bariloche, where I was about a month ago.

The lake shore here is black sand, no doubt due to the past activity of Osorno Volcano, which dominates one part of the skyline. The morning ten tenths cloud had departed by the time I got to the lake so I was treated to the rare and beautiful sight of the whole of Osorno. It is a perfect volcanic cone, like Mt Fuji or Mt Ngaruhoe, two thirds clothed in dazzlingly white snow. Gorgeous.

There were campsites and plenty of paths through the bush where I ambled, binoculars at the ready. No new species, but I had excellent sightings of several birds, including the tufted tit-tyrant. Truly, I did not make that name up. It is very common, but it is small and active and I generally found it hard to get in focus. When you do see it clearly it has two thin, forward-curling crests.

The bush thins very quickly as you climb up from the lake. Whether this is due to sudden exposure to colder temperatures, fiercer winds or some property of the volcano I cannot guess.

And so back to Pto Varas to download my camera´s memory card for security purposes. I like to have a spare in case of some disaster with the camera. There was just enough time to check email and have a meal before shouldering my big pack and boarding the overnight bus for Valparaiso.

Which is where I am now. I fly to Easter Island tomorrow. Maybe I will have a chance to post from there, maybe not. Keep checking for new posts and keep leaving comments! :-)

Chiloe Island

In my rush to get the last post finished I omitted to state explicitly that the fjords are very beautiful and taking the cruise was a first class decision. It would have been better if the weather was nicer but you just have to take your chances.

The double T at the end of Puerto Montt is not a typo. The town is named after Manuel Montt, who was president at the time the town was founded. Apparently he could spell his name correctly. There are several Montts sprinkled about Chile´s history, including Manuel´s son, Pedro, who also bacame president and Admiral Jorge, who was more distantly related but nevertheless copped the presidency for a few years between Manuel and Pedro.

Just as I emerged on Monday morning from the Puerto Montt port, a local micro came by with a destination sign that said "Terminal", so I didn´t have to walk to the bus station. Nor did I have to wait long for a bus to Castro. The one I chose turned out to be a long distance bus, probably from Santiago, stopping in Pto Montt on its way to Castro. My posi wasn´t noticeably warm from its previous occupant, but his/her rubbish was still in the seat pocket in front of me.

The journey started slowly, due to the overloaded streets of the rapidly growing port city. Once we were on the open road we passed through pleasant agricultural land on gentle hills. I was particularly struck by what I at first took to be gorse. Now I have examined it closely I see that it has regularly spaced spines, but the new growth is gentle to the touch. However, it grows in the same bushy way to about the same height and celebrates the Chilean spring with a riot of intensely yellow flowers. It also grows as abundantly as gorse does in NZ if it isn´t kept in check. In the part of Chile´s Lakes Region that I have seen to date it lines the roads and sprouts in any fields where it isn´t ruthlessly kept down. In places there are literally acres of hillside covered in its brilliant yellow blossoms.

Chiloe is reached by ferry. There are two companies providing services, one of which was Cruz del Sur, the company whose bus I was riding in. I think the bus drivers take the first vessel regardless of its owner because, although we were ferried by Cruz del Sur, there was another Cruz del Sur bus on the rival´s boat.

The strait is quite wide. The crossing takes half an hour. Passengers were allowed to get off the bus, patronise the tiny cafe and admire the sea. There were lots of birds but I had left my binoculars on the bus hadn´t I. When a seal popped its head up and two penguins flippered by I went back for the bins. This, of course, was the signal for the avian activity to wind down to two very common kelp gulls.

There was one more stop, in Ancud, before we charged on to Castro. The town is famous for houses built on poles over the water called palafitos. This is allegedly so that boats can be tidily moored underneath but I did not see any examples of this. It also has a notable church, Iglesia de San Francisco. It was modelled on a famous church in Europe (I forget which one) but built of timber.

As a pack-toting foreigner I was correctly identified off the bus as a man looking for lodgings. I politely accepted the card but made my way to Hostal Central because Lonely Planet promised me that it would be the most economical deal in town. Lonely Planet was wrong! Instead of US$7 (about 3,500 pesos) the tariff there was 8,000. So I dug out the card and decided to accept the bus depot man´s 6,000 deal. Only there was no answer when I rang the bell. Castro is a very popular summer holiday destination so there was no chance of being stranded, but this was rather frustrating.

A visit to the municipal tourist office secured the most unhelpful map I have ever seen. As I was pondering what to do next a woman asked me if I needed lodging and produced yet another card. She quoted 6,000 including breakfast and a deal was struck with Hostal Don Miguel, where I got a small single room, which was nicer than the expected dormitory.

I tried twice to admire the church, but an unscheduled service was in progress so I chose to be content with peeking through the windows at the back.

Chiloe is famous for curanto, a dish with seafood, meat, potatoes and other goodies served only in huge portions. Traditionally this was cooked in an earth oven, hangi style. Lonely Planet recommeded a particular restaurant. It was wrong again! Curanto was not on the menu. But my consolation fish dish was pretty darn good so I´m not too cross.

Tuesday was set down for a trip to Chiloe´s National Park, on the ocean side of the island. Local micros do the journey a few times every day. The 9:00 am bus from Castro was popular with the tourists, including two very tall and lovely girls who spoke Dutch to each other at the back of the bus.

It took an hour and a half to trundle to the park entrance, where we were relieved of 1,000 pesos each and given an informative leaflet with a map.

The Tepual informative trail was my first destination. It is only about 700 metres long, but I took dozens of photos so it took quite a long time to complete. Tepual forest is very like NZ bush. The tepu itself is not unlike manuka, although its scientific name shows that it is from a different plant family. And there is a nothofagus sp. tree that is a twin to totara.

There weren´t many birds in the bush, but around the park HQ were slender-billed parakeets (TICK) flying fast and noisily in the typical parakeet manner. A small brown bird with a lovely song was finally identified as an elaenia. I hope I have spelled that correctly. I don´t have the field guide with me. There were also sierra finches and siskins. Happy bird watching.

A longer trail led to sand dunes and the beach. In amongst the dunes there were cinnamon-coloured arrayan trees growing, the ones they make such a fuss about near Bariloche in Argentina. I shouldn´t be sarcastic. They are particularly lovely trees and worth making a fuss about.

I squelched across the marshy bits and stood on the beach. A strong wind from the North blew along a firm, sandy beach that could have been Northland´s West coast. Northland is generally warmer, though. I used my binoculars but I couldn´t see Chile´s West-side neighbour, New Zealand.

The end of the trail was a gravel road through farmland. I followed it for a while, looking for the trail to Rio Cole Cole. It was rather soft, deep gravel and hard to walk on. There were no signs, so I turned back to park HQ for directions. Alas, the road was the trail. It would be no fun trudging along that for an hour or so, so I returned to the interpretive trail for another immersion in the mossy, wild bush.

There still weren´t many birds, but one unseen denizen had a song that reminded me strongly of a grey warbler. And this time I saw a woodpecker (TICK).

It had been cloudy with a few light showers, but now the showers became heavier and longer and finally settled into persistent, cold rain. Back at park HQ the Dutch girls were also taking shelter from the elements. Close up, they were both very beautiful but, alas, much too young for me. (Mike Theilmann take note!) They spoke excellent English, of course. My guess that they were internationally famous supermodels was wide of the mark. They were veterinary students getting practical experience overseas. Their particular project was to gather and analyse information in the Osorno area on a virus-borne disease that occurs in Chilean cattle. Most of their class mates had chosen to travel to NZ for this part of their training.

They had heard that the best curanto was found in a village about an hour´s bus ride from Castro. It was tempting to follow them to this delicacy, but I had promised myself that I would write up my blog, so in Castro I bid them farewell.

I hope you have appreciated my discipline in providing that post. Afterwards I scoured the streets of Castro for a restaurant that served curanto and I found one. I can report that the plate was overflowing with 18 mussels, 6 other bivalve shellfish, pork, chicken, a sausage and vegetables. And it was accompanied by a seafood soup. And I ate the lot! Yum!

Now I am back on the mainland in Puerto Varas. I remembered to have my binoculars with me when I ambled round the ferry, so I could at least identify the penguin and the terns this time.

Tomorrow I have booked a tour to see Chile´s biggest trees. I shall be interested to see how they measure up to kauri. Chile´s tourist literature maintains that the alerce is the biggest conifer in the southern hemisphere. So it must be impressive.

Cruising the Chilean Fjords

This will have to be a rushed post. It´s already late and I haven´t had dinner yet. And this is the stickiest keyboard I´ve had to use all trip so there will be more typos than usual.

Watching the Evangelista dock in Puerto Natales was better than many a cabaret act. I don´t know if the first approach was meant to be a dummy run, but the captain turned round and came back for a second go. This one was successful. Unfortunately I don´t have a diagram to explain how he used a whopping great mooring buoy in the middle of the channel to stop the stern thumping the jetty. Although the wind had dropped, as predicted, at 7pm it was still a fresh breeze and the wharf was a lee shore.

The passengers were boarded at 11pm, only 2 hours later than scheduled. We found our berths and were then invited to the dining room for a safety briefing, followed by a film. I was going to ignore the film but it was Motorcycle Diaries, the story of Che Guevara´s youthful travels. Cousin Mike Theilmann had mentioned these in a comment long ago so I felt I had to watch it. It was a good film, too. Most entertaining. So I got to bed at about 2pm to find that some peasant had taken my specially requested lower berth despite my pyjamas lying on the pillow. Since the top bunk was easy to get into I chose not to wake him up and have our shouts wake the whole ship so I turned in.

The PA system let us know when we were approaching the narrowest point of the journey - at six o´clock the next morning. The captain had left a lee shore in a strong wind, one of the most difficult tasks of seamanship, and I wasn´t there to watch how he did it. It would have been in the dark anyway.

The narrows were the channel between some islands. At 80 metres it wasn´t exactly breathe-in-and-hold-your-breath to take the vessel through, but we could see the rocks quite clearly through the drizzle so I took pictures to try and demonstrate how close we were. Not very. Much more importantly, I saw my first two families of steamer ducks. BIG TICK. These are ducks that, when alarmed, run across the water using their wings like paddles for extra speed. The ship alarmed them so I witnessed this distinctive behaviour.

I returned to my bunk but 10 minutes later we were informed of another narrowest point. Actully I think this was the real one, but since I didn´t see steamer ducks here I forgive the first rousing me out of bed. I did take more photos.

The rest of Day One was spent chugging through placid waters between beautiful mounds of rock. Some were topped with snow; most had trees at the lower levels and low-growing vegetation higher up. Bare rock was common, as were waterfalls. Although these were glaciated valleys, none had the sheer sides of Milford Sound. I never saw a hillside with a mat of vegetation supporting itself the way NZ plant life has colonised the steepest cliffs in our Fiordland. There was a lot of cloud that obscured some mountain tops and periodically threw a shower in our direction. The strength of the wind varied with the peaks, valleys and side channels but it was always there are always cold.

Wildlife was scarce at first but eventually some interesting seabirds turned up. They were black-browed albatross. Tick. Consulting the field guide and making sure of the particular species passed a pleasant half-hour and was warmer than standing on deck and watching their near effortless mastery of the air in the distance. From time to time a chocolate-coloured giant petrel wheeled around or crossed our wake.

Late in the day the captain ducked the ship down a side channel, round a few corners and lo! there was Glaciar El Brujo (The Wizard Glacier). I didn´t like to say the Upsala Glacier on Lago Argentina was more impressive. And the Wizard only calved off little pieces. There were no icebergs. But I took photos anyway.

Life on board mostly revolved around meal times. The food itelf was nourishing and adequately substantial without being exciting. All meals were queued for, clutching a blue tray. Since the ship was nowher near full the queues were always short. There was no choice, but I had been asked when I checked in if I was a vegetarian so presumably that would have been catered for. In between times there were easy chair and games tables in the bar where chess, playing cards and a very few books were available.

In the mornings there were information talks in both Spanish and English. In the afternoons there were films, usually in Spanish with English subtitles and usually not to my taste.

Day Two also started at silly o´clock. The ferry had anchored in the bay of the only settlement in the fjords, Puerto Eden. This fishing hamlet has a population of 180, of whom 9 are Kaweshka, the people who virtually lived in their canoes on these waterways before Europeans arrived. There are no roads.

Although the voyage literature advertised a short time ashore in Pto Eden this was not offered. Maybe the captain was trying to make up lost time. But I saw more steamer ducks. :-)

Features of this day were the Angostura Inglesa (English Narrows) and the statue of the Stella Maris Virgen, who is credited with protecting sailors and was acknowledged with four long blasts on the ship´s hooter. And all this in sunshine. No heat. I wouldn´t want to give the impression that this was in any way tropical. When the weather report was read out in the morning we were basking in only 7 degrees Celcius.

The Golfo de Peña, where we would leave the shelter of the fjords, was given a big build up. "We will start our crossing between 1 and 2 pm. We will announce when it is time to take seasick pills." The announcement was duly made. Those who did not have their own medication could purchase relief at the bar. I was watching this performance with a Welshman, Owen, who is a fellow boatie. We relied on our long experience of heaving waters. In the event the Gulf was sunny and calm with just enough swell to know you were at sea.

In the open there were far fewer albatrosses, but the giant petrels started to follow the ship. I saw 5 in the air behind us at one stage. And my devotion to scanning the air was well rewarded that afternoon with two wandering albatross. TICK. I was in the bar when the whale was spotted, but the tannoy burst into life with the news and most of the passengers rushed on deck. It was much smaller than the right whales in Argentina, with a small dorsal fin located well back.

Day Three. The weather closed right in. There was a head wind of 30 knots and cloud to zero feet. It had thawed to 10 degrees. Although the wind abated and the cloud lifted a little there was virtually nothing to see outside so I played a lot of patience and did sudoku puzzles.

After dinner we had a change in the entertainment formula. A member of the crew played an electric organ - or possibly it played itself, it was so fancy - and sang really rather nicely. Then we had bingo. Only one game. It was very well done, with erronous calls of "Bingo" and other interruptions being penalised by the offender having to dance for us. There were prizes for the first to complete three lines and the first to complete their card. And the winners had to dance or sing before they could receive the prize. Totally zilly.

Then a CD of music to dance to was heaved into the stereo and it was party time.

The ship docked in Puerto Montt during the night, but we were given an early breakfast before being disembarked to continue our travels.

In my case that is Chiloe Island, where it is now going on starvation o´clock.

Peninsula Valdez Photos

The trip to Peninusla Valdez was written up on 14 October when the pictures were still in the camera. Last time I edited pics into an already-written post it took an age, so I´m giving you these snaps separately. You can either go to the original post by date or by searching on "Valdez".

Due to the state of the tide, the tourists were loaded while the boat was still on the trailer. Then we were tractored into the surf. This is another boatload following my group.

A Southern Right Whale imitating a rock. They are very good at this.



This was an attempt to capture a whale "jumping". By the time you spot the whale in action and have to wait for the digital cameras delay the spray is all that is left. I dont think right whales are agile enough to get very high. I estimate that about a quarter of the whale´s body left the water.

Another typical pose

When the krill seek refuge in deeper water the whales dive down after them. An essential part of this manoevre is a tail wave before disappearing towards the sea floor.

There were some left. I´m off after them

The boat didnt get too close. The whale surfaced right by the launch.

I promise you this is a whale and not a rock.


The path down to the elephant seal beach at the eastern end of the peninsula. Humans are not allowed on the gravel. The irregularities on the beach down by the waves are elephant seals.



A closer view.

Another family group having an athletic game of beach slumber.

This seal at least had the energy for a swim.

A male showing the scars of battle.

A view of the coastline North of the elephant seals.

Most of the peninsula is flat and covered in scrub.

A yellowfinch beside its nest burrow.

The megellanic penguins were nesting there, too.

This is to prove that I didn´t buy the last photo. I really was there. :-)

The Beagle Channel

This very afternoon, Thursday 25 October, I have reached my furthest South - Bridges Island in the Beagle Channel. Ushuaia is 54 degrees 24 minutes South and the Island must be a few minutes nearer the South Pole. This does not compare with my furthest North in Canada two years ago, which is Tuktoyaktuk beyond the Arctic Circle at 69 degrees 26 minutes, but it´s about as far South as you get without going to Antarctica.

We had a short trek on the island. The guide told us about the original inhabitants of the region, who survived in this harsh environment by coating themselves in sea lion fat. They were otherwise naked. I think I´ll continue to rely on Goretex. There were also brief lectures on the island´s plants. One I recognised as the slow growing "living rock" last seen on the altiplano. That or a very close relative.

However, the main purpose of the voyage was to spy on the local wildlife.

The advertised targets were colonies of cormorants and sea lions, because they were numerous and involved in their breeding cycle. There were two species of cormorants; the imperial or king cormorant (depending on which field guide you rely on) and the rock cormorant. They were at the nest building stage and I´m sure I saw one filching material from another half-constructed nest.

The sea lions had growing pups and, to my surprise, were sharing their rocky islet with many birds, including nesting cormorants. Clearly sea lions do not have the same gastromonic interest in seabirds that leopard seals are noted for.

However, I got much joy from other bird species that turned up, including dolphin gulls with bright red legs and beaks, kelp geese, chilean skuas queuing to steal cormorant eggs or chicks, and sheathbills, the pure white birds with disgusting eating habits. They clean up placentas and excrement. And on Bridges Island I saw wrens perched on high twigs and singing prettily.

My memory card is well loaded with attempts at wildlife photography

So, all in all, a good afternoon´s endeavours.

Iguacu Falls - Brazilian side

My time to visit the Brazilian shores of Iguacu Falls was severely limited. I had to get back to Puerto Iguazu in Argentina to catch a bus. If I missed it I would be late for the hockey in Rosario.

I though the weather the previous day was disappointing, but my third day at the Falls was much, much wetter. Thunder rumbled and lightening played as I splashed through the puddles to the bus terminal.

Getting a bus to Brazil was easy, but border crossings are notoriously tricky. We stopped at Argentine Immigration. Everyone got off the bus, was processed efficiently and reboarded. Over the bridge and into Brazil. The bus stopped at Brazilian Immigration and only the tourists got off. Goodness knows what the system is for the locals but it doesn´t involve a queue or a questionnaire. And when I emerged as a legal person in Brazil the bus had vanished. No waiting on this side of the river!

A Japanese girl in a blue rain cape looked even more lost than I felt. "What do we do?" "We get the next bus, I suppose." The next bus was, of course, a different company so we had to buy tickets all over again.

The ride to the bus station in Foz de Iguacu seemed very long. The town is not very close to the Falls. Signs were starngely familiar. Portuguese must be similar to Spanish.

At the bus terminal there was an information office where the attendant spoke English. We needed bus 120. Luckily Argentine pesos were accepted. There was nowhere at the teminal to change money. The system was very strange. We had to pay to get on to the "platform", but that included the bus fare. Why bother when every bus has a fare collector? The system on the bus was odd, too. A passenger boards at the front and is admitted to a small area with about 4 seats. To get off they have to pay a fare to the collector and pass through a turnstile into the main part of the bus and exit through the rear door. It seems to make no difference whether you pay as soon as you get on or just before you alight. The turnstile takes up an awful lot of space. It must significantly reduce the carrying capacity of the bus.

Before setting off the driver performed a strange ritual. He scattered sawdust over the steps and the floor of the not-yet-paid area. That makes sense. It is raining and people will be boarding with very wet shoes. He then produced a large bottle of mineral water and poured it all over the sawdust. Why? Please leave a comment.

The bus weaved it´s way around Foz de Iguacu for what seemed like an age before moving purposefully back along the road from the border. We passed so close I could see the immigration building.

On the bus I discovered that, despite being able to interpret many signs around me, I could not understand a word of spoken Portuguese.

The Japanese girl´s name was Ai. Well, it was pronounced "Aye" so I guess that´s how it is spelled in our letters. She also had a deadline to get back to Puerto Iguazu, one even more tight than mine. By the time we had detoured to the airport and finally arrived at the Falls Park it had taken us 2 hours to do little more than cross the river.

The entrance to the Brazilian park is so far from the Falls that there is a bus to take you to the viewing places. The tariff for using the buses is shown separately but it does not conceal the fact that visiting the Brazilian Falls is notably more expensive than going to see the Argentine side.

We rode on past the optional extras to the main viewing path. In Argentina the visitor gets up close and personal with many more cascades, but from Brazil you can get a much better impression of the whole system, particularly the two levels.

Ai´s English was not very fluent and her Spanish almost non-existent, but she was adept at using sign language to coax strangers into taking photos for her.

When Ai chose to have a photo taken with me I quickly handed my camera over as well. Our hoods are down so that our faces are visible. The umbrella on the right confirms that it was still raining.

Ai was first to spot this little snail enjoying the moisture on a handrail.

But Ai didn´t spot the much bigger coati that ambled past her and almost into the ladies´ toilet before vanishing into the undergrowth.

The Devil´s Throat is in Argentina. Brazil does not have a single cascade of comparable size, but there are some pretty substantial falls and cunningly sited walkways to permit close observation.

There are more of the great dusky swifts on the Brazilian side. And they were demonstrating their famous habit of flying behind and even through the curtains of water.

This shows how the birds can take advantage of small breaks in the cascade to dodge behind the water. Some, probably the guy swifts, just zoom straight through the main current to the perches and nests behind the falls.

Ai and I were barely in the park for an hour and a half before hopping on a bus back to the entrance. There we parted, Ai to race back to Argentina and self to make a pilgrimage to an adjacent bird park.

This park is noted in the Lonely Planet guidebook an had received good reviews from travellers I had met along the way. There was no way I was going to miss it. I reckoned I had about an hour before I should line up at the bus stop. Well, maybe an hour and a quarter.

These blue and yellow macaws have their perch at the entrance. They were slack about greeting visitors because, as you can see, some mutual preening was going on.





The common crane is not an American bird, but it makes a delightful picture.





There are several walk-through aviaries. In one of these I was able to photograph a toco toucan. Those I saw in the wild were much too high for a picture.





The birds were is marvellous condition. Clearly they are very well looked after. However, some of the sun conures had been rescued from bird smugglers. The parrot trafficers clip some of the feathers (see this bird´s tail) to persuade the purchaser that they are chicks. Young birds are preferred and presumably command a premium price.

I really wonder at the intelligence of someone who is willing to pay the small fortune these gorgeous yellow parrots can fetch and yet knows so little about birds that they are taken in by this clumsy fraud.

Fortunately the treatment at the bird park has restored the conures well enough that they have started to breed. I believe the mutilated feathers will eventually be moulted and replaced with normal ones.

In the last walk-through aviary there are large numbers of parrots, including several species of macaw. Visitors are warned that they enter at their own risk.

As you can see, this tourist´s pack is being checked for anything edible or shiny.

Naturally I thought this was most amusing and I was still laughing when a similar unidentified parrot perched on my day pack. However it was not so funny when it was chased away and its place taken by a hyacinth macaw, the biggest of the family. Do you know how very big a macaw is when its beak is level with your eye? And it is true that a macaw can crack a brazil nut. Taking aggressive action against this feathered pirate seemed like a poor option.

It decided that the toggles on the drawstrings of my red waterproof looked like a shiny new kind of nut to sample. Another visitor intelligently suggested that I slip out of the day pack but the parrot wouldn´t leave until the toggle was entirely removed. So the garment is now minus one toggle.

Somehow I had the discipline to leave the park after my self-imposed hour and a quarter. It would have been so easy to spend all day there.

The buses back were just as tedious as in the morning. What is wrong with waiting at the Brazilian side of the border, I wonder? But I got back in good time to recover my big pack from the hostel and catch my bus.

Iguacu Falls - Argentine side.

The Iguacu Falls are just one part of a substantial national park that extends across the border to incorporate land in both Argentina and Brazil. It is protecting Atlantic rain forest, which harbours a prodigious diversity of life. Visiting the Falls is not just about one of the world´s most spectacular arrays of cascades, it is an excursion into luxurious forest with plants, insects and vertebrate animals to delight any nature lover.

In fact, I´m going to start off with what I think is my all time best bird photograph, rather than a view of the falling water. This is a plush-crested jay. Even with the maximum magnification that my little camera can manage I had to get pretty close to capture this shot. The blue feathers are, if anything, even more vivid when you meet the real bird than they are in this photograph.

There is a Sheraton Hotel right in the park, but the plebs are accommodated well away from the protected area in Puerto Iguacu. Hostel Iguacu Falls is handy to the bus station and the day I arrived it put on a barbecue. There was more meat than we could eat and somehow my bottle of red wine was empty by the time I turned in rather late. Unsurprisingly, I was not up terribly early the next morning.

Buses leave for the park every half hour. I just missed one, so it was after 10 o´clock when I finally handed over my 40 pesos (Argentina uses the $ symbol to denote pesos. I find this most confusing) and started my tour.

Butterflies were everywhere. The only place I have seen more lepidoptera is by the creek in the jungle near Puerto Maldonado. And these were nearly all large, colourful butterflies. They bounced and fluttered through the air, alighted for a moment on a flower and then danced away.

Because of this reluctance to stay still they were virtually impossible to photograph. This half-in-shadow portrait is the best I could get.

There were plenty of birds, too, from the sombrely dressed thrushes to the blue suited swallow tanager (tick).

A visit to the Falls is not for the unfit. Although there is a little train to help you, the important parts of the park are accessible only to pedestrians. Not all the paths will accommodate wheelchairs. Following the recommended route, I walked along the Green Trail. At one point there is a sign warning of dangerous animals. It is just possible that you might meet a jaguar in the early morning, but I suspect the sign is intended more to scare the public into staying on the footpaths.

I was going to scorn the little train, especially when I saw the length of the queue, but I was amazed when the train took all the waiting sightseers in one go, so I finished my very late breakfast and caught the next one.

At the end of the tracks the groups surged off along the walkways behind their guides. They take the visitor over long, thin bridges built from island to island across the river above the falls. On some of the islands there are benches and a family pausing for a snack had attracted the attention of a group of plush-crested jays (tick). There were at least a dozen birds clustering in the branches and on the handrails looking for crumbs, scraps or a handout.

Eventually I dragged myself away from the jays and finished the walk to the Garganta del Diablo or Devil´s Throat. Here the spectator is at the lip of the biggest single waterfall. Professional photographers with stepladders were busy shepherding groups into position and shooing away independent sightseers who might spoil the picture. Eventually they completed their work and the rest of us were able to get near the mass of water pouring over the lip.

Strangers enthusiastically swapped cameras and took photos of the camera owner with the waterfall in the background. As you can see, I should have adjusted the exposure setting before handing over my camera. That´s me in front of the cascade, honest.

Although impressive, this cataract is not as big as the Horseshoe Falls at Niagara. Those who know Niagara will now that there are essentially two falls, each with a single drop. At Iguacu there are dozens of separate falls which, for the most part, reach the bottom in two stages.

Looking along the top of the Falls from the Devil´s Throat lookout.

As you can see, the river reaches the lip along a series of channels









A slightly better photo. I took this one myself using my left hand and cunningly managed to omit the tell-tale left arm and include the waterfalls in the background.

The Falls are famous amongst birders for the swifts that hunt for flying insects in the spray and then dart behind the cascades to roost and even build their nests. I could see them clearly from the lip of the Devil´s Throat, hawking through the mist below me.

Eventually I remembered that there was much more to explore and set off back along the walkway. I saw fish in the river, sheltering in an eddy to avoid taking a one-way trip downstream over the falls. The jays were not the only birds. I watched cormorants and a large heron fishing confidently.

The river above the cataracts is peppered with islands that separate the stream into many channels.

At the end of the walkway was an optional extra - a trip in a rubber boat through the islands above the Falls. There would be, I was promised, lots of wildlife to enjoy.

Our skipper at the oars. If he dropped them there was no emergency propulsion that I could see. But of course they were secure in the rowlocks.

There was a delay while money changed hands and further passengers were recruited, and them we were off. The current was much more modest than I expected after watching the waters rushing over the lip of the Falls, and the oars were applied to get us moving downstream.
A cormorant on a dead branch drew oohs from the other passengers. Had they been walking around with their eyes closed? It cunningly allowed us to get close enough that even I got my camera out and then dived mockingly into the water.

We were taken to within about 100m of the drop. Ahead of us, perched evenly on a line of rocks with almost mathematical exactness, a platoon of cormorants waited for lunch barely 30m from the falls.

Our course was diverted down a side channel. It was very picturesque, but the promised wildlife stayed away. The skipper was moved to apologise for the inconsiderate absence of anything interesting to watch.

A kingfisher did flash its colours at us as it raced to some urgent appointment elsewhere and then, when we were amost tying up at the little wharf that marked journey´s end, the skipper said, "Look, toucans!" OK, he said it in Spanish, but everyone understood. For several agonising seconds I was certain that I was the only one on board who could not see the toucans, but then one of them flapped to the next branch and two birds came into focus.

I particularly wanted to see toco toucans on this trip because they are spectacular birds and because I remember the Guinness advertisements of my childhood that featured toucans. I can report that in reality the beak is even more colourful than the Guinness artists rendered it. HUGE TICK.

The moustachioed skipper backwatered until both birds had flown away and then our waterborne adventure was over.

The next portion of the park I headed for was the "Lower Trail", but not before a bite of lunch. A large bite for preference, since I had missed breakfast. I had just got my molars around the end of a french bread sandwich when I saw some friends. Jane Tait and Sally Nutbeem are stalwarts of the Wessex Witches, one of the Golden Oldies hockey teams. Calling out was not a practical option with my mouth full of sandwich so I rushed out of the cafe and mutely hugged them both in greeting.

It was not terribly startling to find other Golden Oldies at the Falls. Most of the players would have taken the chance to see a bit of Argentina and Iguacu Falls 3 days before the festival began probably appeared on several itineraries.

Once Jane and Sally had got over the shock we sat down and caught up on each other´s news while other Witches came into the cafe for an ice cream.

The lower trail, as its name suggests, gives a different perspective on the falls. And it allows the visitor to see cascades that are not visible from the Devil´s Throat platforms.

A particularly sheer fall named after an Italian, whose name began with B. It´s on the tip of my tongue.

It also gives access to the boat across to Isla San Martin, which is included in the admission fee, and the boats that take thrill-seekers to the base of the falls, which is quite a lot extra.

The lower trail is very shaded, and thus ideal conditions for impatiens sp., more commonly known as "busy lizzie". This bush must have covered at least a square metre of ground.

I followed the trail, stopping often to take yet more photographs, until I arrived at the boarding point for the Isla San Martin boat. Naturally, it was on the island side of the channel.

Patience was rewarded by the boat returning and refusing to let me board. I had just missed the last sailing. Curses and naughty words!

I associate lizards with sunny, warm habitats, but there was a large population of these jokers dodging in and out of the rocks.

However, there was more of the Lower Trail and all of the Upper Trail yet to explore.

There are so many cascades that it is difficult to maintain the enthusiasm. I confess that I was getting to the stage where the waterfalls were almost ho-hum. Luckily there was more wildlife to distract me.

A toucan was perched high on a bare branch. They are such colourful birds that it was still a joy to observe this one sitting there and occasionally opening its beak. I passed my binoculars around for the benefit of those not so thoughtfully prepared for toucan-watching.

Excitement amongst a group of schoolchildren proved to be due to the appearance of a group of capuchin monkeys.

Signs around the park warn against feeding the animals, and they must work becasue no-one was offering tidbits and, even more surprisingly, the monkeys were not begging for handouts.

They were assiduously working through a group of trees for fruits and any yummy leaves. I had a good view of one that had a taste for the growing point of a palm tree. He or she demonstrated a well-practiced technique for pushing apart the central leaves so that the delectable centre could be bitten off.

OK, one last picture of falling water before leaving the park.

Time was indeed running out so I joined the crowd making its way to the exit.

Around the open space, where the souvenir craft stalls offer carvings of toucans in a variety of bright but imaginary colours, the grass is mown short. This highly modified habitat is favoured by the wild guinea pigs. Unlike the popular pets, these are all the same, dark brown colour. They are also noticeably smaller than the domesticated animals.

There were still things to see. I thought these flowers deserved to be recorded.

Visitors to the park are informed that they should get their tickets stamped and thus qualify for half-price admission the following day. I had missed one wildlife trail and the island so it made sense to get the stamp. If I chose not to return nothing would be lost, but if I came back I would be 20 pesos better off.

The buses follow a rigid half-hourly schedule. No extra buses are put on for the closing time rush. And the bus came later than the scheduled time, so I had to wait more than 20 minutes despite timing my appearance at the bus stop well.

Optimistically I showed the driver my ticket from the morning. But no, it was not a return ticket. By charging 4 pesos each way the monopolist bus company must be making a killing. That´s expensive bus travel, even in Argentina.

Dinner that evening was with Jane and Sally. The other Wessex Witches timidly stayed in their hotel´s restaurant, whereas we marched boldly down the road and selected a restaurant 50m away. This meal also featured quantities of Argentinian wine and once again I slept well and late.

Day 2 started off with thunderstorms and heavy rain. Luckily the rain eased a bit as I sipped my breakfast coffee, so I donned my red waterproof and steeled myself to pay another 4 pesos each way on the bus.

By the time I arrived at the park the weather had moderated to showers. I gratefully claimed my discounted admission and went in. The guinea pigs were out on the short grass again, as was this very large iguana.

To complete my visit I wanted to walk the Sendero Macuco, a nature trail, and visit Isla Grande San Martin.

Unfortunately, I chose the same moment to arrive at the trail head as a school party of 40 teenagers. I don´t know about you, but I would not rate 40 teenagers as my companions of choice when out to enjoy the wildlife. So I pretended to study my field guide as they filed onto the trail with one of the teachers explaining sternly that absolute silence was required. Optimist.

Since I turned my binoculars on anything that rustled in the leaves the school party was soon well ahead and could be forgotten. As is so often the case, the heard-but-not-seen bird was much the most common.

Despite my slow progress I actually caught up with a group. This appeared to be a guided birdwatching party. They all had good binoculars and the leader had what looked like a huge, fur-covered microphone. My theory is that it was a device sensitive to the direction of sound and thus able to point precisely at a hidden, singing bird.

However, they did not need technology to see the group of toucans uttering their harsh calls in a dead tree. There were three of them. I suspect two swains were croaking their desire to the same maid.

Shortly after I left the toucans I caught up with the birders again. The leader was saying, "That´s another olivaceous woodcreeper." I followed the line of his binoculars and a dark bird flew away. It was the right size for a woodcreeper, but it could have been almost anything from the glimpse I got. Can I tick olivaceous woodcreeper? I decided that, in all conscience, I could not.

The rain became heavier and more frequent. Seeing details of the birds got harder in the gloom but I squelched on. There´s a waterfall along the trail. As though I needed to see another waterfall. In fact I almost fell over it. The path took me to the top of the fall, where a stream quietly made its way to the edge of a rock and then dropped away.

At the base of the waterfall was a nice pool and around it were 40 teenagers in wet swimsuits. On a sunny day it would have been a lovely spot for a swim and a picnic.

The path continued down and the rain got harder. Near the bottom I met the school party, now in anoraks, on its way back. Despite the rain they were chattering cheerfully. The rain got harder still and I was grateful for a big overhang where 4 other damp trampers were already sheltering. This, I thought, is as far as I go.

When the skies dried up a little I broke my vow just to go on 10 metres and look at the waterfall from the bottom. And then I really did start back. The climb to the top of the fall was certainly nuddy, but it was not as slippery and difficult as I expected.

Back along the trail who did I meet but Jane and Sally once again. They weren´t pursuing me (I should be so lucky) but had the same idea that there could be interesting things to see along the path. And once again the other Witches were following on behind.

There were still bird calls sounding, but it seemed that I wasn´t going to see anything without a furry microphone to help me until I heard a call behind me and turned. After a couple of seconds a bird flew over the trail and perched on a branch above the path. It was facing the other way, but the metallic green back was enough to tell me it was a trogon. Non-birders will not understand the excitement of this. Quetzals are possibly the most dazzling birds of all, and trogons are related to, and something like, a small quetzal.

I almost stopped breathing in my determination to be silent and move to where I could see what kind of trogon it was. It was absorbed in delivering a 4-note song, waiting and singing again. I saw the essential colours even before I saw the bird front on, but eventually I got right in front of a black-throated trogon. The male I could see had a glossy green head, upper breast and back, black face and throat, and golden yellow belly. To see pictures, click here. MEGATICK.

I´m not sure what the few other tourists thought of the tall man staring raptly at a bird. I offered them my binoculars anyway, so that they could see the glowing colours properly. I think I floated back to the main part of the park.

I marched straight to the Lower Trail and the boat to Isla Grande San Martin. Despite its name it´s not a very large island. Once you get to the top of the cliff the paths to the lookout points are not long. Climbing the cliff, despite the steps to help, was hard work. The rock is steep and high.

The first lookout gave a great view of the Devil´s Throat from out in front and lower down. It also allowed a panorama of other cascades and the river below the falls on the Argentine side.

On my way to the upriver end of the island I spotted a black vulture in a tree. I had been aware that there were always a few in the sky above the park, but this was a close-up view.

And then there were two more, and then more. At the end of the path you could hardly see the waterfalls for black vultures perched on rocks and in trees in every direction. There must have been well over a hundred in sight. What did they all feed on? Tourists who miss the last boat back?

Well that wasn´t going to be on this particular day. Back across the island I marched and carefully descended the cliff path to the little beach where the boat delivered and collected.

For those who came prepared the beachette was a popular swimming spot. But I had neither towel nor time for a bathe.

I had booked an "ecological tour" for 4 o´clock. I had to wait for the ferry, cross the river and climb back up the Lower Trail to get to the departure point.

These guys were organised. Everyone wore a safari-suit type uniform. One jeep was for Spanish-speakers and one for those who preferred a commentary in English. Interestingly, the commentary for both vehicles was given by the same individual. Roberto gave us his spiel in English as he drove. Then he stopped at a place that nicely illustrated what he had been talking about. The other jeep pulled up behind us and Roberto walked back and delivered the story all over again but in Spanish.

At an information stop.

The material included little I didn´t know already about forest ecology. I think all of it could be found in NZ. However, it was interesting to learn that they have the same problems with introduced animals and plants.

At least we had a dry tour. The showers had finally stopped. But there was still a lot of cloud and the light was not good. The pictures I took along the trail were consequently rather dark.

This photo of new growth isn´t too bad.

I thought to ask the guide what the vultures fed on. He started by giving me a lecture on the general habits of vultures. "No, what do the vultures in this park feed on?" "Some scientists did a census once. There are a thousand in the park." "And what do these 1,000 birds feed on?" "There are a lot of road kills." And that´s the best I could get. I´m not sure that incautious raccoons are a sufficient and reliable diet but I have no other theory to offer.

This picture of a moth discovered under a leaf came out really well. This amazing insect had a wingspan of fully 15cm (6 inches) and obligingly stayed put despite the whole group from both jeeps poking their cameras up close to get a photo. Yes, it was alive because it turned around at one stage. How dare you suggest that it was a set-up.

You can tell it is a moth rather than a butterfly by the shape of the antennae.

On the drive back, our guide proudly showed off his only example of - a tree fern.