Machu Picchu Pre-trip to Amazon River Cruise Jan 18—23, 2009
Posted by Steve Hilty
Steve Hilty
Steve Hilty is the senior author of A Guide to the Birds of Colombia, and the recently published Birds of Venezuela, both by Princeton University Press. Other credits inclu...Related Trips
This short itinerary provides a dramatic contrast to the steamy lowlands and overwhelming biological diversity of the Amazonian cruise that followed this trip. This is a tour through high mountain valleys carved from powerful rushing rivers, a trip through high Andean grasslands and, most of all, a trip through history. It is, by all accounts, a region of colorful markets and of remarkable people dressed in distinctive but regionally varied clothing. Women carry babies, wrapped in bright blankets, on their backs. Men with broad sandal-clad feet, bent under heavy loads, move with a quick shuffling gait, all amidst majestic ruins, ancient terrace-rimmed valleys, and beside puna lakes shimmering beneath ultraviolet skies. Our route took us through traditional villages, past Usnea-draped basaltic cliffs, into mossy woodland inhabited by sprightly tanagers, and among deep, cold valleys where dawn comes slowly to restless hummingbirds chasing retreating shadows in endless pursuit of flowers.
Lago Huacarpay and the high puna grasslands of Abra Malaga provide an excellent cross section of high Andean birdlife ranging from ducks and gulls to multi-hued species such as the Plumbeous Rail, White-chested Sunbeam, and Many-colored Rush-Tyrant. In addition, the hotel grounds around the Machu Picchu Pueblo Hotel offer an oasis of birds, flowers, and tranquility amidst a cacophony of hawkers of souvenirs, tourists, noise, and congestion in the little town of Aguas Calientes. The hotel grounds, mined to the hilt with orchids, flowering Heliconia, bird-of-paradise, Centropogon, and dozens of other flowering plants, offer hummingbirds, multicolored tanagers, and other small birds a diverse array of places to forage and seek shelter. Inca Wrens, first observed around the Machu Picchu ruins in 1965, were not formally described until 1985. Curiously, these wrens may not have been present during the years of intensive surveys and collecting following the discovery of Machu Picchu in the first half of the last century.
During our day in true "high country" we found hummingbirds dancing in morning sunbeams, a lovely mountain-finch singing in crisp mountain air, and Black Siskins, canasteros, and ground-tyrants in windy puna grasslands. Ultimately, we sought in vain the elusive Stripe-headed Antpitta, which answered our calls but would not approach. Nevertheless, there were lovely Red-crested Cotingas and other species large and small for all to appreciate. There were also young children, whose few words of Spanish and stoic expressions conveyed their willingness to pose stiffly for passing photographers in return for apples and a few food items. All of this occurred at altitudes above 13,000 feet while ground-tyrants and llamas looked on from a distance.
This land of the Incas is a sensory experience—one to see, to smell, to touch, to feel, and to hear. Images of this distinctive land—its people, music, and wildlife—will be with you for years to come. The combination of birds, scenery, and history is incomparable. The rocky ruins, as always, remain impressionable, mysterious, and evocative—the more so perhaps because so little is known of their origins, and because of the breathtaking location. The ruins of Machu Picchu are indeed one of the world's great travel destinations, but they are, in themselves, just a brief chapter in a long and fascinating history of human occupation of the Urubamba River Valley.