April
28th,
2018
Snow!
Sleet! Hail! Rain and then sunny intervals. Cold.
An
invitation arrives at my tent doorway at 6:30 a.m. to have breakfast
with Germano and Miguel in their Hydro-electric company building. Not
feeling hungry I eat a little cheese with a few water crackers.
What
I want is strong coffee and two mugs of such are perfect. We sit and
chat as best we can using paper and a whiteboard to talk about
families, films, reasons for being 13,000 feet up in The Andes! On
the whiteboard is written about Dorian Anderson's brilliant World
Green Birding (BIGBY) year list record and how I am trying to beat
it. Germano and Miguel proudly show me framed charts of diagrams
showing the water movement down the mountains through tunnels and
pipeways, river, stream and dammed lagoons to a number of
hydro-electric stations. As for films Miguel enthusiastically
describes his favourite as the ultra violent Mel Gibson film,
Apocolypse. Both men have families. Miguel is from Ica in the Paracas
and Germano has a wife and two small children in Huancayo. They use
my binoculars on the terrace. There is a large herd of llamas on the
ground on the other side of the road. I describe how an Alpaca spat
in my face at Cusco, large green lumps of stinking stuff and we laugh
when Germano said that it happened to Miguel only yesterday and shows
me the remains of green horror on a plastic sheet.
Setting
off up the mountain road, it zig zags, circumnavigates three large
lakes and ascends a couple of thousand feet. For some of it it either
rains, sleets, hails or snows! Then it all stops and the sun comes
out to reveal stupendous snow-capped mountains on all sides.
Looking
down on the second of three lakes a pair of Silvery
Grebes
are swimming and diving. It is difficult to see them let alone
photograph them through the sleet.
Three
motorcyclists pass having a tour from Lima. One of them stops and
chats, a Visa officer from Cerco, Jean Pierre Petit, a Peruvian (!)
offers advice before heading down the valley to catch up with his
friends and later find me on Facebook.
Three
huge rock-filled lorries slowly pass me on their way uphill. Each
one's drivers and passengers wave and pip their horns. Such friendly
people, not one vehicle has passed over the last few days without
saying hello and either waving or putting thumbs up. I watch them as
they crawl uphill and see the route I will have to take up and over
the summit, knowing that it will the highest point that I will have
had to have climbed, well pushed more like, in the first three
months. It's all downhill from there … I wish!
On
reaching that summit, 15.821 high, my reward is that the skies clear and the sun
comes out. There is a huge expanse of grassland to see and a
momentous view of a snow-capped peak that must be close to 20,000
feet high. The bike can now be ridden and what a joy that is as I
cycle to the nearest main road, still not tarmac but it does have a
better surface. A few birds are on the short, well grazed grass here
including Rufous-naped
Ground Tyrants.
On reaching the main road there are large herds of fifty or so each
of Llamas! They are huge!
Miles
downhill later I pass a small pueblo called Sangar and stop to look
at the numerous birds gathered on the marshy area between the road
and the small village. Mostly Puna Ibis, there are three Black-necked
Ibis
to the left of them and an Andean
Negrito
picking around some marshy vegetation. A passing motorist stops to
say hello. He tells me that my aimed destination, Marcapomacocha, is
twelve kilometres away. Will I make it before dark?
A
shepherd, a couple of kilometres later, tells me that Marcapomacocha
is fifteen kilometres away. I have gone backwards! A few miles later,
sorry about this kilometres - miles stuff but I use miles, Peruvians
use kilometres, the road to Marcapomacocha splits off to the left.
Unfortunately it is all uphill and so it is a long push. Just the
last few hundred yards are downhill and it is almost dark when I
finally go under the village's welcoming archway, flashing red light
that announces that they welcome you to their village. I welcome the
sight.
I
meet a small old lady, who is so friendly that I give her my squeezy
dinosaur as a present. In the village square I find a shop and go
inside to ask about whether there is a hostel. Elba, the
proprietress, tells me that there is and she goes off to find the
key. Elba returns with six other people who all say that they have no
idea who has the key. Thinking I am going to be camping, two of the
men say, “no problemas, autro place” and after taking me around a
corner or two to show me a large hotel brightly lit about two hundred
yards outside the village!
Green
Year list : 165 birds average new birds to list per day : 5.89
birds
Distance
walked and cycled : 24.01 miles
elevation
: up 3.465 feet, down 3,230 feet
altitude
: 14,503 feet
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