Bird Watching Day!

Another very early morning!  It's August 12 - 5am start!  We are meeting our birdwatching guide at
6am.  No time to waste!  Getting ready, eating breakfast and off we went!   Our guide's name is William.  When I asked him where his name came from as it's not very Spanish, he told us his mother loved William Shakespeare and so she called him William.  What a great story!

We drove for about 30 minutes outside of Cusco.  On the way, we passed various little villages - each with their own specialty - fried pork, cuy (guinea pig), bread... People will drive to all these villages during the weekend to get what they need.  This bread village is the only place where this particular bread is made.  We were told that if you want to bring a nice gift when visiting someone - is to bring some of this bread!


We arrived at our destination - Lake Huacarpay - We started where it looked more like a marsh than a lake.  We drove around this lake and stopped at all the blinds and viewing spots.  All together we saw 40 species of birds.  My favourite was the plumbeous rail.  It's black with a lime green beak and bright red legs.  Rails and the likes are usually difficult to find and see.  Today was our lucky day as we saw quite a few of them!

Around the marsh parts we also saw wild guinea pigs!  Oh my! They are so cute!  They are all dark brown and a bit larger than domestic guinea pigs.  We are told these don't get eaten as they don't taste very good... After seeing where they live, I wouldn't want to eat one either! They are not grass fed that's for sure!  It would be like eating a muskrat that lives in a swamp... yuck!

After rounding the marsh part, we stopped and walked a while trying to find various birds.  We did see an endemic type of hummingbird: the bearded mountaineer - it's black and white and not easy to see!  Funny story to accompany this bird... William had it in his scope - we could see it very well - but I couldn't find it with my eyes.  So, William took out his laser pointer and was pointing near the bird.  I had just commented on how little butterflies we could see at this altitude when all of a sudden Remi says something like look at that bright green butterfly! It was no butterfly... it was the laser pointer beam!  Oh my how we laughed!

I was getting tired of just standing there.  I decided to walk ahead and see what I could find.  Bingo!  I came across the ruins or the Wari people - a people found before the Incas.  This site is called .  It looked quite different from the Inca villages.  These people used small stones and there seemed to be streets.  I walked around for a while, until the rest of them caught up to me.
Pikillaqta

We continued our tour around the lake where we saw fishermen on rafts made from bullrushes.  Our guide was explaining that these people make a new raft each time they go fishing.  I wished they'd been closer so I could've captured an image...

After going around the lake, William brought us to another site to see if we could find more hummingbirds.  We drove for about 15 minutes to an abandoned hacienda.  A huge property full of ruins from the time of the Spanish invasion.  These haciendas were something else! 

We did find a second type of hummingbird here - the sparkling violet ear hummingbird.  It sure was sparkly!  It's had a beautiful green colour!  It showed itself to us for quite a while.  What a little beauty!

After our birding tour, we headed back to Cusco where we decided to go to the square to find something to eat.  We headed up to a tiny balcony and had soup.  I chose the quinoa soup.  It was good - not delicious.

After lunch we went to explore the city a little more.  We ended up back at the market where we purchased yummy Peruvian chocolate.  When we were leaving the market, we could see a group of dancers and musicians about to perform.  We waited for about 15/20 minutes - we decided to leave as there was still no sign of them moving.  (We had seen a glimpse of them earlier on a different street so we didn't mind missing it).

I didn't write down what we did after that.  Couldn't of been to exciting as I don't recall.  We packed what we wanted to bring on our trek.  Oh and we had a group meeting.  Our real adventure starts tomorrow.  Early bed time!