Getting There and Day One
December 26, 2021
The day after Christmas was a stressful departure from Denver International Airport for my longtime friend, David Leatherman and I. We had originally booked the flight out of Denver with several hours of leeway to make our connection in Atlanta less stressful. Delay after delay kept eating into that stress buffer and by the time we actually sat down aboard our flight to Atlanta I was doing some math in my head. We were going to land in Atlanta about the same time our flight to Lima, Peru started boarding. I also knew that when you fly into Atlanta your connecting flight is always at the furthest terminal from your arrival flight. We were going to be running to make it and with it being an international flight I had concerns about the logistics working out for us.
There is a saying that you should worry because 99% of the crap you worry about never happens. Worrying works. We made up time in the air to Atlanta and got deplaned relatively quickly. We hustled over to our departure gate and Delta had given us an upgrade to their Delta One cabin for our flight to Lima. Being able to lay down and actually get some shut eye on the overnight flight was an exciting prospect, though in reality I slept little due to the adrenaline and anticipation of the next few weeks in Peru. Plus, I had to keep busy worrying about what we would do if our checked bags didn’t join us at the Lima airport.
December 27, 2021
We landed at Jorge Chavez International Airport in Lima at 6AM. The sun was just beginning to be a thought in the sky. It didn’t take us much time to collect our bags, get through immigration, and figure out where to go from there. We followed the signs and exited the airport. It was a sea of people. I was not all sure where to meet our guide, Pancho. I tried messaging him with WhatsApp, but it wasn’t connecting. It was stressful. Luckily, I knew Pancho from a previous trip to Ecuador and he miraculously spotted Dave and I as we were walking around in befuddlement. Pancho had secured a driver and after some challenges connecting with him, we were on the road.
Driving through Lima was, well, harrowing. It is a cacophonous assault of horn-honking and motorbikes revving. It is urban and it is crowded. Merging and switching lanes are at your own peril, but somehow everyone mostly figures it out all with about 2-3 centimeters to spare. We went to Hotel Equo in Miraflores, about 40 minutes from the airport, to eat breakfast and drop off our stuff. We’d be staying there that night.
Post coffee and food intake, we drove south to our first birding spot, Refugio de Vida Silvestre Los Pantanos de Villa–Laguna Costera y Playa Marvilla (basically meaning a wildlife refuge with a marsh/lagoon and beach). We connected with a local bird guide, Gustavo Bautista. Here we saw lots of familiar birds. There were big flocks of Franklin’s Gulls away from their summer home in the northern Great Plains. There were also American Oystercatchers, Snowy Egrets, and Little Blue Herons that call both Americas home. Many birds were new for us including White-cheeked Pintails, Many-colored Rush Tyrants, Wren-like Rushbirds, and West Peruvian Doves. After 2 hours of hiking around the lagoon and the beach, we departed to continue further south along the coast.
Our destination was Pucusana. The drive there was mostly barren. It is what dry looks like. Opposite the ocean were endless sparsely vegetated dunes and hills. Pucusana is known for its low rainfall, averaging less than one inch per year (0.84” is the annual average).
As you might imagine, most of the living things in Pucusana, including humans, depend on the ocean. Pucusana is as bright and colorful as the surrounding desert is drab and brown.
The fishery offshore supports the community and the throngs of tourists that come. The marine ecosystem also includes extensive seabird colonies which depend on the cold Humboldt current for food. This was the draw for us. We met up with a local fisherman who took us out of the harbor and along the nearby coast to look at the birds. Spectacular Inca Terns dazzled us from the moment we pushed off the dock and later we were surrounded by myriads of cormorants, terns, gulls, Peruvian Boobies, and a few Humboldt Penguins. A peregrine falcon was making a living stooping on terns and shorebirds while vultures worked the rocks, cleaning up dead bird and seal carcasses. After a 2 hour boat ride, we returned to the harbor and had ceviche for lunch at the Copacabana Restaurant.
After lunch we drove north back up the coast to Miraflores. Miraflores is bustling, bright, and friendly. It is a relatively upscale neighborhood in stark contrast to most of Lima. The US Embassy is fairly close by and Miraflores has a good number of American expats living there. We walked through 7th of June Park and Parque Kennedy before grabbing dinner at Alfresco in El Palacio del Virrey. Parque Kennedy was vibrant and well-illuminated. Christmas displays still glowed and attracted tourists and residents alike. The trees cawed, squeaked, and rattled with the raucous flocks of parrots and other birds that were roosting there for the night.
Back at the hotel, having been awake for the better part of 36 hours, sleep came easily with thoughts of the Amazon and flying over the Andes tomorrow occupying my mind.