simmojunior
Well-known member
I had been planning on returning to South America this autumn for a long time as I had not been since a month's stint as a volunteer at San Isidro in Ecuador back in 2014 and longed for a neotropical bird fix. Seeing my tweets to this effect, Henry Cook got in touch suggesting we team up. After ruling out Colombia by bus due to the amount of time spent waiting around and northern Argentina by 4 X 4 due to the cost, we somehow settled on Northern Peru.
Recent Birdforum posts had suggested it was possible and Birdforum contributor, Steve Keen (thanks Steve for all your help!), had done it recently. However, despite a couple of valuable trip reports, I could not find a trip report of it being attempted by small hire car. We decided however we would give it a go. I convinced Henry that while I was far from fluent in Spanish, I knew just enough to get us by! My Spanish turned out to be just about enough but I would strongly advise against this trip without basic Spanish.
We purchased flights through STA Travel for c£850 including the internal flights. The flights were UK to Chiclayo via Sao Paulo and Lima on 1st November 2017 (arriving evening of 2nd), Chiclayo to Lima on 23rd November and Lima to London via Madrid on 26th November (arriving 27th). We arranged a hire car (Toyota Yaris) online through Hertz Chiclayo for £770 from 2nd to 23rd including insurance. The hire car was reliable and in good condition though we could have done with higher clearance at times (read on!).
We stayed in hotels in towns ranging from 40 to 160 soles (£10-£40) between us for the night. Cheaper is definitely possible although we were keen to get the car off the road in to a garage in larger towns although we did not actually encounter any issues. The only exception was Fundo Alto Nieva, where we stayed on site for three nights. This cost 280 soles but included the excellent guiding of Kenny. The only other guides we used were Hilder at Akonabikh and some young guide for a couple of hours at Llanteria. These were included in the entrance fees. We also did a 10hr Kolibri pelagic out of Lima on 24th November, which cost an exorbitant $250 each. All other birding was done independently, relying on ebird and the Spencer and Matheve reports. We ate evening meals at restaurants but generally had a snack lunch and breakfast so as not to reduce birding time. Food was generally cheap. Total costs were around £2,400 each including flights.
Henry did all the driving for the trip. Henry's driving was really good and we encountered no serious issues with the police or especially bad driving (though tuk-tuks in towns were a good challenge for him!) etc...
The trip was a great success. I saw 624 species, of which 334 were lifers, and heard a further 49.
This report will try to summarise the trip. I think Henry is planning a report involving GPSs and directions that will be more useful to anyone else thinking of attempting this trip.
The flights went on time without incident. We did not have much chance for birding on the 2nd November. Lima airport was largely birdless apart from West Peruvian Dove in our 5 hour layover there and we arrived in Chiclayo just before dark. Plenty of birds flew over Chiclayo airport in the evening but I was focussed on understanding the Spanish car hire information. The only species I managed to identify were common birds like Blue-and-white Swallow and Scrub Blackbird. Therefore, I will start the day by day summaries from the 3rd November.
Recent Birdforum posts had suggested it was possible and Birdforum contributor, Steve Keen (thanks Steve for all your help!), had done it recently. However, despite a couple of valuable trip reports, I could not find a trip report of it being attempted by small hire car. We decided however we would give it a go. I convinced Henry that while I was far from fluent in Spanish, I knew just enough to get us by! My Spanish turned out to be just about enough but I would strongly advise against this trip without basic Spanish.
We purchased flights through STA Travel for c£850 including the internal flights. The flights were UK to Chiclayo via Sao Paulo and Lima on 1st November 2017 (arriving evening of 2nd), Chiclayo to Lima on 23rd November and Lima to London via Madrid on 26th November (arriving 27th). We arranged a hire car (Toyota Yaris) online through Hertz Chiclayo for £770 from 2nd to 23rd including insurance. The hire car was reliable and in good condition though we could have done with higher clearance at times (read on!).
We stayed in hotels in towns ranging from 40 to 160 soles (£10-£40) between us for the night. Cheaper is definitely possible although we were keen to get the car off the road in to a garage in larger towns although we did not actually encounter any issues. The only exception was Fundo Alto Nieva, where we stayed on site for three nights. This cost 280 soles but included the excellent guiding of Kenny. The only other guides we used were Hilder at Akonabikh and some young guide for a couple of hours at Llanteria. These were included in the entrance fees. We also did a 10hr Kolibri pelagic out of Lima on 24th November, which cost an exorbitant $250 each. All other birding was done independently, relying on ebird and the Spencer and Matheve reports. We ate evening meals at restaurants but generally had a snack lunch and breakfast so as not to reduce birding time. Food was generally cheap. Total costs were around £2,400 each including flights.
Henry did all the driving for the trip. Henry's driving was really good and we encountered no serious issues with the police or especially bad driving (though tuk-tuks in towns were a good challenge for him!) etc...
The trip was a great success. I saw 624 species, of which 334 were lifers, and heard a further 49.
This report will try to summarise the trip. I think Henry is planning a report involving GPSs and directions that will be more useful to anyone else thinking of attempting this trip.
The flights went on time without incident. We did not have much chance for birding on the 2nd November. Lima airport was largely birdless apart from West Peruvian Dove in our 5 hour layover there and we arrived in Chiclayo just before dark. Plenty of birds flew over Chiclayo airport in the evening but I was focussed on understanding the Spanish car hire information. The only species I managed to identify were common birds like Blue-and-white Swallow and Scrub Blackbird. Therefore, I will start the day by day summaries from the 3rd November.