Site Guide
March 2006
HOME
Bird Bolivia introduction
The
following is the site descriptions Lawrence Rubey and I wrote for Bolivia.
These site descriptions are made with the recommendation that you also have a
general Bolivian guide book like the Lonely Planet. This web page site guide is
dynamic and will be improved, eventually including habitat photos, a bird list,
map and other detailed information that might help the visitor. I would greatly
appreciate any feed-back on this text and notes from your own experiences that
might improve its quality (abhennessey@armonia-bo.org).
If you find
this free site guide useful, I would like you to consider supporting Asociacion
Armonia’s Bird Conservation efforts with a donation check written to Asociacion
Civil Armonia, 48 Douglas drive, Norwalk, CT, 06850 (Membership is US$ 25). Asociacion
Armonía is now able to receive US
tax deductible donations by individuals of 500 US$ or more. A cheque needs to
written to American Friends of BirdLife International Inc. with a note stating
that you are sending a cheque for _,___,___ US$ to American Friends of BirdLife
International Inc, for Asociacion Armonia's Bolivian Bird conservation efforts.
Could you also email this note to abhennesey@armonia-bo.org . A tax receipt will
be sent to your return address. The cheque must be sent to: American Friends of BirdLife International
Inc., c/o Chapel & York, PMB 293, 601 Pennsylvania
Avenue NW, Suite 900, South Building, Washington, DC 20004, USA.
Bird Bolivia
can help your Bolivian travel needs. For travel reservations, tour
preparations, guides, etc, send an email to birdbolivia@unete.com.bo. You can
also send questions to A. Bennett Hennessey at abhennessey@armonia-bo.org, but
please read the Birdwatching section of this web page first.
Contents
Santa Cruz area
Cochabamba area
La Paz area
Rurrenabaque area
Madidi National Park
Selvablue Lodge
SITE
GUIDE
This guide
is based on four central hubs: Santa Cruz, Cochabamba, La Paz,
and Rurrenabaque. Each has connecting main roads with connecting daily busses
and flights (La
Paz and Santa
Cruz with international flights). Given the high
altitude problems that some experience arriving directly in La Paz, we recommend
and have placed the hubs in order of best acclimation to altitude, inicially
with Santa Cruz (lowlands), Cochabamba
(medium highlands), La Paz
(very high). Keep in mind American
Airlines flights will allow you to land in Santa Cruz
and fly out of La Paz, for the same cost.
BOLIVIAN LOWLANDS
The
lowlands of Bolivia
offer three major habitat types for bird communities: The Tropical tall forest
(often called Rain Forest), the Beni Flooded savannas, and the dry Cerrado. You
can find all three in the Selvablue lodge
in the department of Beni and within Noel Kempff Mercado Park.
The best
Tropical forest habitat is found in the Rurrenabaque
area, especially the site Alto Madidi (do
it yourself camping). Around Santa
Cruz you will find the furthest southern reaches of
Amazonian forest, species poor with low abundances, but still worth a visit if
it is your first time. Best to visit the foothill habitat like the Southern-Horned Curassow lodge
and Los Volcanes for more regional
specialities. In Santa Cruz
there is also the Chiqatania Dry forest, only covered here with the Santa Cruz Botanical Gardens.
The Beni Flooded
savannas, better defined as the Llanos de Moxos habitat, is a spacious mix of
grasslands, marshes, dry forest and tall gallery forest-also generally called pampas.
This habitat mostly makes up the department of Beni, but also in areas of Santa Cruz. The
Department of Beni is cattle country and, fortunately, cattle are very
compatible with this grassland habitat.
Some areas of the Beni Flooded Savannas are even comparable to more famous Brazilian Pantanal or llanos of Venezuela.
A taste of this habitat is found at Lomas de
Arena Park, but can be best appreciated North east of Rurrenebaque (Beni Flooded Savannas), and around Trinidad (no site guide description as yet). The dry
season (May-October) is best time to visit this habitat as much of the area
floods in the rainy season and becomes all but impassible for vehicles (the Selvablue lodge is an exception to this rule-
which can be visited year round). However,
late in the dry season (September and October), ranchers set fire to the
grasslands to induce new growth of grass and, at times, visibility can be
sharply reduced.
The Cerrado
habitat is more common in Brazil.
The habitat in Bolivia
exists in fragments along the northern edge between Beni Flooded Savannas and
Tropical forest. Best sites for visiting intact Cerrado are Selvablue lodge and Los Fierros in Noel Kempff Mercado Park.
SANTA
CRUZ AREA
The city of
Santa Cruz de la Sierra, often just called Santa Cruz, is found on the central western edge of the
department of Santa Cruz, almost in the middle
of Bolivia. Santa Cruz is
the best place to start any kind of birding adventure in Bolivia with excellent hotels and
unique birding sites within the city, all accessible by local taxi. It is a perfect spot to rest up, prep up and
set off. Even only for a short visit to Bolivia,
the bird community around the city is different enough to be worth a full
morning. We would recommend for a
two-week tour in Bolivia at
least passing two mornings in Santa
Cruz city sites.
The city of
Santa Cruz is
quiet intelligently designed with many roads running North-south or West-east
and almost all roads being straight.
These roads are connected by round road rings that center on the central
plaza of the city and enlarge outwards to the 8th ring; the last few rings are
only partial. There are three main roads
out of the city; the old road to Cochabamba (called the Grigota in the city),
leaving from the South-west to Los Volcanes, Semaipata, and the Red-fronted
Macaw lodge; the new road to Cochabamba, leaving from the north to Buena Vista
and Amboro National Park, and eventually Villa Tunari, Carrasco and Cochabamba;
and Carretera a Cotoca, leaving from the north-east, will take you to the Santa
Cruz Botanical Gardens and Concepcion, San Jose de Chiquitos and Noel Kempff
Mercado National Park. As you exit Santa Cruz on one of these
roads, near the outskirts you will encounter a combination toll booth (peaje)
and police checkpoint (tranca).
The young
city of Santa Cruz is Bolivia’s wealthiest city,
containing many of the conveniences of North American cities. It is found in an elevated area of tropical
lowlands (450 m)
and therefore enjoys a slightly less penetrating heat as other Bolivian lowland
cities, such as Trinidad. Santa Cruz is
in the transition zone of the Amazonian tropical forest that follows the higher
precipitation down the eastern side of the Andes with the northern limit of a
dry Chaco tongue. Consequently, the city is usually windy,
especially during the dry season and the peak birding season. The winds create a pleasant cool breeze
during the night, but can also be torture to any midday, and -unfortunately
often- early morning birding. One must
keep in mind two things for this climate, 1) Bird more open areas in the
stiller morning air and leave water bodies and forest trails for the windy late
morning. A very windy day may have a
still morning to at the latest 10 am. 2) Don’t compare birding difficulty to
your home standard. A windy day that seems
like the beginning of a tropical storm can still be a productive birding experience
in Santa Cruz.
Keep in mind that birding during the heat of day and in strong winds will be
very unrewarding. Much better to wait
out the heat and hit the trails around 3 pm.
For many
birdwatchers, the Santa Cruz area will be the
only time they will encounter many Chaco
specialized birds, unless they are specifically planning a trip to the Chaco of
Southern Santa Cruz department. The Santa Cruz area also holds the best diversity of Austral
Migrants in all of Bolivia,
Lomas de Arena being the best spot for its diversity of habitats. Austral Migrants peak in July and almost
disappear by mid-October. The text is
written for Bolivia’s
winter, North America’s summer, when most
birdwatchers visit, so depending on the time of year, many of the species
mentioned might not be present or might be in higher or lower numbers.
CLOSE
TO THE CITY
Within the city of Santa Cruz you can visit the sites of Lomas
de Arena Municipal Park, Viru-Viru
Airport, and Santa Cruz Botanical Garden
with local micros and taxis. Lomas de Arena is sandy halfway in, so you might
need to walk the farthest bit.
NEW
ROAD TO COCHABAMBA
From Santa Cruz you can take
the new road to Cochabamba which passes through
Montero leading to the town of Buena
Vista (about a 3hr drive). There are local trufi
taxis, which fill with passengers like a bus, that travel to Buena Vista where
you could visit the sites Buena Vista pumping
station and Hotel Flora and Fauna. The Southern-horned Curassow site
can be then visited from Buena Vista in car, but best to make arrangements in Santa Cruz without a
car.
OLD
ROAD TO COCHABAMBA
The old
road to Cochabamba travels from Santa
Cruz almost up the dry Andes. It
is not paved all the way to Cochabamba,
but up to Comorapa. Along this road, traveling up the Andes it is possible to
visit the site Los Volcanes (2.5 hrs from Santa Cruz) but you must make a reservation before hand in
Santa Cruz.
There are many trufi taxis daily that travel to Samaipata, where you could
visit Las Ruinas and with local tour guide help Yungas
de Samaipata. The Red-fronted Macaw
lodge will require a reservation in Santa
Cruz. Check with Birdbolivia@unete.com.bo for more
information.
OUTER
BENI AND SANTA CRUZ
COCHABAMBA AREA
The Department of
Cochabamba (with the department capital of the same name) lies in the
geographical center of Bolivia.
The city of Cochabamba itself lies in a fertile
valley that centuries ago was the breadbasket of Bolivia, supplying the mining towns
of Potosí. Much of the original vegetation in the valley has given way to
farmland and industrial parks, but both Lake Alalay
in the center of town and the outstanding Polylepis forest in San Miguel near
Quillacollo offer interesting birding sites easily reached by taxi. It is also
a center of endemism, with most of the key Bolivian endemics found within the
department. At an altitude of 2600m, the city of Cochabamba is firmly in the highlands, but
the abundance of city parks and small-town atmosphere make it a pleasant base
for birding explorations. The surrounding areas offer high habitat diversity,
from high altitude Polylepis forests, to dry valles, to an interesting
transect though Yungas montane forest down into the tropical lowlands. The city
of Cochabamba
offers hotel accommodation in every price range and an excellent selection of
restaurants.
CLOSE
TO THE CITY
A taxi or local bus
can take you to Lake
Alalay within
the city. An hour taxi ride up the Mountians from the city will take you to the
San Miguel
Polylepis forest.
Back to top
CHAPARE
YUNGAS (CLOUD FOREST)
Cloud forest
birdwatching is only a two hour drive outside of the city of Cochabamba. Since its construction in the
early 1980's, the road linking Cochabamba and the Chapare, a sub-tropical
region that is Bolivia's prime illegal coca growing area, has been a favorite
of birders. Most Bolivian records of such spectacular species such as
Scimitar-winged Piha and Hooded Mountain-Toucan come from this road. However in
the last decade, settlement along the road has increased and deforestation for
small-scale agriculture has taken its toll. Though of more difficult access,
the road to Apolo offers a more intact cloud forest.
The Chapare road
travels through Cochabamba Yungas, a humid forest area along the eastern slope
of the Andes, to the main Chapare town of Villa
Tunari. Starting at an altitude of 3800m outside of Cochabamba, the road drops
quickly over a 100
kilometer stretch to 500m at Villa Tunari. As a result,
the road travels through a variety of habitat types: Upper Montane (2600 m and above), 
Middle Montane (1600-2600 m), Upper Tropical (900 - 1600 m), Hill Tropical (500-900 m) and Lower Tropical (500 m and below). However,
whether due to habitat loss or geographic position, the Hill Tropical and Lower
Tropical habitats around Villa Tunari are not that rich in terms of bird life.
If your trip also includes visiting lowland habitats in another area of Bolivia,
spend most of your time above 1000 meters.
A good strategy for
maximizing the number of species seen is to make stops at 2900 meters (Site 20:
Tablas Monte), 1900
meters (Site 21: Miguelito) and somewhere on the
roadside at about 1000
meters. Birding can be good in the upper elevations even
in the midday sun, even in one of the frequent mist showers. And do not be
fooled, birding in the rain is often fantastic above 2000 meters. Villa
Tunari offers several nice hotel options and makes a good base for exploring
the region.
Unlike most roads in Bolivia,
the Chapare road has occasional kilometer markers that make providing
directions somewhat easier. Coming from Cochabamba,
the kilometers posts start at zero at the tool booth in the city of Cochabamba. The Chapare Road, after
passing though Villa Tunari, continues on to Santa Cruz. As it is the main highway linking
Santa Cruz to the highlands, it is also known as
the "new road" to Santa Cruz.
Some road signs also mention "Sacaba," a small town just outside of Cochabamba. Thus, the
"Chapare Road,"
the "new road to Santa Cruz"
and "road to Sacaba" are all really one and the same.
GPS reading at tollbooth leaving Cochabamba
for the Chapare Rd:
S 17 23.895' W 66 03.223'
SOUTH OF COCHABAMBA
TOWARD POTOSI
A relatively
under-explored area by birders, the vast collection of dry mesothermic valleys
south of Cochabamba
is home to the endangered Red-Fronted Macaw. The macaw is restricted to a small
area of south-central Bolivia
and is usually present in the Rio Caine valley, but requires a long hard drive in. Few tourists venture
this direction and the area has the added bonus of the little known Torotoro National Park.
COCHABAMBA-LA PAZ HIGHWAY
If you are travelling
on the paved highway between Cochabamba and La Paz,
you might want to visit the Cochabamba Arid valleys for an hour
or so of birding.
Andean Condor can often be found soaring in late morning along the highway.
LA PAZ AREA
Bolivia's largest city is not itself
a particularly exciting birding destination. But it does offer
"daytrip" access to some truly spectacular sites, including the Yungas
cloud forests, puna grasslands, Lake Titicaca
and even dry valles. La Paz
has a wealth of hotels, something to fit every price range. Reservations are
always advisable at the more popular hotels. Bennett recommends at the top level El
Hotel Rey Palacio, middle level El Rosario ($35/night, an
absolutely excellent little hotel! 591-2-245-1658, 591-2-245-1991), and a clean
homey Hostel Republica around 20 US$ a night.
Leaving the city of La Paz
can often be a challenge. There are three principal roads out of the city: the
Coroico road through the Miraflores and Villa Fatima neighborhoods to Coroico
town; the road through El Alto, past the military airport, and northwest to
Lake Titicaca; and the Oruro road through El
Alto and south to the city of Oruro.
As you exit the city of La Paz
on one of these roads, near the outskirts you will encounter a combination toll
booth (peaje) and police checkpoint (tranca). Most of the mileage
readings to birding sites discussed in the text begin at these checkpoints. To
aid drivers in reaching these toll booth/checkpoints and getting out of the
city, the GPS coordinates for each are listed below:
Miraflores tranca
for Coroico Road:
S 16.27.177 W 68.05.750
El Alto tranca for road to Lake Titicaca: S 16 28.517 W 68 16.50
El Alto tranca for road to city of Oruro:
S 16 43.435 W 68 11.104
Since many
international flights arrive in La
Paz, it is worth suggesting a few birding sites within or
very close to the city where one can spend a pleasant morning or afternoon
while waiting to head on to more exciting destinations. A variety of typical
Andean species can be seen very close to the city. A couple days relaxing in La Paz
can also give one time to acclimate to the lofty altitude of the High Andes.
The altitude ranges from 4060
meters (13,100 feet) at the El Alto airport outside of La
Paz to 3300 meters (10,800 feet) in some of
the wealthy southern suburbs (Zona Sur).
CLOSE
TO THE CITY
Some of these sites
can be easily combined to make good all-day trips. For example, after a dawn
stop at the UMSA Botanical Gardens, one can continue up the road
and visit Huni Pass (on the Palca Road) and still
return in time for a late lunch. The Ravine below Zenon Iturralde Park
could be visited in half a day and with local transportation. The Mecapaca site deserves a full day to find many of the lower dry valley
resident birds.
COROICO
ROAD
The famous (or infamous to many nail-biting passengers) Coroico Road is one
of the most spectacular roads in South America.
Carved into the cliff face, it is the main road linking La Paz
and Coroico. For birders, it offers a stunning transect from the high altitude
puna grassland to the subtropical "Yungas" forests. From the top, La Cumbre, the road travels down to Upper Coroico Road (between La Cumbre and
Pongo), Choquetanga Valley, the Cotapata trail, Chuspipata,
and Hotel La Finca, Coroico.
The road continues to travel down but we have no good birding site information
for these areas yet.
Back to top
SOUTH YUNGAS ROAD (ROAD TO CHULUMANI)
NOTE: Eartly
January 2006, the main bridge to Chulumani fell into the river- doubtful it
will be repaired until April-
The South Yungas road, which effectively ends in the Yungas
town of Chulumani, has less traffic than the
more famous North Yungas (Coroico) Road and is
statistically safer. The directions for each site assume you re-set to zero
your odometer at the start of the junction for the South Yungas road. The raod
travels down through Upper South
Yungas Road, Chojlla aqueduct
trail, arriving at the final destination of Apa-apa reserve. Another option in the area
is the Takesi Trek.
Back to top
LAKE TITICACA
AREA AND ALTIPLANO
Few visitors to Bolivia,
even the most hard-core birders, will want to leave Bolivia
without a quick visit to Lake Titicaca. At 3810 meters (12,500 feet), Lake
Titicaca is often called the highest, navigable lake in the world, although
there seem to be several other more likely candidates. Nevertheless, Lake
Titicaca is a very pleasant birding destination, especially towards the tail
end of a long birding trip when early mornings and long days in the field have
begun to take their toll. As might be expected, waterbirds are the key attraction.
Diversity is not that high (an average day might reach 50 species), but many of
the target birds are high-altitude specialties. One of the most sought-after
birds is the flightless Short-winged Grebe, relatively common in its stronghold
on Lake Titicaca. We recommened two sites: Huatajata
lakeshore and Yampupata Peninsula. You might
also want to investigate the Sorata site if you are in
the general area.
For more similar Altiplano birds based in La Paz, you can visit
Sajama Polylepis forest, Laguna Huanakota area, Lagunas area and border with Chile,
and Northern Chile and the
High Andes.
APOLO
The Apolo area has been
largely neglected because of the dirt road (which has greatly improved in the
last three years- no longer with long sloughs of mud), and the lack of
airtraffic to the area. But this is a good thing as the area holds lots of tall
forest and some interesting habitat types.
Back to top
VALLE TOWNS
OF LA PAZ DEPARTMENT
Southeast of the city of La Paz, the stark,
limitless expanses of the Altiplano give way to the spine of the Andes. The descent into these dry valleys from the
Altiplano offer some of the most spectacular scenery in La Paz Department and
some very special birds. Of interest in general is the Urmiri/Sapahaqui
circuit and Inquisivi.
Back to top
RURRENABAQUE
At the junction
between the last foothills (serranías) of the Andes and the beginning of a
large expanse of flat, lowland tropical forest and pampas, Rurrenabaque is a
gateway to the Amazonian lowlands of Bolivia.
The town itself is on the eastern bank of the Beni River, fronting the
northern edge of the Susi foothills. An ancient Tacana trading center,
Rurrenabaque ("Rurre" as it is known to locals) boasts a population
of over 10,000 and now has a budding eco-tourism industry, mostly serving the
young backpacker market with bare-bones, inexpensive jungle and pampas
tours. But there are the beginnings of
more professional eco-tourism. However,
there are no resident professional bird guides as of yet.
The
attractiveness of Rurrenabaque is based upon is location: smack in the middle
of three habitat zones: the Amazonian forest of the department of La Paz, the
pampas of the department of Beni, and the foothill forest (at 500 to 900 m) of
the Andes. The endless stream of
backpackers also means that Rurrenabaque creates a certain level of very
flexible tour agencies, at least ten.
With a bit of ingenuity, planning and bargaining, one can easily arrange
an inexpensive customized trip, especially if you have a small group. For most of the sites in this section, many
of agencies will be able to supply a guide (experience and knowledge being highly
variable, with the typical guide knowing most mammals and unfortunately no more
than a dozen of the most conspicuous bird species), transportation, sleeping
materials and simple food.
There are
several options for getting to Rurrenabaque.
One company called Amazonas travel runs the jaunt- but over the Andes
with a single engine. Flights by the
airline run by the Bolivian military airline (TAM) (using solid two-engine
Fokkers) are by far the most popular.
And the return flight is doubly popular as new customers include those
that have endured the bus trip down from La Paz! TAM currently has three flights a week from
La Paz to Rurrenabaque, one flight a week from Cochabamba and Santa Cruz. There are also flights from Cochabamba to the
nearby town of Reyes. From Reyes, it is
only an hour in a mini-bus to Rurrenabaque.
Buses to Rurrenabaque leave La Paz (regularly from the Villa Fatima
neighborhood), but are not always reliable and are far from luxurious. The trip is about 18 hours (but one of your authors--the one that
doesn't work for a high paying donor organization--once sat on a
Rurrenabaque-bound bus for 36 hours). Three La Paz bus companies currently make
this trip daily. For a less bumpy ride,
make sure you get a seat near the front of the bus. In general, buses servicing the smaller
Bolivia towns are much lower quality than those that serve the major
cities. There are also buses to
Rurrenabaque from Trinidad, Riberalta and San Borja.
The immediate area
around Rurrenabaque is mostly disturbed, second
growth forest of limited interest. If
you find yourself in Rurrenabaque for a morning or afternoon of birding, try to
get some distance between you and the town.
Renting a motorcycle or taxi for the day or half-day is an easy
proposition.
From
Rurrenabaque you can plan guided tours to the rainforest visiting the Wattled
Curassow Lodge, Mapajo Lodge, and Chalalan Eco-lodge. You can create your own
trip, or get one of the many tourism agencies in Rurrenabaque to do it for you
to visit Beni flooded savannas,
Serrania Pilón, Serranía
Sadiri, Alto Madidi, and San José de Uchupiamonas. There
is public transportation to many of these sites, within hiking distance. Also
of interest in the area might be Beni
Biological Station.
Back to top
MADIDI
NATIONAL PARK
Madidi
National Park is a phenomenal protected area worth more attention. The park
covers almost 2 million hectares, from some of the most important highland Polylepis forests, down the Andean cloud
forest to the richest rain forest site in Bolivia (site 57: Alto Madidi) and
north to cover ungrazed, unburnt savannahs. The problem is that most of this
natural area is inaccessible- and what roads do exist are only 50% of the time
functional. We are hoping to see more tourism development
in Madidi in the oncoming years, but progress has been slow.
The best known
site with tourism infrastructure is Chalalan
Eco-lodge, but other sites like Serranía
Sadiri, Alto Madidi, San José de Uchupiamonas, and Apolo might be a bit rough, but well worth it
for the birds.
Acknowledgments
We are greatful for the assistance
and comments made by Victor Bullen, Claudia Coca, Isabel Gomez, Sebastian Herzog, Jon Hornbuckle, Alvaro
Jaramillo, Charles
Hesse, Michael Kessler, Barbara Knapton, Tim Miller, Douglas
Mason, Preston Motes, Manual Olivera, Carmen Quiroga, David Recalde, Joe Tobias, Jim Turner, Melinda Walton, Bret Whitney, and Brian Woods.
Back to top