Hi Michael,
Back to the grind, talking with my colleagues about their beach vacations, but my mind is still with you remembering the birds in the rich mosaic of their native Bolivian habitat. Someday I’ll come back to those brilliant deserts and “megadiverse” jungles- I’m already mixing up the names of the particular sites we visited in our birding trip where we saw almost half a thousand different wings. From condors with 3 meter wingspan at 4500 meters above sea level, to hummingbirds with turbines only 10 cm in diameter in the amazon jungle. From wings used only as oars by apterous grebes in the lakes of the altiplano, to the useless wings of the american ostrich that prefers to run through the tropical savanna. Thank you Gaby for making all the arrangements that made this trip possible and for your effort and attention to detail. We enjoyed our trip very much. The distances were stretched due to bad roads, but each new site held so many new birds it was definitely worth it. Would you be willing to trade your steep cloud forest in Samaipata for our civilized London fog for a few years?

Paul (20 days of bird-watching, from Pantanal to Santa Cruz, Samaipata, Comarapa, Cochabamba, Tunari, Potosí and Sucre) Intense Birding