Moyobamba
Trip Start
Feb 06, 2007
1
67
332
Trip End
Jan 14, 2008
Moyobamba,
Peru
Thursday, May 3, 2007
When the clock went off at 4.45am heavy rain started, and was still raining when we went out looking for breakfast. But unlike Yurimaguas and Iquitos, Moyobamba was totally dead. The street lights went off at 5.30am stranding us in darkness with not even a coffee in sight. We flagged down a motocarro driver who clearly thought we were nuts wanting to go to the orchid place in the dark in pouring rain. By 6am it was daylight and the rain had stopped.
We first went to a hummingbird 'lek', where the males strut their piece. Then the bird hunt continued up the hill. Apart from a toucan away in the distance we heard lots and saw little. Our guide , whose name we forgot to ask, turned us back after a couple of hours, thoroughly fed up with the non-appearance of birds. It was disappointing. Then, as often happens, we came to a 'hot spot' where we saw at least 10 different species in one tree
A soldier antnest.
. This included 2 different blue dacnis, and a yellow headed manikin, which are really vivid in colour, and all new to us. Our guide left us at 9am with a lecture to go to, and as seems inevitable in Peru we had to guess how much to give him, and probably were not generous enough. Being Aussies with fixed prices and no tipping, this way of paying someone is quite uncomfortable for us.For another hour we watched for other birds to appear and saw a pair of toucanets and a cuckoo. By now we are well south of the scope of 'Birds of Colombia' and the toucanets and the manikin were not in the book.
The next place on the agenda was the thermal pools. This is a lovely area, with a few pools of different temperatures, seats, trees and a restaurant, and cost just 1 sol entry (40c). A red-flowering tree was a temporary home to a band of screeching parrots and several different hummingbirds. One was the tiniest we have seen, no larger than a large insect. In fact, we thought it was an insect until the binocs were used.
The sandflies drove us from place to place till they found us again. We both have numerous itchy lumps on or arms, necks and feet, as repellent is useless. After lunch, which was very unexciting and gained us yet another lot of bites, we walked back to town, again in the rain, ignoring the pleas of motocarro drivers to hop in their cabs
A butterfly
. An inebriated fellow came over the road and shook our hands, and started by saying 'I have a parrot and a monkey'. He waffled on for ages then tried to sell them to us. We said Australia does not allow monkeys or parrots so we all shook hands again and parted.After a rest of our old bones there was just time to see the Botanic Garden of San Francisco. After paying our fee of 1 sol a young lad appointed himself our guide. He could not be shaken off, and turned out amazingly knowledgeable for an 8-year-old 'and going to be 9 in 10 days'. He showed us trees with timber suitable for furniture, and another that exudes a red sap like blood if you cut the bark (tut, tut). You rub the sap on yourself and it turns into a cream that eases the itching of bites. He earned his tip.Pre-dinner snacks were a coke between us and a piece of delicious baked egg custard each. It was just over $1all up. But nothing like the amazing value of our tea. Not being very hungry we ordered a hamburger with ham and cheese, expecting a measly little offering like yesterday's lunch. The hamburger was in a huge roll with lettuce and tomato. It was accompanied by a mountain of chips and an outsize fresh salad that included broccoli and green beans. Neither of us could finish this $2 feast, and we waddled our way back to the hotel, bloated
