Southern Cone: ChAr 2016 Part 9: Northwest Argentina - Salta to San Miguel de Tucumán

Feb 16

Today was Adam's last full day in Argentina, and unfortunately he was feeling pretty horrible, likely as a result of pushing through his illness over the past few days in order to keep our travel plans and see our targets. We spent most of the day sleeping and hanging out with our fellow travellers at the hostel, with a few excursions to find food and a bank. I ended up going for dinner with one of the Argentinians who was staying at the hostel, and we ended up at a restaurant near the plaza where I got my first and only steak dinner in the country. It was pretty amazing, I must say, and I think the whole fancy dinner plus a half-bottle of Malbec cost somewhere around $12! We had originally hoped to get out to look for owls near Salta but nightly thunderstorms prevented that from happening. Night again at Salta por Siempre.

Night scene in Salta

Running trip list: 689 (AR: 574)

Feb 17

Today was basically a write-off, as we were unable to figure out how to get to Los Cardones and back using the bus system without potentially being stranded. As a result, I spent most of the day on the WiFi figuring out my next move while Adam caught up on sleep and packed his stuff. He flew out from Salta in the afternoon, making it home to Ontario the next day where he was able to get some better medical help for his dengue! Night again at Salta por Siempre.

Running trip list: 689 (AR: 574)

Feb 18

After a late breakfast, I packed up my stuff and headed for the bus station, where I caught the 13:00 bus to Ledesma (Libertador General San Martin). While waiting for the bus, I managed to use the free station WiFi to submit my initial application to grad school from my phone, as I was planning to start a Master's at Acadia in the fall. Arriving in Ledesma at 16:00, I went across the street to the Hosteria Real Victoria, where a single room cost 300p (there were no dorm options). After a foray to the grocery store to load up on food for my next three or so meals, I spent the evening in the A/C, researching the rest of my target birds.

Not how you want your day to turn out!

Running trip list: 689 (AR: 574)

Feb 19

I was up at 05:50 to have breakfast, make a lunch, and pack my bags. After checking out and getting the person working at the desk to store my big pack in a safe place for the day, I walked over to the bus station. There I was told that the first bus/colectivo going through Calilegua National Park departed at 08:45, meaning I would miss the best morning hours. Not wanting to waste those, I caught a taxi, which got me to the park entrance for 100p, arriving at 07:20. After paying my entrance fees, I birded my way up the main road through the park, making it about 200m in before encountering a mixed flock where I was pretty sure I had one of my target birds. I was straining for a better look when a car pulled up. This had happened several times at other locations in northwestern Argentina, as the mountains are a popular place for people from Buenos Aires to go during their 2-week summer holiday, and each time it had been an Argentine tourist asking me for directions. Preparing to launch into Spanish-mode, I was surprised when I looked down to see three Europeans with binoculars looking back at me! The entire trip up to this point, we had encountered no other birders at any of the sites we'd visited, so it was nice to finally see some like-minded people. In this case, the surprise was extra-nice, as they were headed to the upper elevations and offered me a lift. They had already birded the lower elevations the day before, and had some targets left higher up. This was an area of the park I wasn't expecting to get to, and I'd basically written off those species, so I jumped at the opportunity. We gained elevation as we made introductions - it turned out they were all long-time world birders from Denmark, in Argentina on holiday. In exchange for the lift, I did my best to guide them at the top, as I was pretty good with my Argentina bird calls by this point in the trip. Up top, we added White-throated Antpitta, Pale-legged Warbler and Blue-capped Puffleg to my life list, plus quite a few new birds for the trip such as Rough-legged Tyrannulet, Glossy-black Thrush, Hepatic Tanager and White-throated Quail-Dove. The Danes also got most or all of what they were hoping for, and they seemed quite happy to have the company.

White-throated Antpitta

Birding the upper reaches of Calilegua

Calilegua

After we'd cleaned up at the top and had lunch, they gave me a ride back down and dropped me off at the ranger station. There, I walked the road back up to the lookout (Mirador San Lorenzo) and then around the two loop trails near the station. This netted me Yellow-collared Macaw, Green-cheeked Parakeet, Red-legged Seriema and Ochre-cheeked Spinetail. I spent some time trying to coax out a Giant Antshrike but was unable to get any kind of identifying looks at this species (https://ebird.org/view/checklist/S27699652). By 14:30, the thermometer was reading 36C plus 85% humidity (giving a humidex value well over 50C), and I decided to call it a day. Since I hadn't really birded the lower elevations in the morning while activity was high, I missed out on a few targets here - all species that I will hopefully get a chance at on a future trip to Bolivia or Brazil though! Not really sure when or if a bus might come by, I started walking down the road back toward town in the blazing heat. I made it about 3 km before some construction workers offered me a lift in the back of their pickup, and I happily hopped in and rode the remaining 5 km to the edge of town - that would have been a long walk in the heat. Back at the hotel, I picked up my backpack and headed to the bus station, where a guy was calling out for Salta. It turned out he was the driver of a shared cab, which ended up being a few pesos cheaper per person than taking the bus so I hopped in. Two hours later, we pulled into the city in the midst of a massive thunderstorm, and I hopped a cab to the Salta por Siempre hostel (it was quite a nice hostel - what can I say?!). Eventually the rain let up enough for me to go foraging for dinner.

Running trip list: 710 (AR: 595)

Feb 20

By this point I had figured out how I could potentially get to Los Cardones to pick up my last few specialty birds in the Salta area, however heavy rains all day put a damper on those plans and I ended up spending the entire day at the hostel, working on stuff for my grad school application and writing up my notes from the past few days. While out at dinner, I ran into some of the guys from the hostel and ended up joining them on the town for the night, going to a few clubs and getting back to the hostel sometime after 03:00...

Running trip list: 710 (AR: 595)

Feb 21

After a late breakfast, I packed up and checked out, heading for the bus station and cutting my losses in the Salta area. The next bus to Cafayate wasn't until 13:00, so I got lunch while I waited. The ride from Salta to Cafayate was pretty spectacular, passing through the Quebrada de las Conchas valley. Arriving in town at 17:00 on a Sunday, the town was a bit of a disaster as they'd just had some annual festival over the weekend. This also meant that the town had mostly cleared out, and I quickly found a bed at the Hostel Ruta 40 for 180p in a dorm. I ended up just spending the evening hanging out with some people at the hostel after getting dinner at a nearby restaurant.

Scenes from the bus

Running trip list: 710 (AR: 595)

Feb 22

I had originally planned to try to get out into the monte scrublands today, but after waking up with a painful stomachache I decided to take it easy and hoped it would go away. It didn't, and it turned out to be a rather bad case of food poisoning - I guess two sketchy sandwiches in a row were too much for my system (lettuce on the first and a semi-rotten tomato on the second that I ate part of before realizing...). I spent the day alternating between the bathroom and my bed, with a brief foray outside to look for birds (https://ebird.org/view/checklist/S27782478). By the evening, the sickness seemed to have subsided so I went for dinner with some girls from the hostel (from Denmark and New Zealand). We tried one of the local specialties - gelato made from Torrontes wine, a super sweet white that is only grown in this region. It was pretty delicious - I'd recommend you try it if you're in Cafayate!

Running trip list: 710 (AR: 595)

Feb 23

I was feeling a bit better this morning, so I went over to the bike rental place near my hostel, picked up a bike and headed 10 km out of town. My destination was the km 8 monte desert, a stretch of mostly untouched scrub east of Cafayate. Luckily, the day was cloudy, as I got a bit of a late start between sleeping off my illness and waiting for the bike rental place to open, then cycling out of town. This kept things relatively cool and the birds active. My target Chaco Earthcreeper and Many-colored Chaco Finch proved relatively easy to find here, and I also added Rufous-fronted Thornbird for the trip. I also managed to actually see a few Sandy Gallitos, having only heard them a few weeks earlier with Josh and Adam, and was kept entertained by a decent variety of other Chaco species through the late morning (https://ebird.org/view/checklist/S27782661).

Monte scrub near Cafayate

Having had success with my targets, I made my way back to town past the vineyards, returned the bike, had lunch, and then caught the 14:00 bus to Tafí del Valle. The bus ride was quite scenic, and as we passed by the Cuesta los Cardones, I managed to see and hear Steinbach's Canastero and Rufous-sided Warbling-Finch as the bus slowed down for some hairpin turns (and the windows were open - https://ebird.org/view/checklist/S27800787). Unfortunately this would be my only individual of this warbling-finch for the trip as I missed them farther north where they're more common, but it was also my 600th species in Argentina! Over the pass, my first Andean Tinamou flushed from the roadside - luckily I'd have another shot the next day. Arriving in Tafí at 17:00, I made my way to the Nomade Hostel on the south side of town (200p, included dinner and breakfast), where there were a lot of people from Buenos Aires staying.

Running trip list: 716 (AR: 601)

Feb 24

After the included breakfast, I wandered to the main plaza/bus terminal in town to figure out a ride. It turned out the bus up over the pass wasn't leaving until the afternoon, so I talked a cab driver into taking me for 200p. He dropped me off just south of the pass (by the sign that says Tafí 22 km, El Mollar 32 km), and I spent the rest of the morning and early afternoon walking back down the mountain toward town, getting quite a sunburn in the process. The locations given in my eBird list here: https://ebird.org/view/checklist/S27800987 use this starting point as a reference.

The starting point for my walk

The habitat here was mostly open pasture, with little gullies intersecting the road every now and then. The birding around these streams was great, and as I walked I picked up most of my target species: Huayco Tinamou, Bare-eyed Ground-Dove, White-browed Tapaculo, Slender-billed Miner, White-browed Chat-Tyrant and Tucuman Mountain-Finch. "Tucuman" Sedge Wrens were fairly common along the road, as were Hellmayr's Pipits. At the lower fork of the second stream, I found a pair of Gray-headed Parakeets, and farther down the road a pair of Andean Swifts flew over. At the first major hairpin turn (just past the 7th stream crossing), I finally encountered a couple of Andean Lapwings, my last target at El Infiernillo.

Hellmayr's Pipit

Tucuman Mountain-Finch

Bare-eyed Ground Dove

Andean Tinamou

Only a minute later, a farmer pulled up and asked if I needed a ride back to town. Seeing as I'd seen everything I was hoping to, I gratefully accepted his offer of a ride and hopped in the back of the pickup where his grandson was riding, and we had a bit of a chat on the ~8 km ride back to town. I then grabbed lunch and headed back to the hostel, where I spent the rest of the afternoon working on my grad school application and then stayed up way too late talking with the other travellers at the hostel.

Running trip list: 728 (AR: 618)

Feb 25

After breakfast, I checked out of the hostel at 10:00, leaving my big pack with them for safekeeping, then went to find a bus. At the terminal, I managed to find a bus leaving at 10:30 that was heading toward San Miguel, and got the driver to drop me off along the Quebrada Los Sosa (my notes say at "El Nogal" although I can't find that on a map). From here I spent the rest of the morning walking back uphill toward Tafí before stopping for lunch at the La Curva restaurant, checking out a few little side trails that led down to the river (https://ebird.org/view/checklist/S27813105). My main target, Yellow-striped Brushfinch, proved to be quite common along this whole stretch, and at some point I managed to find a Rufous-throated Dipper, plus quite a few Torrent Ducks which were new for the trip list. The birding here was generally decent, if difficult because of the noise from the river and the closed-in forest, and the road wasn't too busy.

Yellow-striped Brushfinch

Quebrada los Sosa

Some nice forest along the valley road

After my lunch break, I went to the roadside to wait for a bus. 15 minutes later, a bus drove by and signalled to me that he couldn't stop where I was - I had passed the 'official' bus stop 2 km earlier but didn't think much of it at the time. Not wanting to walk back and wait for another bus, I stuck out my thumb, and one of the pickup trucks that was stuck behind the bus stopped and offered me a ride. It turned out they were heading right into Tafí, and after passing the bus that hadn't stopped for me, and through a short thunderstorm, they dropped me off at the bus station in town. Back at the hostel, I picked up my big pack and charged my phone, then got the 16:30 bus to San Miguel de Tucumán, doing a scan of Dique la Angostura as we passed by (https://ebird.org/view/checklist/S27832485). Arriving at 18:30, I got dinner and bought a ticket for the 22:30 bus to Córdoba.

I did fairly well with hitching rides in the northwest!

Running trip list: 730 (AR: 620)