Calilegue National Park

After the rains of the desert we head to the cloud forest of Calilegue National Park. Our guidebook describes Calilegue as having amongst the highest biodiversity in the country. I was excited to do some serious bird watching and as we drove into the park a flock of toucans landed in a tree in front of us.


We set up camp overlooking the river surrounded by trees. Dusk brought many sounds and the biodiversity was more apparent in the dark than the light. The air was filled with a cacophony of hums, buzzes, trills, chirps, whistles, screeches, squawks, whirs, beeps, burps and farts. Well at least the last two noises I knew the origin (Vance!). I decided to go for a walk as dusk set in to see if I could spot any night jars, frog mouths, goat suckers or owls. As I walked alone down the mountain road with all those noises surrounding me, I saw two shining green eyes in the woods. Watched them intently and was surprised when only one eye began slowly moving away from the other. What type of cross-eyed animal could this be? As it moved across the road in front of me I realized it was fireflies! Vance later caught one and they are about two inches long with two large spots of light. They move slowly and brightly around the forest.

In addition to the beautiful plush-caped jays with their blue eyebrows that give them a sympathetic expression, we were visited that evening by agouti (medium sizes rodent) and a grey fox that lurked in the darkness near our camp hoping for scraps of food. Vance cooked his now famous lemon chicken on the open fire and after a bottle of delicious red wine; we slept to the sounds of the sub-tropical forest.

While you were all suffering from the cold of a Canadian winter, Vance and I suffered the heat, humidity and mosquitoes of the cloud forest. It was so hot (37 degrees) that during the heat of the day we decided to explore the mountain roads via air conditioned car. As we climbed the switchback mountain roads we stopped and bird watched and simply enjoyed the astounding scenery. The forest stretched to the horizon in various green punctuated with the colours of the flowering trees of the spring. Finally we came to a rickety bridge that crosses a small mountain river. Parrots were flying overhead and a few people had gathered to talk and swim in the fresh cool pool. Vance and I stopped to join them and were soon in animated conversations about our adventures and plans. After a swim in the cold refreshing water we were invited to dinner by a local family.

Francisco and his family were very generous in their hospitality. We enjoyed a wonderful evening of conversation, asado and wine. Their house was lovely with a special room on the back for entertaining that had an asado (large grill with open fire) built in. They also showed us their horno a type of traditional outdoor clay oven used to bake bread, empanadas etc. Pamela the daughter proclaimed that her father was an expert at asado and we had to agree the food was plentiful and delicious! It was a very special evening for us. Once again Argentina hospitality is beyond compare!