23rd November 2008, Birding in Bolivia:
Trip
Bolivia 3rd November 2008 - 16th November 2008
Participants: Gustaf Nordenswan, Jussi Vakkala
Traveling route: Santa Cruz - Samaipata - Red Fronted Macaw Lodge - Comarapa - Cochabamba - Sajama National Park - La Paz - Lake Titicaca - La Paz
Bolivia is one of the little traveled countries in birding circuits, yet it has a huge potential in variety of biotopes and number of bird species. We decided to do something different compared to usual Peru, Ecuador and Brazil tours in South America. I contacted Bird Bolivia to sort out logistics and guides etc. We ended up with full chartered tour including all meals, accomodation and transport: no need to worry about logistics but just keep on birding.

Our guide Sandro Valdez and driver Carlos Lijeron worked hard to ensure that things were going smoothly all the time, they both were constantly looking us new species with great patience and skill. I can assure I've never met better driver concerning bird finding abilites than Carlos!

Before trip we had to sweat bullets though: there were quite serious confrontations especially in Santa Cruz area resulting that airport was closed and international flights cancelled for several days. At worst moments we were estimating that our trip is very likely to be postponed or totally cancelled. By looking it now everything went fine, in many details even much better than what we were expecting.

Commercially organized bird tour vs. going on your own: If possible I try to use local guiding services and driver whenever possible. The benefits are multiple: I can plan the route just like I want and do not to need worry how to get there, know specific birding locations, hassles with accomodations etc. Saving on time and nerves is enormous if there are any limits for time used, as the case usually is when vacation days are running through the trip.

Another positive side is to support local nature tourism: by using local services there are more incentive to save the remaining parts of forests for traveling purposes instead of extensive logging.

Photography gear: Just before this trip I was in Colombia and did o.k with handheld EF 300/4L IS lens. But during this trip the familiar Canon 1D MKIII + EF 500/4L + 1.4TC on Gitzo GT3530LS tripod + Wimberley Sidekick combination was used again. By looking back this was the right move and ensured much better pictures than what would have been with 300mm lens only.

I didn't carry a spare body but used 1D MKIII all the time, just swapped the EF 28/1.8 (and sometimes clip-on neck strap) on for allround photography. This was going very smoothly and I really wasn't missing the cumbersome practice of carrying tripod, supertele and two camera bodies, like I did last year in Costa Rica. If I'll change anything in future, I will probably buy some light pocketable camera for allround traveling photography.
People photography: I concentrated too heavily on birding to make any impact on people photography. Further I felt that local were not as ready to get photographed as I have experienced in some other Latin America countries. Very polite but a little more reserved people for a reason or another?
Bird Photography: I got pictures of over one hundred species. My photography during trips is serving two purposes: First I want to have species pictures for personal use and selling. Second we have to document a few difficult to identify species for later examination. Long supertele attached to tripod serves both uses, as long as one can carry the thing into field.. We were lucky to not suffer any kind of health problems during trip, and I could carry the whole set even at altitudes well over 4000 meters (13000 feet).