A 2 day drive down to Puerto Maldonado, a mining and logging town on the banks of the Madre de Dios where we had researched as the best place in the world to visit a Macaw lick, a high bank on the edge of the river that exposes mineral salts that numerous parrots come in the early morning to eat. We spent the first night about 4 km out of town in some palm trees next to a little stream where we were woken up by about 40 small red bellied Macaws feeding and squabbling in the trees above the Landy.

     Our nights spent wild camping had exposed us to mosquitoes one night, sand flies the next night, then bees, and the worst of them Jigger ticks (a small tick about the size of a grain of sand that burrow into the soft skin around clothing and then itch like crazy) we had tonnes of these, and then James was bitten by some mongrel dog, fortunately only just breaking the skin.

     All the package tours to the Macaw licks (called a Colpa) are so expensive, so we decided to try organising one ourselves. We found another hotel in town as a base where they let us camp in the car park next to the pool. We again started doing research to organise a tour and met Nadir - an Italian guide (who spoke excellent English) who has lived in town for about 15 years. He agreed to be our guide for next to nothing on our 3 day 2 night trip to Colpa Chuncho. He also took us out to a bar opening night and then a night club in town which we would never have done on our own.

     Leaving the Landy at the hotel we headed off early to the port and jumped in our hired boat with Nadir and boat driver Jorge. The camp spot was a relaxing boat drive 6 hours up river, where we were able to get up close to a family of Capybara. The following morning we were up at 5am to cross the river and await the arrival of the birds at the Colpa. By 6am there were about 300-400 Blue Headed Amazons, a few pairs of Yellow fronted Amazons, Mealy Amazons and Chestnut fronted Macaws that all came down to feed on the Colpa. There were a few large Macaws in the trees but they did not come down to feed. The rest of the day we spent walking through the jungle with Nadir giving us an excellent informative talk on all the plants and animals and we were lucky enough to see Squirrel monkey and Capuchin monkey in the trees above us.

     Jorge the boat driver had been fishing and had caught lunch which Kerry declined as everything had been boiled together in a stew. An early night and then up at 5am again to go down to the Colpa where we got a little closer to the bank, about 50m away from the birds. Once again the same birds visited in the first shift but also included an Orange Cheeked Parrot. The large macaws arrived and then left and arrived again and then left and at about 10am arrived again and with about 40 Macaws present they came down to feed on the Colpa. There were both Scarlet and Green winged Macaws and we managed to get some wicked photos by taking photos through the binoculars with the camera. Ingenious!!!! The trip was a success apart from on the way back breaking down 1 hour up stream. Fortunately we quickly caught a lift back to town.

     We found out that Nadir's house mate is the local "Eagle Man" running a local conservation project on saving the jungle eagles. Anyone who knows James knows how excited he would be with this information! Would you believe he has a nest he is monitoring at the moment with a chick in it! We have organised to go out to the nest and hopefully scale the tree to see the chick and maybe catch a glimpse of the adults!!! Will let you know how the trip went in the next instalment!