Backcountry Birding

April 20-28, 2023. Jujuy Province, Argentina

After visiting Purmamarca and the Yungas forest near San Salvador de Jujuy, I caught a bus up to Ledesma (now known as Libertador General San Martin) which is the closest town to the lowland parts of Calilegua National Park.

This is one of Argentina’s biggest parks, and it covers nearly an entire mountain range, preserving 76,306 hectares of Andean forest. The lowest portions, at ~200m (~660ft), include Chaco forest, and there’s a whole spectrum of contiguous ecosystems up to the park’s highest point on Cerro Amarillo at 3,646m (11,960ft). More than 10,000 feet of elevation change within a single protected area is a pretty incredible feat if you ask me. And unlike parks like the Great Smoky Mountains in the US, I don’t think they kicked out any hillbillies to create this one since the area is pretty sparsely populated.

The first day I hiked around the lower trail system in the park. I was there a bit late in the day so there wasn’t much activity. I did get Blue-crowned Trogon and Yungas Guan, two lifers that didn’t cooperate for photos and I didn’t hear or see at the higher elevations in the park.

I learned at the information center that there was a town on the other side of the park called San Francisco where there were options for food and hostels, and that a bus left the Ledesma station every morning at 8am. Let’s do that, I decided.

In San Francisco there were a surprising number of places to stay, a list of home stay names scrawled next to WhatsApp numbers and posted in the tourist center. I agreed to stay with the guy who happened to be there when I arrived, and was amazed to realize he only was charging 1500 pesos, about $3.75, per night. I think that price had not been adjusted for the recent inflation which had just surged by about 25%.

This guy, Manuel, shared that he’d lived in the town since before the road was built, when it was a full day’s journey on horseback on a steep trail to reach the village. That kind of put things in perspective for me. What a real person.

The fact that this tiny, remote town had so much tourism infrastructure was very confusing until someone at the tourism office explained it to me. A year or so ago, a Buenos Aires travel agency had put together a fantastically successful campaign showing off the beautiful scenery of the area. It went viral and a tidal wave of Argentinians descended on the town. “It was really crazy” he said, “there was no food, no place for people to stay, and no vehicles available for transport.” Since then nearly two dozen residents have prepared lodging options, and there’s a crew of folks employed by the tourist agency to receive visitors. The activity level hasn’t yet returned to the initial peak, but tourism is now a major source of income in the community.

I did my part and paid for a tour to the San Francisco river, about a 15-minute drive from the town. There were about 10 tourists that joined the trip, including folks from Cordoba and several parts of Buenos Aires. The tour went through a couple of different sections of the river where it cut down through some limestone layers to create a deep canyon.

This was also the spot with the highest concentration of Rufous-throated Dipper sightings. An extremely range-limited Yungas endemic, this bird was definitely at the top of my ‘most-wanted’ list. The first couple of times we passed by appropriately bouldery dipper habitat, I didn’t see a thing. Oh well. It was a really foggy and chilly day and maybe the dipper was staying sensibly out of the weather and water.

The final part of the tour involved taking shoes off and wading and scrambling up the canyon to “El Fuente del Jaguar,” a waterfall that plunged into an emerald-green pool. I was pretty surprised that this was a generally-advertised hike; it involved climbing up and down ropes bolted to ice-slick limestone and edging over 10-15’ falls into shallow water… but nobody got hurt and everyone really enjoyed the adventure! It was probably 50 degrees and cloudy when we got to the pool, and so I was the only one who jumped in. It was pretty frigid, but the part that took real guts was stripping down to underwear in front of a bunch of fully-clothed strangers and jumping in, all while being filmed! It was absolutely worth it.

Photos courtesy of our tour guide, Jorge

Back where the road crossed the river I was bringing up the rear of the group, and I spotted a bird that was the wrong shape for a Black Phoebe. It was the dipper! I sprinted up to the car, grabbed my camera and snapped a couple of pictures. I had very carefully kept my shoes and socks completely dry up until that point, but I was so excited that I slipped and plunged both feet into the water. Also worth it.

Back in San Francisco I stayed for three nights, and birded the road to either side of the town a couple of times. I ate each meal at the restaurant right in the town center, mostly milanesas or empanadas, and enjoyed the peace and quiet of the place. Here are some pictures I took.

When it was time for my flight back to Buenos Aires, I took three buses to the airport near San Salvador de Jujuy and made it back to find that it was fall in the city. It was amazing how similar it felt to Atlanta in November or October, even down to the smell!

In the next few days I headed to Paraguay, to do some volunteer work at the Mbaracayu Forest Reserve with the Moises Bertoni Foundation. That’ll be covered in the next post. Thanks for reading!

Year List: 692 | Lifers this year: 372 | Life List: 1658