Toucans and Temples
The Team at Calakmul
7th Jan: Montezuma got his revenge! Unfortunately, a nasty bout of diarrhoea and sickness delayed our start on day seven but we soon hit the road if feeling a bit sensitive! We drove to the Mayan ruins at Calakmul. Given our late arrival (we had planned to be here at dawn) we were not very optimistic about the birding and decided to just enjoy the ruins. How wrong we were! The jungle around the ruins was jumping with birds. It was difficult to move along the path as soon as we left one bird we hit another. A Black-headed Trogon was the star of the walk in posing on a sun lit bough, a stunner.
We climbed to the top of the spectacular pyramid and wow what a view from the top. Unbroken forest stretched as far as you could see. It was here we saw Keel billed Toucan! What a perfect setting to see a most bizarre and beautiful bird. Noise of crashing branches drew attention to feeding monkeys, both Black Howlers and Spider Monkeys.
The walk was again slow due to great birds and we have to mention four Great Curassow close to the path and of course the Ocellated Turkeys. These colourful and weird birds are used to seeing people here and incredible views were enjoyed and video and photos taken.
Our visit to Calakmul was wonderful but had run way over time and we now had a long drive ahead of us it was gone ten pm when we finally found a hotel at Palenque.
P.S. Many apologies to all those of you who have emailed us recently and not heard back from us so far. It is very hard to get internet access out here so we will be in touch as soon as we can. but do please keep emailing, it´s great to hear from you!
Posted 8.45 am 08.01.08