As a latinophile, I had long featured Chile on my list of places to visit - although there are no antbirds, the tapaculos more than compensate and there are some other real megas to be seen. I had birded Argentinian Patagonia 10 years ago but had missed some key species which are much more accessible now. In 2011, I finally got the chance to visit accompanied by three mates. From the outset, we wanted a comprehensive itinerary. This took time to finalise but worked brilliantly once we were there.
The team were as follows:
Jonathan Newman - 3 weeks main Chile trip then 3/4 days in Argentina.
Ian Merrill - 3 weeks main trip only.
Rob Hutchinson - main trip then Argentina side-trip, but arriving from Kuala Lumpur not London.
Martin Kennewell - first 2 weeks of main trip but arriving from Singapore.
We originally hoped to visit Juan Fernandez for the endemic hummer, but this would have meant extending our trip by several days or dropping another section. In the end it became a toss up between JF or Horned Coot. The coot won. Once this decision had been made, I drafted an initial itinerary which would give us the best chance of all the important species.
Sorting the flights was the initial headache. Chile is a long thin country and internal flights make life much easier when travelling between regions of the country. However, co-ordinating all the various options with international flights was complicated to say the least. Elena at Austral Tours was a godsend and organised all this for me. She tied some internal flights into the international Iberia ones, saving money, and the rest were taken in the form of a LAN airpass. In the first months after we'd booked the flights, the schedules changed frequently - sometimes even several times in a single day. Elena kept me informed throughout and I cannot recommend her highly enough.
info@latinamerica.co.uk
Jonathan, I'll be following your report with interest. You've already wound me up, mentioning Rufous-tailed Hawk...