Tue, April 16 - Birding Ankasa park

Tue, April 16 - Birding Ankasa Park

We got up at 3:40 AM and gathered for breakfast at 4:30 AM for omelets, bread and jam.  Off on the bus at 5 and we drove in the dark north for 1.5 hours reaching cut over and burned hillsides just outside the entry to Ankasa National Park, arriving at 6:15 at the entry kiosk.  We picked up a ranger and drove into the park and a couple of miles more until the road had a muddy wallow and the bus had to stop.  We were supposed to have 4-wheel drive vehicles to transport us but for some reason the local agent, Ashanti Tours, couldn’t supply them. 

So we took off on foot, hiking on the road and passing muddy spots by balancing on the edges.  At one spot I suddenly flipped and landed on my right hip square in the red mud. (Got up OK but am pretty stiff this evening with a grapefruit-sized bruise

Clearing the road

!) 

There were many piles of round hay-bale shaped piles of dung of the rare and very shy Forest Elephants. We also saw Bush Buck on the road, small deer-like animals with vertical white strips.  We continued on finally arriving at a research station where we were originally to have parked.  We walked over to Pond 1 and saw a pair of lovely purple-blue Shining Blue Kingfishers. Unfortunately these have displaced the rarer pale blue Blue-breasted Kingfishers. 

 

Forest Elephant dung

At noon it started to rain and we retired to the station to relax and eat the lunch the hotel had prepared for us: three slices of bread and two segments of Laughing Cow cheese each!!

Between showers we walked down a path from the station into a lovely and magical forest of mature bamboo arranged in large clumps like giant bunch grass called the Bamboo Cathedral, appropriately enough`.  A little stream ran through the grove and we sat and enjoyed the view, although no birds appeared.  We hiked some more until it rained again; Glenda and I took some time off and relaxed while the others forged on!

 

The Bamboo Cathedral

We finally started back to the bus at 4 reaching it at 5 and birded at a bridge with beautiful views of the hills and reflections of the clouds in the stream.
We got back to the Gracia Hotel at 7:10.  I taught RR how to take a shower here:  A light stream comes out of the shower head, enough to soap yourself up and then there is a lower faucet with much better water pressure and a plastic mug with which you can use to rinse yourself off!  A strange but effective system!

We met at 8 for a delicious dinner of avocado salad, fried chicken, palava, a spicy bean dish, and rice.  More of the incredibly sweet pineapple for dessert.