Day 120 - Birds and Bus

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Before our midday bus to Rio, we squeezed in a trip to the bird park near our hostel. Over the course of the morning I developed a number of “new favourite birds” including the macaw and toucan (a post previously taken by the British mallard!). We also saw some strange critters such as the Cassowary and Harpy Eagle (the world’s most powerful raptor!), and a little grey bird that appeared to be doing a mating dance with Chris’s shoe!

At midday we boarded our 24 hour bus to Rio, our last bus of the trip. More specifically, this was our 20th public bus, 11 of which travelled overnight. I decided to add up all the hours we spent on the road (including all those days travelling on the Kumuka truck, but excluding day trips sightsee-ing and flights): 362 hours! That’s 15 days! Just over two weeks of our 18 week trip! Well the Rio bus was far and away the most spacious and comfortable, with a driver who actually bothered to communicate what we were doing at every stop and who made our journey pleasant and comfortable. The only oddity was that we stopped at midnight for food, but not in the morning for breakfast before our midday arrival!

Chris's Corner

After seeing Macaws and Toucans in the jungle it was good to see them much closer up. We even worked up the courage to go into an "Enter at your own risk" cage which housed lots of Macaws. It wasn't long until we worked out the risk... a few people followed us in and were instantly subject to birds swooping at them from all angles! While they suffered we snapped some shots and made our exit.

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