The first leg of my recent voyage to South America was partly a birdwatching trip at most. I travelled Ecuador for nearly three weeks with my brother and his workmate Tina. As I learned from previous journeys, birding on a trip with non-birders is hardly possible and is well able to create discontent in a group. So I limited my passion to a minimum and more or less travelled as an average tourist, so far as this is possible for me… The longest lens I had with me was the (magnificent!) Nikkor AF-S 300mm f4, besides a 70-200mm, 60mm and 18-55mm.
We focused on getting a good overview of the country with its arid coast, high Andes and the rainforest of the Amazon basin and the, for my standards, epic climb of Chimborazo volcano, the highest mountain of Ecuador and the farthest point on the Earth’s surface from the Earth’s center. We succeeded on July 14, more than one month after the last successful roped party.
