Returning from the boat trip at 10:30 and our guide out of comission we decide to rest a bit before exploring the grounds. The windows here have only shutters and no glass, quite typical of Guyana. Opening the window into the wilderness seems a good idea first, and then a bad idea as one of our tour mates passes by looking for birds…and also in the room. So yeah no changing with the window open.
Exploring the grounds we are naturally drawn to the high point which is out of view of everyone else. And also it has a great view and a cache nearby that we look for without luck. And then as it is getting close to 12 and lunch we descend into the garden full of mango trees and fallen mangoes. We have been told that they can be quite dangerous for both humans and cars as they fall at high velocity and are quite heavy so we do our best to be careful.
We then walk back to the main building for lunch while our tour mates shout at us to avoid the mangoes, guess everyone is now scared of them.
Lunch is similar but less extensive to dinner. There are fewer options but good enough. And today is the only day we will eat without our guide who is still out sick.
After lunch it is time again to explore the heights. This time we replace the cache and then descend via a separate trail to a group of graves of early settlers, an interesting historical sight.
Here is also the gate that leads to the airport. This is one of the airports that you can walk to from the lodge and the road through the lodge is actually a main road from the village to the highway.
We return through the garden looking for birds and find only common but fun ones like the doves fighting for mangoes for some reason while the blue-grat tanager looks from above unimpressed.
After resting for an hour and washing some clothes it is time for the afternoon tour. We find out that we are going to drive back to the jungle, likely driven by the top listers demand for ground cuckoos. However it will help to have some shade as it is quite hot outside with high humidity.
In fact we drive back to the Surama road we have birded intensively the previous days. The local guides and drivers are from here so they know the area best and that might be one of the reasons. Also everyone is excited about the soccer tournament happening in Surama with traffic on the road being at an all time high.
We see a few interesting birds in this stretch, a King Vulture above us, a Red-billed woodcreeper on the trees and a few other more common birds.
There are also periods when nothing is seen followed by periods of excitment like when a Black-spotted Barbet pair decides to play right next to us on the top of a high tree.
We continue on exploring the road going mostly back towards the rest stop where we ate lunch and where our vans are packed now. We see a few monkeys and then also notice fish in the creek, cool.
This is the last time on this road as we will drive further inland the next day so we enjoy the jungle one more time and the beautiful road.
Arriving at the rest stop it is time to climb into the vans but before that we notice something exciting a Red-rumped cacique colony with active birds. The Red-rumped cacique has been during the trip one of the nemesis birds for us, while common and our guide commonly calling it we simply cannot take any good photos of it. Today that streak is broken, yay!!
On the way back we make one more stop to look at a pond along the way. There are a couple of fishermen in the pond but that doesn’t stop us from seeing a few interesting birds especially a couple of Gray-cowled Wood-rails exploring the shore.
And then it is back to the savanna with a brief stop close to the lodge to take photos and enjoy our first Buff-necked Ibis, quite cool again!
In the evening it is time for dinner and then we pack as tomorrow we have another early departure, 4 AM!!! This is so we can make it at sunrise to the major attraction of tomorrow, the Sun Parakeets!
