Sunday, January 3, 2010

Big Birds

Peru highlight #2:

ANDEAN CONDORS!!!

I don't know how many of you are aware, but these giant birds are so awesome! I've wanted to see one ever since I was a kid watching the Hayley Mills classic, "In Search of the Castaways." In this movie, they travel to the Andes mountains in search of their shipwrecked father and have all kinds of adventures. Here's the clip with the condor if any of you are unfamiliar with this Disney action masterpiece. (You only need to see about the first 3 minutes or so, but the rest is great too!)



Is it any wonder I wanted to witness these winged marvels for myself? To see them, we had to travel to the deepest canyon in the world (in actual depth, not elevation) - Colca Canyon. The canyon itself is quite a sight to see. It's gorgeous, with Incan terraces everywhere. At the top, there's a great place to watch the condors, and there were sooooo many people there to do just that. We did this the day after my birthday, and I couldn't think of anything I'd rather do to celebrate.

Andean Condors are the largest flying land bird. They have a wingspan of 9 to 10 feet! Yep, they're pretty huge... The young ones are brown, and the adults are black with red heads and a white ring of feathers around their necks. They live to be about 50 years old!

Here's a video of the real thing. I give you the Andean Condor!





As you can see, they were flying right over our heads! It was so amazing! We watched for about an hour, but I could easily have stayed much longer.




One childhood dream...check!
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