Tweeters,

My wife and I recently spent nearly a month birding in Venezuela. Phil
Holten's post certainly doesn't reflect our experiences in the country.
It's hard for me to think it will in the future, either.

We rented a car and drove through much of their beautiful country on a
self-guided tour. We wandered through the cloud forests along the north
coast west from Caracas, then south along the foothills of the Andes to
the Merida area and finally ended up at Hato el Cedral, one of the huge
cattle ranches in the southern llanos (savanna). Hato el Cedral still
operates as a working ranch but also as an ecotourism lodge. As someone
we met there said, "I could spend the rest of my life here." The
landscape has been basically untouched and the sheer number of birds,
mammals, and reptiles is mind boggling.

Independent travel in emerging world countries always creates a few good
stories. We brought some home, but the people of Venezuela seem to be
pretty much like everyone else?some friendly and some not; some
professional and some not?just like everywhere else in the world we've
traveled. We never felt uncomfortable in terms of our personnel safety.
We were uncomfortable from the heat and humidity on more than one
occasion but that's a good kind of uncomfortable.

We saw nearly 200 lifers and many old bird friends from previous trips
to South America. Traveling in South America is not always easy but it
*is *the "Bird Continent." Nothing like seeing your first yellow-knobbed
curassow or hundreds of scarlet ibis in flight at sunset to give one
total memory loss concerning minor travel hassles.

There is one very ironic thing about all this. We met a group of
Europeans that have been to the states birding. One couple from Germany
has been here twenty times. All are currently boycotting the USA until
WE have a regime change.

Bill Morris
Green LakeRe: