Seeing Condors in Argentina by Yvonne Van Dongen

Walking in the Parque Nacional Quebrada del Condorito in central Argentina I am reminded of New Zealand.

Don’t you just hate people that say that? People who refer to NZ in superior tones wherever they go? I once travelled with a woman who found everything unsurprising since she’d already seen it before at home and that included the Himalayas.

But, no, it’s not because of the scenery (though I grant you it does look rather like Central Otago with its flat, stony, tussocky desertscape) but because of the fickleness of the weather. The heatwave tickling the high 30s which has enveloped the country for weeks has vanished and the day we set aside to hike 7km to the condors has turned cold and showery.

And, exactly like New Zealand, the tourists are unprepared. Except that the tourist is me. Dressed only in a cardie and shorts I am woefully under-dressed for the plummeting temperatures of his high plateau (2000m above sea level). I have already decided I will have to miss the 15km return walk if I don’t want to risk hypothermia. In fact, the entire better-prepared group may all give up so we stop for coffee, look at a display on condors and swallow some warming coffee and gluggy sweet cake.

The guide appears with some long raincoats at about the same time the cloud momentarily parts so the stupid tourists decide to go for it anyway. Just like New Zealand. Which is how we all come to be walking in the lashing wind and rain. All to see a few old vultures.

A splendid vulture I guess and according to one Argentinean brochure the biggest flying bird in the world. But Argentineans are famous for talking things up so we won’t mention the wing span of the wandering albatross. 

Still, at up to 15kgs, 1.2m tall with a wingspan of 3.2m, the condor is impressive. While not beautiful close up with their naked wrinkly necks and red eyes (females only) and brown fleshy crest (males), they are majestic in flight. A worthy symbol of the indigenous people who saw it as a messenger of the gods. The Spanish chose the more prosaic but infinitely more edible cow as their symbol.

For a while there they thought the condor preyed on the cow but in fact it has no talons nor any means to rip live flesh off bones. The condor relies entirely on carrion for its diet which is why dead cows are brought into the park and one reason why authorities are considering reintroducing llamas here.

Parque Nacional Quebrada del Condorito is, after all, only ten years old, created to repair the damage done to the flora and fauna following road construction in the area. Condor numbers went down to twenty but in the last decade condors have increased ten-fold and now number two hundred.

A condor can travel 300km for food and detect the whiff of a skunk miles from the earth below. They don’t need to eat every day which is just as well given that they can’t fly on a full stomach. And when threatened they throw up on their attacker. Yup, that’ll do it every time.

You can tell a condor from a turkey vulture or buzzard eagle by looking at the wings. A condor rarely flaps. They glide. Size matters too. They are bigger. Also, if you can get close, you’ll see they are white on top and black underneath.

Not much of a chance of that though given that they need wind currents from cliff tops to get them aloft. Which is why we are walking to a look-out point overlooking a ravine (quebrada is Spanish for ravine) 1.5km wide and 800m deep. The air currents this creates is perfect for condor flight and perfect for baby condors to learn to fly which is why the park carries the diminutive “condorito”. They are here aplenty in the right season.

Also condors are very romantic. They mate for life and it is said (though not proven) that when a female dies, the male will commit suicide by plunging like an arrow to earth. The more pragmatic female is supposed to fly over the Andes in search of another mate. Pfff. Sounds like male paranoia to me.

But there are other birds and beasties here too. We count 20 different bird species by the end of the day including a rare glimpse of a fox, numerous scurrying cuys (guinea pigs) and a trout in a river we were supposed to swim in that morning but didn’t because of the cold.  We do not see any of the pumas or the snakes which call the park home.

Do we see condors? Do we ‘eck as like. At least six. Miles away. Soaring blots in the sky-blue. Seen from the ravine look-out where we look across a hazy blue receding landscape to Cordoba.

And we are hot. Truly. Hot. Just like in New Zealand the sun has come out, the raincoats and cardies are tethered around our waist and we’ve drunk all our water.

We drive back to the city, tired and happy and congratulating ourselves on toughing it out. Just like in New Zealand, we knew it’d be worth it.