Peru - Day 5; Tambomachay, Puka Pukara and Quengo Archaeological Parks & Aguas Calientes

   Today was not so much of a birding day, but a touristy day visiting a few of the archeological parks around Cusco, before returning the hire car and taking the train to Aguas Calientes, the small town that serves as the focal point for travelers visiting Machu Pichu. A busy day in prospect. 

  We spent the first few hours of the morning around the town of Pisac, where we had stayed the previous night. At around 08:00 after a bit of shopping we headed off, driving the 40 minutes to the Tambomachay Archeological Site. Here there are some impressive Inca ruins which are very accessible, and although the site is not large, we still managed to spend the best part of an hour here.

  This was helped largely by some excellent bird activity. I knew before our visit that this would represent my last chance on this trip to find the localized Chestnut-breasted Mountain-Finch, and fortunately I was able to locate a pair of these rather smart birds right next to the excavated Inca ruins. Job done! Other good birds around included Mourning Sierra Finch, Black-throated Flowerpiercer and Cream-winged Cinclodes, but the highlight was perhaps the flocks of seed-eating birds in the adjacent fields. 

  Across the road from here is the Puka Pukara Archeological Site which was, in my opinion, more impressive than the previous site but is smaller and is not surrounded by natural woodland in the same way, so from a birding perspective there was little on offer. We finished off the morning by visiting the Quengo Archeological Site just outside Cusco. This was small and not especially impressive, and almost as uninspiring as the previous site for birding, with the exception of a flyover Andean Ibis and a Black-throated Flowerpiercer in the adjacent trees. 

  Once we returned the car at midday we took an Uber to the Inca Rail ticket office and made sure everything was in order for our train to Machu Pichu. The bus to the train station from Cusco took two hours, followed by an hour and forty on the train. There was also a two hour wait between the two transport modes, so by the time we reached the town of Aguas Calientes we were thoroughly exhausted. It did not help that it was already dark, so we could not appreciate the view from the train. Once we arrived at 22:00, we were utterly exhausted and went straight to bed to hopefully rise up feeling fresh for an important day tomorrow.