IN THE DISTANCE they are distinctive, through binoculars they are impressive, but up close they are magnificent. As they sail the air, great galleons navigating the updraughts along the cliff line, they pass within a giant wing-length of my perch, turning their wizened heads to offer me a glistening, ancient eye. They appear so big that I’m tempted to leap on board and ride them, Avatar-style, out over their Chilean dominion.
Such fantasies aside, Andean condors are a special bird. I studied their form in my childhood encyclopaedias and had always dreamed of such an encounter.
On their second flyby they are higher, and as I squint into the sky and a colossal silhouette eclipses the sun, a shower of glistening drops explodes beneath the tail, floats and falls. Within a second, a drop plops on my cheek and I smile – a smile that radiates through my entire body and makes me fizzle with elation. I’ve just been pooed on
