THE FALCOPOLIS ANGOLA EXPERIENCE

MAR 01 - Arrival at Bailundo
Our dates are adjusted to TAAG's domestic flights between Luanda (the capital city of Angola) and the provincial city of Huambo, but you are most welcome to arrive in any way at our accommodation in Bailundo until 6 PM this day. In case you are taking TAAG's flight, you are expected to land in Huambo at 2:05 p.m. We will greet you at the airport and drive you to Bailundo town. If all goes well, we will be able to take our hotel rooms at 16:00 hrs and prepare ourselves for our Trip Orientation that commences by 18:00 hrs this evening. Due to the frequent changes and delays in flight schedules, please bring with you a healthy amount of flexibility for this experience. Nevertheless, after introducing each other, going through the program that is ahead of us, and establishing some rules and regulations of newborn responsible tourism projects, we will proceed for a simple but enjoyable Welcome Dinner. This shall be followed by an early bedtime, considering the very early departure time of the following morning.
Accommodation: simple but clean hotel in Bailundo

MAR 02 - Falcopolis
The Red-footed Falcons only gather in large numbers for the night (it is called 'roosting' in the world of ornithology), thus experiencing this newly discovered natural wonder is only possible early in the mornings and late afternoons. For this, we depart from our accommodation an hour before dawn and arrive at the roosting site just as the first lights break the horizon. We carefully approach the site and watch 1 million falcons wake up and prepare for their daily activities. Which is not very complicated here: it usually involves eating as many termites as they can, to get as fat as they can, before they commence their journey to their breeding sites in Europe or Asia. They start being more and more active as the sunlight arrives, giving us amazing viewing or photographing opportunities. Around 2-3 hours after sunrise, the birds will be off for their daily feeding trips, leaving only trees and bushes behind that are heavily marked by their digestive activities. They will start coming back around 2 hrs before sunset, so we have the rest of the day for us to enjoy the location and learn as much as we can about the project and its broader environment. We have a lovely conference room available to us in the village, where we will spend a few hours, listening to formal and informal talks (scientists, volunteers, municipal leaders, government officials, and many others) before we head to the local restaurant for a very simple but tasty lunch. After lunch, we set off in search of the small local hippopotamus population, which also includes a visit to a local family and listening to their own stories about life in Angola after the civil war, as well as their relation to the event of falcons darkening their skies for one month every year. Two hours before sunset, we will arrive at the roosting site again and climb a small viewing platform that we set up at the edge of the roost. Evenings are the most sensitive time for the comfort of these birds, where disturbances must be kept to the very minimum. They must be allowed to land and get into night mode without any outside disturbance. For about 2-3 hrs, from the comfort of our platform, we will watch them arrive, choose actual night sites, interact with each other and start relaxing and digesting after a hard day of termite hunting. Termite swarms near the roost site in the late afternoon sunlight offer a unique opportunity to take pictures of birds hunting for the termites in the lower air. Finally, the murmuration of the hundreds of thousands of falcons in the sunset with the thunderstorm clouds in the background is the peak photographic event of the day.  We will stay on the platform until complete darkness, pull out very slowly, and make our way back to our hotel in Bailundo. An evening recap, dinner, and some chats around the fire will close our day and prepare us for more falcon experiences the following morning.
Accommodation: same as the previous night

MAR 03 - Falcopolis 
Our day will be very similar to the previous one. We will arrive at the falcons before the first lights do and spread around the site in small groups, to minimize the disturbance and maximize our experiences. As soon as all the falcons left with the first thermals to hunt in high altitudes and we took a short walk to find some of the other bird species that are unique to the area, we will be back to our classroom for a few more hours. At this time, we will have much more informal sessions, asking the scientists and their volunteers all and any questions that arose from our personal experiences thus far. After lunch, we will choose from an array of interesting short activities based on the weather conditions, and then we will be back on our platform a few hours before sunset and let two million falcons amuse us and entertain us with their unique and delicate aerial dances and interactions. After dark, we will pull out quietly and return to our accommodation for a recap and a surprise Farewell Dinner. 
Accommodation: same as the previous night

MAR 04 - Departure from Bailundo 
Breakfast this morning is the last official event of our unique Falcopolis workshop. Those who came from Luanda or other places by car can depart on their own at any given time. Those of us who take the flight back to Luanda from Huambo will be escorted to Huambo Airport to be dropped off at noon or shortly afterward. This is the official end of our workshop.