sightseeing in Colombia

After my month of birding was over, I had more time to spend in Colombia, having accepted an invitation to spend Christmas in Bogota with a colleague.  This didn't work exactly as planned, as her mother fell ill and so the whole family turned up leaving no room for me to stay in the apartment.  Nevertheless it gave me the opportunity to explore the attractions of Bogota and the area around it.  Highlights were the Gold Museum and the salt cathedral at nearby Zipaquira, low points were the cold, wet weather and travelling on the Transmilenio buses during rush hour.

After Christmas we travelled to the pricey but relaxing resort town on Paipa.  There we spent time in the thermal mineral baths as well as visiting some important historical sites in the country's battle for independence from colonial rule.

From there I went on to Villa de Leyva, a beautifully preserved colonial town with the largest plaza in Colombia. 

Although around the same altitude (2,500m) as Bogota, it was much warmer with clear blue skies for most of my four-day stay.  I went on some long walks along country lanes to visit blue pools, a pliosaur fossil, and a collection of 3,500-year-old stones in some kind of solar observatory, and I saw in the New Year with 20,000 others in the plaza watching the fireworks, followed by the traditional burning of effigies by each family, through which all of the previous year's concerns and disputes are supposed to go up in smoke so as to start the year with a clean slate.

Then New Year's Day saw a long hike up a mountain for a great view over the town and surrounding area.  I must have got fitter during this trip and wonder if there is a way to maintain it once the holiday is over?

After Villa de Leyva I travelled to the Caribbean coast for a few days in Cartagena.  This beautiful city was founded in 1533 and its city wall, defensive forts and solid old colonial houses are incredibly well preserved.  Other than a half day visiting a thermal mud bath and one classical guitar concert ($3 for a seat only ten rows from the front in in a large modern auditorium!) I spent my four days there just wandering around the old streets, stopping for coffees, platters of fruit and coconut drinks of to do the odd bit of shopping.  I even day-dreamed a little about going to live there until I heard that the old houses start at $1million!

six owls and four snakes

Six owls (including the critically endangered and endemic Santa Marta screech owl, only discovered in 2007) and four snakes (including two harmless ones I got to handle) were amongst the creatures I saw during a 29-day birding tour of Colombia.

The purpose for me was as much to see the different parts of Colombia as to see the birds, but still, was I completely mad to sign up to this?  Besides being the most expensive holiday I have ever taken, it also involved getting up between 4 and 5am for the entire month, getting freezing cold up in the mountains and hot and sticky in the rainforest, slogging up muddy trails, being bitten by chiggers, mosquitoes and ants, and having only cold showers available for much of the month.  I admit there were one or two moments when I wondered what on earth I was doing there...

But the scenery was spectacular, from the snow-capped volcano of Los Nevados del Ruiz actively belching out steam, to cloud forest dripping with lichens, other forests of giant tree ferns and bamboo, the mangroves and semi-desert of the Caribbean coast, the lush hillsides of the coffee-growing region and the Amazon jungle.


In addition I saw around 825 bird species, including the six different species of owl, a number of the bizarre nocturnal oilbirds roosting in a cave, an array of multi-coloured parrots, trogons, tanagers, toucans, hummingbirds and others, and quite a number of the maddeningly elusive skulking birds, that could sing away totally unseen in bushes only three metres in front, stop, and then with no sign of movement start singing again from directly behind us...  But with patience we saw many of them.

Much of this was done with the aid of recordings of the birds' calls, however - the bird hears the call and stops whatever it is doing to come and respond, whether to discourage an intruder on its territory or to investigate a potential mate.  In places where the birds have not had exposure to bird groups using recordings it is extremely effective, but with repeated experience the birds modify their behaviour to ignore the calls.  Then as their own calls are ignored by other birds they may even stop calling.  On the Santa Marta mountain the flocks of birds are now oddly silent.

I struggle with the ethics of this approach although at the same time I recognise that some bird species would be almost impossible to see were it not possible to lure them out of the undergrowth in this way.  However, to cause a critically endangered bird to spend time and energy responding to a recording when it should be feeding/breeding, or to change the behaviour of some birds such that they no longer sing, seems totally wrong.  Especially so when done by people who profess to love birds - many of them perhaps love the length of their world bird list more than they love the birds themselves.

When I look back at the hundreds of birds I saw in Africa and the pleasure this gave me, I recall that only one single bird was seen with the aid of a recording.  That was right at the end of my stay when I realised that it was the only way I would get to see a cricket warbler, and I did only play it once although I could have persisted in order to get a better/longer look at the bird.  But of course I did have the luxury of many years in the region, rather than a few weeks with a guide under pressure to show me as many birds as possible.

Difficult one.  I enjoyed this trip immensely but shall think twice before booking another trip with a company so keen to find you the highest number of species possible.