Colombia: The Choco-Pacific Lowlands and Western Andes Jun 26—Jul 12, 2011
Posted by Steve Hilty
Steve Hilty
Steve Hilty is the senior author of A Guide to the Birds of Colombia, and the recently published Birds of Venezuela, both by Princeton University Press. Other credits inclu...Related Trips
This was the third in our continuing series of new Colombia itineraries and the most adventurous to date. All birding trips provide memorable days afield, but this one provided far more than most. In fact, I rank this as one of the most adventurous routes and physically demanding trips I've undertaken in many years. While a few of the adventures—monumental truck traffic jams (trancons) entering Cali (following heavy downpours and floods), leaving the Buenaventura area (road construction), and overtopping the Central Andes (more road construction)—resulted in long, tiresome delays, I wouldn't trade a day of this trip.
For me, the unforgettable dawn boat trip along the Chocó-Pacific coast amidst choppy seas, a leaden sky, light rain stinging our faces, and our small high-powered boat pounding against waves was the ultimate adventure. Exiting the bay at the village of El Valle in the half-light of predawn in a heart-pounding rush of horsepower and push of an outgoing tide, and then, a kilometer offshore, motoring southward past the wild, mist-shrouded coastline of the Chocó was the stuff of dreams—an hour of adventure, anticipation, and heightened sense of life full-throttle. It was a modern adrenaline-fueled journey worthy of great explorers—one of those rare moments in our lives when we live a little beyond our boundaries, beyond our comfort zone, when we taste, for a rare moment, the thrill of the unexpected. Who could forget rounding the rocky, wave-lashed headlands, boat pounding as we navigated between dark forested, rock islands, rain stinging our faces, water dripping from ponchos, only to abruptly enter the serene calm of the Ensenada. There it was: Utría National Park—one of Colombia's most remote and least-visited parks. This was the 1812 Overture and Grand Canyon Suite rolled into one. Beyond imagination—the wild, exposed seacoast transformed into the beckoning calm of the bay. We were entering another world, where Lemon-spectacled Tanagers, Sapayoas, and Red-capped Manakins lurked in damp dark forest. Misty rain persisted, with birding limited to a short but demanding hike close by. Clearing afternoon skies finally allowed us to return overland on foot to our base near El Valle. It was a memorable walk—ankle-deep mud, difficult footing, and a long, long walk, but with rewards equaling the effort: a Black-tipped Cotinga foraging overhead, a group of rare Baudó Oropendolas, Chocó Toucans, a distant Collared Forest-Falcon calling at dusk. And then the welcoming lights of El Valle hove into view.
Could it get better? At our next site we mounted horses (yes, a caravan of eleven horses!) for a memorable two-hour ride to a site far above our humble base, which was a small community inside remote Tatamá National Park. This unanimously popular horse ride took us ever upward (some nine kilometers) into a new and alien world—one of cool, misty forests; moss-clad trees; an abundance of orchids; strange and wonderful flowering plants; and exotically-colorful birds. Here we found Black Solitaire, the fabled Gold-ringed Tanager, Black-and-gold Tanager, Purplish-mantled Tanager, Glistening-green Tanager, Empress Brilliant, Orange-breasted Fruiteater, Chestnut-breasted Chlorophonia, and even a diminutive Cloud-forest Pygmy-Owl. Our base for this three-day adventure was a small and rustic campesino house converted to receive visitors. Operated by an enterprising young widow who served up some of the best food on the trip (group members brought the wine), accompanied us every step of the way, and did everything within her power (along with her four daughters and sister) to make our stay as pleasant as possible. Did I mention we also experienced an earthquake? Yes, the adventure did get better.
After a slightly rain-shortened visit to bucolic Lago de Sonso near Buga, we entered the modern world of traffic jams multiplied many times over by flooding in the sprawling city of Cali, which delayed arrival to our lovely country hotel above Cali. Based here, we accessed the beautiful and rainy foothill forests of the Anchicayá region. A spectacular day of tanager flocks and waterfalls included such delights as Scarlet-and-white Tanagers, a rare Blue-whiskered Tanager, Gray-and-gold Tanagers, Slaty-capped Shrike-Vireos, Spot-crowned Antvireo, Chocó Trogon, and eleven species of hummingbirds (no feeders; we got these the old-fashioned way). Our day, however, extended well into the night, when we encountered immense numbers of trucks snarled in road construction delays. We were late and weary to bed, but not disappointed after this remarkable day.
The final leg of our itinerary included a fabulously successful day in search of the critically endangered Indigo-winged Parrot high in Colombia's Central Andes. I was arguably uncertain of success until Luis yelled, "I hear them." Moments later a group of thirty birds whirled past our ridgetop lookout during a break in the fog, a dozen alighting to forage in trees around our assembled group in a remarkably coincidental juxtaposition of birders and birds. We enjoyed a rare ten minutes or more with this endangered species now receiving some assistance from the conservation organization ProAves. If this was the high moment of the morning, the rest of the morning hardly disappointed. We also logged such prizes as Gray-breasted Mountain-Toucan, Purple-backed Thornbill, Sword-billed Hummingbird, Golden-breasted Puffleg, Andean Pygmy-Owl (a rare rufous morph), Agile Tit-Tyrant, and a fine list of mountain-tanagers before, many hours later, making our way back to splendid five-star accommodations in Ibague.
This was a rare one-of-a-kind trip, perhaps never again to be duplicated in exactly its present form. It was memorable, exotic, challenging, and in many ways much as I dreamed it would be. Sometimes dreams do come true.