Looking for help on our itinerary for a first visit yo Colombia (1 Viewer)

[AliBellMeribel]

Hi,

We (a couple) are planning a 2 week mostly birding trip to Colombia in January 2025. We are planning to spend the second week in the Santa Marta area with a few days at the end chilling on a beach near Tayrona.
We are looking for advice on which area we should spend the first week please. Preferably one general area that we will fly to then travel between 2 or 3 different locations in that area. As it is our first trip to Colombia we are not wanting to check off lots of endemics, we want to see as many of the beautiful and interesting birds of Colombia as possible.
We like to do a full morning's birding then do our own thing (birding, photography, other visits) in the afternoon.
Our ideal is to stay in a great bird/eco lodge with its own English-speaking bird guide who we can book.
Cali and the Cauca valley look amazing but are they very wet in January? Does it rain every day?
Maybe we would be better birding round Medellin or Montezuma.
Any advice would be much appreciated.

Thanks

 

[AveryBartels]

Hi,

We (a couple) are planning a 2 week mostly birding trip to Colombia in January 2025. We are planning to spend the second week in the Santa Marta area with a few days at the end chilling on a beach near Tayrona.
We are looking for advice on which area we should spend the first week please. Preferably one general area that we will fly to then travel between 2 or 3 different locations in that area. As it is our first trip to Colombia we are not wanting to check off lots of endemics, we want to see as many of the beautiful and interesting birds of Colombia as possible.
We like to do a full morning's birding then do our own thing (birding, photography, other visits) in the afternoon.
Our ideal is to stay in a great bird/eco lodge with its own English-speaking bird guide who we can book.
Cali and the Cauca valley look amazing but are they very wet in January? Does it rain every day?
Maybe we would be better birding round Medellin or Montezuma.
Any advice would be much appreciated.

Thanks

It will be dry season in all of the Cali/Cauca Valley/Medellin in January so that won't really be a factor in deciding between these areas. Really it is up to whatever you decide is more to your liking but any combination of Cali area, Montezuma, Manizales area and Otun Quimbaya will likely suit you. Bear in mind though that most of those sites (except maybe Montezuma) don't have English speaking guides onsite to my knowledge, so you might need to hire a guide for the week.

 

[simmojunior]

As you only have a week, I'd recommend spending 3 or 4 nights at Montezuma and 3 or 4 nights round Manizales. Alternatively you could do Cali area, there is enough in that area for a week. Maybe 3 nights km 18, 3 nights San Cipriano or you could stay at Araucana Lodge if you prefer something more fancy.

 

[njlarsen]

Personally, I spent about two weeks in the north and did not regret. A little more than a week in and above Minca (El Dorado lodge for 4 nights) and a few nights east in the Camarones area, plus a few nights in the Tayrones park. Notice that entrance in the morning can take a lot of time but that lodging and food might be cheaper outside the park. Doing a different section of Colombia on the same trip risks you spending too much time traveling and not enough enjoying.
Niels

 

[AliBellMeribel]

It will be dry season in all of the Cali/Cauca Valley/Medellin in January so that won't really be a factor in deciding between these areas. Really it is up to whatever you decide is more to your liking but any combination of Cali area, Montezuma, Manizales area and Otun Quimbaya will likely suit you. Bear in mind though that most of those sites (except maybe Montezuma) don't have English speaking guides onsite to my knowledge, so you might need to hire a guide for the week.

AveryBartels thanks for the info. Do you happen to know if we would be able to book accommodation + transport from airport and to onward destination + an english-speaking guide at Montezuma lodge for ourselves for, say, a 4 night/3 day trip to explore the area? Alternatively, do you have a driver/guide you can recommend in either this area or Cali please? Thanks in advance for any further advice. Am a bit concerned that taking a guide for the whole week will work out a bit expensive and not the best value for us as we were hoping just to bird in the mornings with a guide.

 

[AveryBartels]

AveryBartels thanks for the info. Do you happen to know if we would be able to book accommodation + transport from airport and to onward destination + an english-speaking guide at Montezuma lodge for ourselves for, say, a 4 night/3 day trip to explore the area? Alternatively, do you have a driver/guide you can recommend in either this area or Cali please? Thanks in advance for any further advice. Am a bit concerned that taking a guide for the whole week will work out a bit expensive and not the best value for us as we were hoping just to bird in the mornings with a guide.

You'll have to contact Montezuma to see if they can arrange all that, but I suspect they can. The only part I'm not certain of is whether they'll have an English speaking guide (I suspect so). Best to look into it asap though, as Montezuma don't have that many rooms and they can book up fairly quickly. An alternative if Montezuma doesn't work out is Arnulfo Sanchez who has place called "Birds Home Mistrato" that has many of the same middle elevation Choco birds as Montezuma, though without certain specialties. This is in the community of Mistrato, Risaralda Arnulfo Sanchez Salazar-Birding

For Cali area you could try Gilberto Bolaños, he's a local guide there Gilberto Collazos Bolaños . Jose Luna Solarte is another option Jose Luna Solarte .

Any of the above guides should be able to arrange transportation for you.

 

[LorraineC]

Hi, How are your plans going for the trip to Cali area this winter? We just found out we will be traveling there at about the same time. We are a little behind the eight-ball in our planning. Do you have any suggestions from your research? We had hoped to go to the Colombia Birdfair, but are not really sure this would be the best route for us. Thanks

 

[AliBellMeribel]

Hi, How are your plans going for the trip to Cali area this winter? We just found out we will be traveling there at about the same time. We are a little behind the eight-ball in our planning. Do you have any suggestions from your research? We had hoped to go to the Colombia Birdfair, but are not really sure this would be the best route for us. Thanks

Hi Lorraine,
We have finalised our plans for our Colombia trip. I got a quote from a small travel company for 10 days in Cali and Manizales but it was pretty expensive so I ended up booking the different components myself. It was more of a challenge than other trips but I think it has worked out well. Fingers crossed everything will run smoothly. For Cali, I booked accommodation at Araucana Lodge for 5 nights as a base then found a guide recommended on this forum for 3 separate day drips to km18, high Anchicaya and San Cipriano. I was surprised at the cost of the guide compared to other countries but it seems that in Colombia the guides don't have their own cars so you need to pay for a driver and his vehicle as well. It seems that there is a great mix of feeder setups for observation/photography and roadside/forest birding in these areas and the trip to San Cipriano via the "Brujita" looks great. We will then be travelling by bus to Manizales to keep the cost down. I can tell you about my experience of booking that part of the trip and the Santa Marta part if you like, not sure if you are including these in your trip. A mixture of email and WhatsApp works well for communication. I tended to make contact via WhatsApp then switch to email where possible to get into the detail.
I hope this helps, feel free to message me if you would like any more info. Of course I can only tell you about the booking process so far, not the trip itself!
The other contributors to this thread have been very helpful in answering my questions as they have much more experience than I do.

 

[LorraineC]

You'll have to contact Montezuma to see if they can arrange all that, but I suspect they can. The only part I'm not certain of is whether they'll have an English speaking guide (I suspect so). Best to look into it asap though, as Montezuma don't have that many rooms and they can book up fairly quickly. An alternative if Montezuma doesn't work out is Arnulfo Sanchez who has place called "Birds Home Mistrato" that has many of the same middle elevation Choco birds as Montezuma, though without certain specialties. This is in the community of Mistrato, Risaralda Arnulfo Sanchez Salazar-Birding

For Cali area you could try Gilberto Bolaños, he's a local guide there Gilberto Collazos Bolaños . Jose Luna Solarte is another option Jose Luna Solarte .

Any of the above guides should be able to arrange transportation for you.

Hi Lorraine,
We have finalised our plans for our Colombia trip. I got a quote from a small travel company for 10 days in Cali and Manizales but it was pretty expensive so I ended up booking the different components myself. It was more of a challenge than other trips but I think it has worked out well. Fingers crossed everything will run smoothly. For Cali, I booked accommodation at Araucana Lodge for 5 nights as a base then found a guide recommended on this forum for 3 separate day drips to km18, high Anchicaya and San Cipriano. I was surprised at the cost of the guide compared to other countries but it seems that in Colombia the guides don't have their own cars so you need to pay for a driver and his vehicle as well. It seems that there is a great mix of feeder setups for observation/photography and roadside/forest birding in these areas and the trip to San Cipriano via the "Brujita" looks great. We will then be travelling by bus to Manizales to keep the cost down. I can tell you about my experience of booking that part of the trip and the Santa Marta part if you like, not sure if you are including these in your trip. A mixture of email and WhatsApp works well for communication. I tended to make contact via WhatsApp then switch to email where possible to get into the detail.
I hope this helps, feel free to message me if you would like any more info. Of course I can only tell you about the booking process so far, not the trip itself!
The other contributors to this thread have been very helpful in answering my questions as they have much more experience than I do.

We have gotten pretty close to finishing up our plans for next month (wow that is coming quickly!) we fly into Medellin mid-January and will stay for a month. We will be in Valle de Cauca area from about the first of February. It would be fun if we could meet up at some point!

 

[wilsonfey]

We have gotten pretty close to finishing up our plans for next month (wow that is coming quickly!) we fly into Medellin mid-January and will stay for a month. We will be in Valle de Cauca area from about the first of February. It would be fun if we could meet up at some point!

How was the trip?

 

[LorraineC]

How was the trip?

Hi! It was marvelous! How was yours? We stayed in an AirBnB in Medillin for 6 days and we were very fortunated to hire Daniel Restrepo for 4 of the days. He also drove us to Jardin (which was beyond wonderful!) Daniel helped us book a van ride to Manizales and we stayed at Tinamu Reserve. Again a wonderful experience. We spent a few days at Recinto Pensamento (sp?). It was fine and a nice break, but not too exciting. We were able to hire a private driver to Cali. He was wonderful! After a few nights in Cali (we really enjoyed the zoo), we headed to Dona Dora's, La Florida, and Araucana. I absolutely am in love with La Florida. Wonderful birds, people, food and accomodations. Amazing. The people are so helpful. We did manage to get down to San Cipriano as well. I was glad we booked all of the components ourselves. Was that part fun for you or did you begin to wish you could be on one of the easy all inclusive trips?