Owing to the country’s paramilitary rebels and cocaine cartels, Colombia’s remote south was off limits to outsiders for nearly 60 years. But since the ceasefire of 2016, the region has become a great deal safer – and though the FCO still advises against travel to many areas, tourists are returning.
For birders, in particular, a trip here can be irresistible, says Mike Carter in the FT. Colombia is home to roughly 2,000 avian species, more than any other country, and 70% of them are found in the south – a diversity for which the militias are partly to thank, since they preserved the forest and the cover it offered. Guests of Manakin Nature Tours often spot more than 200 species on a five-day trip.
The road from the Andean city of Pasto down into the Amazon basin is so vertiginous, narrow and winding that locals call it “El Diablo” or “Adios mi Vida” – but for the true devotees who sign up with Manakin, the bird sightings to be had along it more than outweigh its dangers. Every few minutes, someone on the tour bus cries out “Golden-eyed flowerpiercer!” or “Glowing puffleg!” and the driver stops obligingly, to let everyone out onto the verge with their scopes and tripods and binoculars.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
As the forest thickens further on, the stops are not for single birds, but for “mixed flocks” of 50 or so species, feeding together in vast numbers as a defence against predators. Each flock is like “a society ball”, with “florid, outrageous” costumes, and music of the “sweetest mellifluousness” you’ve ever heard.
Perched high above the “raging” Río Mocoa, Dantayaco is a “funky” hotel around which the forest presses in so close that you can birdwatch from the hot tubs on the balconies. And deeper in the jungle lies Puerto Asís, where a boat trip down the “wide, languid” Río Putumayo to the Playa Rica ecological reserve offers still richer pickings, from violaceous jays to yellow-rumped caciques that swing on vines like “acrobats”.
See colombia.travel and manakinnaturetours.com for more information
-
Political cartoons for October 21Cartoons Tuesday’s political cartoons include a high-profile theft, Epstein files keeping Donald Trump up at night, Halloween costumes and scary GOP stories
-
Five things we learnt from Virginia Giuffre’s memoirThe Explainer Nobody’s Girl recounts ‘harrowing’ details of Giuffre’s suffering as a teenage victim of Jeffrey Epstein and his circle
-
Prince Andrew: a timeline of disgraced royal’s Epstein scandalIn Depth How the Queen’s favourite child went from Falklands War hero to public pariah
-
A little-visited Indian Ocean archipelagoThe Week Recommends The paradise of the Union of the Comoros features beautiful beaches, colourful coral reefs and lush forests
-
Diane Keaton: the Oscar-winning star of Annie HallIn the Spotlight Something’s Gotta Give actor dies from pneumonia at the age of 79
-
Heirs and Graces: an ‘enthralling’ deep dive into the decline of nobilityThe Week Recommends Eleanor Doughty explores the ‘bizarre fascination’ with the British aristocracy
-
6 sporty homes with tennis courtsFeature Featuring a clay tennis court in New York and a viewing deck in California
-
Critics’ choice: Seafood in the spotlightFeature An experimental chef, a newspaper-worthy newcomer, and a dining titan’s fresh spin-off
-
Taylor Swift’s Showgirl: Much glitter, little goldFeature Swift’s new album has broken records, but critics say she may have gotten herself creatively stuck
-
Theater review: Masquerade218 W. 57th St., New York City 218 W. 57th St., New York City
-
Film reviews: Roofman and Kiss of the Spider WomanFeature An escaped felon’s heart threatens to give him away and a prisoner escapes into daydreams of J.Lo.
