COLOMBIA: BOGOTA TO PEREIRA TO TINAMU, DAY 1

 March 18, 2023

During the night I began stressing about my stolen phone and couldn't sleep. I looked at my email on Bob's phone and saw an email from either Verizon or Apple (I can't remember which) that said that at 4:45 PM someone had tried to retrieve my password to unlock the phone. That made me nervous and didn't help my insomnia. I was also a little nauseous. I think I fell asleep around 2:00 AM and got two hours of sleep before being startled awake at 4:00 by the alarm.

We were picked up at 4:45 AM and transported to the airport. We were supposed to have been given boarding passes, but they hadn't come, so we had to figure out how to do that. We made it to our gate in time to get Savannah a "pink drink" at Starbuck's for breakfast. I had a Coke to settle my stomach, and I bought some chocolate for the first time on the trip. 

Somehow we got seated on Row 2 in business class, which was the best seat on the plane. (Row 1 had less leg room.) It wasn't especially luxurious, but they did put a little table where the middle seat should be. It was a small plane, and they did make us check our bags.

Our flight to Pereira was supposed to be a little over an hour, but as we were coming in for a landing, the plane suddenly jerked upward for a steep climb, and then we made a wide circle (or two) before making a successful landing.  I have no idea what that was about. Pilot in training?

You can see from the map below that Bogotá and Pereira are not that far apart relative to the distance between Cartagena (top left of map) and Bogotá. We could have had someone drive us to Pereira, a distance of about 200 miles, but it takes almost eight hours to make the drive, which indicates what the roads are like. No thanks.

We had never heard of Pereira and don't know anyone else who has, even those it has a population of over 700,000 people. It is located in the Andean foothills and is part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site known as the "Coffee Cultural Landscape of Colombia." The soil in this region is rich in minerals from volcanic eruptions.

We were picked up in the Pereira airport by a very friendly and talkative driver who took us to Tinamú Birding Reserve, abouat 1.5 hours away. We started on a very nice highway that eventually devolved into a narrow, bumpy dirt road with tight turns, and by the time we arrived, I was green. At the very end we cam nose-to-nose with a car coming out. Our driver had to back up quite a way before they could pass each other.

We got to the reserve at about 11:00 AM. We had a fairly large cabin not far from the main lodge. Here is the front entrance:

. . . and the side view:

I loved the tropical murals and bed throws in our room.

We had three beds. I got the big one, Sav got the medium one, and Bob took the small one. Note the fan next to him. No AC, just a fan. It did get very hot.

The bathroom had run décor, but I didn't like it so much after I took my first freezing cold shower. It would have been nice to swap the water temperature and the air temperature.

Before lunch, wspent a little time walking around the grounds. There were multiple bird-feeding stations like this one--a long log with a trough in the middle filled with fruit and seeds to attract birds.

Right away we saw a stunning Andean mot-mot, a bird with a blue head with a black spot on top like a yarmulke, a green body, and very long blue tail with two feathers hanging from the end of the tail. I think it was my favorite bird of the whole trip.

Painted mot mots grace the outside window of our room.

Every cabin needs a shrine, don't you think? This was just a few steps from our front door, facing away from our room and towards the lodge.

At 12:30 we had a delicious lunch of chicken/rice/potato tamales wrapped in banana leaves.

After lunch Sav went back to the cabin for a shower (which is when we discovered the lack of hot water) and a nap, and I went on a walk through the jungle with Bob and a young, English-speaking guide named Daniel. 

Bob was busy taking photos.

We spent a lot of time looking at a golden-collared manakin, which makes a clacking noise by slapping its folded wings against its body. We never saw it actually flapping its wings, but we did see the bird itself with its distinct yellow neck. Here is one of Bob's photos:

Bob also got a photo of a green hermit hummingbird, which has a beak at least as long as its head and body combined without the tail):

I don't have the enormous lens he has and had a harder time seeing the birds. But I loved the flora! This is a tree we saw many times here and at another birding reserve we went to. This is not one you would want to lean up against when you are tired, or use to catch yourself when you trip.

I'm always on the lookout for fungi for my sons, who are very interested in this stuff. There was a lot to see at this reserve.

This is my favorite flower in Colombia. I learned later on from Savannah that it is called a beehive ginger plant.

I think she was also the one who identified this plant for me as heliconia. She had done her homework before the trip!

The holes in the leaf were probably caused by leaf ants. The flower on the right is some type of sunflower.

The plant on the left is known by the common name of "golden plume" and the Latin name of Schaueria. On the right is a plumeria, a flower often seen in Hawaiian leis.

I did get another picture of a mot mot sitting in an angel's trumpet tree, the poisonous tree we saw on the Monserrate summit in Bogotá:

Here is a much better photo taken by Bob:

This isn't a very good photo, but I include it because it has two birds and shows that I could get fairly close with my cellphone: a great Kiskadee and a red-crowned woodpecker.

When we came out of the forest, Bob continued on with the guide and I returned to the cabin, flopped down on the bed, and fell asleep for at least two hours. Sav also took a nap. When we woke up, we walked around for a bit before dinner, which was chicken, rice, potatoes, and salad:

We retired to our room for the night at about 6:45. No more birding in the dark!