Pistoleros

I had previously joined two Ornifolks self-organizing birding trips to both Ecuador and Peru.  I loved them, especially the price as compared to commercial tours.

            I was surprised when I received a call from Matthew Flannery, the founder of Ornifolks.

            “Ian.”, he said, “I want to offer to you the trip of a lifetime.  It is a full month trip to Colombia.  No birders have been to Colombia since 1984 because of the dangerous political troubles there.”

            “Matthew”, I said, “Isn’t it still dangerous?”

            “Yes, there is still some trouble, but the worst has passed, and it tends to be pretty localized.  And we have found the perfect person to lead the tour.   His name is Rod Smith. He knows the birds of Colombia inside out.  He was a student getting his Ph.D. from Oxford in Ornithology.  He spent the last four years of his life here documenting the current state of Colombia avifauna.  He even discovered a new species while doing it. He knows his way around and how to avoid the trouble spots.”

            “Well, why are you calling me?  I am no South American expert.”

            “True, but we have seen you perform on previous trips.  You always come completely prepared, as if you have to ID the birds yourself.  And it won’t be like Peru where we had to assemble most of the information ourselves.  There is a complete field guide to the birds of Colombia that predates the troubles.”

Figure 1:Guide to the Birds of Colombia

            “Sounds interesting.” I said, “But a whole month is going to be tough.  Why so long?”

            “First off, we want to set a new world record for most birds seen in a month in a single country.  Our goal is 1000 species, surpassing the existing record in Kenya.  We want to open up Colombia again.  With more than 1800 species, it is one of the birdiest countries in the world.  Phooey on politics.  We want the birding world to come back to Colombia. So, a month it is.”

            “On the other issue, we have also thought of that Ian.  The trip is divided into two pieces.  The first is 17 days long, the second 15 days.  You can join the first, the second, or both.”

            “Wow Matthew, that is really ambitious.  Yes, I am interested.  I need some time to work my availability.”

            “Great Ian.  Get back as soon as you can.  We can only take 14 people max, and I already have 8 signed up.  This includes myself, my cofounder of Ornifolks, our leader and one local.”

            Somehow I managed to sort out my affairs in a way that allowed me to sign up for the whole trip.  The Berlin Wall had already fallen, and the immediacy of the cold war seemed to have passed.  Government agencies that dealt with such issues were still trying to figure out what their mission was.  Consequently, there wasn’t the same sense of urgency as there was before the fall.  Most of my work was with those same agencies, so there was less urgency passed down to me.

            Before I knew it, it was October 30, and I was on my way to Miami to connect to an Avianca flight to Bogota.

Figure 2: Colombian Airline Avianca

            Late afternoon I arrived at Bogota Airport.

Figure 3: Bogota International Airport

            From there I transferred to the Virrey Park Hotel where I met up with the rest of the party.

Figure 4: Virrey Park Hotel-Bogota

            I had travelled and birded with several folks previously in Ecuador and Peru.  Some were new to me.  All were accomplished international birders.  My roommate for the trip was to be Don from Santa Barbara.  We were told to get a bit to eat and head for bed because our trip would begin the next morning very early.

            We were up very early, had some breakfast, and were off into the Andes towering above Bogota to look for the Cundinamarca Antpitta, a rare and very local endemic.   We did not see the bird that day or any other day in the trip.   Rod was playing a song that he said belonged to this species.  He was getting a response from deep in the undergrowth.  But the bird refused to let itself be seen.  Rod said this was probably the shyest Antpitta, quite a statement for the Antpittas are notorious for their shyness.

            The rest of the day was very successful.  The group was very focused on the Antpitta, but they saw over 125 other birds.  I saw only about 79 of those myself, including 10 lifers (birds that I had never seen before). This ratio of what I saw to what the group saw persisted throughout the trip.  I would see between 40% and 60% of the birds that the group reported.  At night I chatted with Don.  He reported results similar to mine.

Figure 5: Cundinamarca Antpitta

            We ended the day in Villavicencio, a small town at the base of the Eastern slope of the Andes. When I got out of the small bus, I landed wrong, twisted and fell. Ouch.  That twist and fall triggered a pain in my lower back that was excruciating.  Fortunately, I had brought my medicine for back spasms-Flexeril.  That night I slept in a chair.  The pain was too great when I tried to lie down.  The next morning, I felt a bit better.  No long drives and more birding that day did not cause the pain to worsen, and the Flexeril began to have it muscle relaxing effect.

Figure 6: Flexeril-Saved my trip

            That day the trip then went into high gear.  For the next 20 days it was out of bed way before sunup, traveling to the birding sites, and lots of time looking for birds.  It was grueling.   The itinerary was laid out to hit as many habitat types as possible: Coastal Scrub, Costal Rainforest, Eastern and Western slope of the Eastern range of the Andes, Eastern and Western slope of the Central range of the Andes, Eastern and Western slope of the Western range of the Andes, lowland grassland and wetlands, riverine habitat, and so forth.

            What about the supposed dangers in Colombia.  Our leaders were very careful.  We did not go into the cities of Medellin or Cali because of the dominant presence of the drug cartels there. We also did not go into many of the remote places because the locations were suspected campgrounds of the guerilla revolutionary force labelled FARC.

            On the morning of October 20, we were birding the lowland gallery forest around Mitu in the Eastern lowlands close to the Brazilian border.  In the early afternoon we caught a flight to Bogota where we caught a connecting flight to Santa Marta in the far North regions of Colombia.  The makeshift map below can give some sense of the Colombian geography.

We had 5 days to spend in the vicinity of the town of Santa Marta in Northern Colombia.  Here there is a major very high mountain that hosts a large number of the Colombian endemics. At the end of the five days, we were to drive to Barranquilla to catch a flight back to Bogota.  From there we were catch a flight to Leticia, a town on the Amazon River located at the boundary of Colombia, Peru, and Brazil.

For the 5 days around Santa Marta, we were to be our own drivers.  We took turns driving.  We birded the mountain for 3 days and then headed to the coastal lowlands. 

Dave was our driver on the morning leaving for the coast.  He had joined the tour for the second half.  Unfortunately, our car had a flat tire.  Two others decided to hop in other cars.  I decided to stay with Dave.  There was a spare tire with the car, but no jack.  We went to the local garage to get a jack, but it was not yet open.  We waited until 8 when it opened.  Soon we had mounted the spare and were off, but we were several hours behind the others.

Figure 7: Makeshift Map of Colombia

            When we got down to the lowlands, we were able to get on the toll road that the leader had told Dave to use to get to the birding destination.  As we paid our toll, I noticed a group of men beside the road as we exited the toll booth.   Dave just drove on past them.  I kept my eye on them.  They looked suspicious.

            We had hardly pulled out from the toll booth when I saw several of them jump in a car.  I also saw that they had weapons.  Ouch.  The local vigilantes.  These are the guys that fight the FARC when the government seems unable.

            I shouted to Dave, “Dave. Stop the car!!”

            Dave, “What for?”

            “We have an armed carload of guys chasing us.  Stop before they start shooting.”

            Dave pulled over to the side of the road.

            The chase car screeched to a stop behind us.

            A pistol carrying man was soon at Dave’s window demanding that he open it.

Figure 8:Pistolero at our car

            Fortunately for us, Dave was a fluent Spanish speaker who did business in Latin America as his profession.  My Spanish was too poor to understand what was being said, but I could hear its very heated tones.  Dave was holding up our bird guide, and then his binoculars.  Soon the tone calmed down.  In a bit the man waved us on as the other men in the party stood by.

            Dave later explained to me that they were making sure we were not foreigners who were funding the FARC.  The pistolero said that foreign drug money was keeping the FARC alive.  They taxed the drug trade. They said the government was powerless because so much drug money was paying them off.  The drug cartels did not want the government to have power, since it couldn’t distinguish cartels from FARC.

Figure 9: Vigilantes gave us a real scare

            “Thank you Dave.  You really saved our bacon.”

            Dave, “It really was OK.  I have dealt with these guys before.  As long as you are not part of the drug trade, you are OK.”

            The remainder of the trip was uneventful.  The trip satisfied it goal of more than 1000 species.  I was very happy with my 650 total species of which 198 were new to me (lifers) and the fact that I was still in one piece.