Colombia part 6. A glimpse of heaven

 

Our beloved leader has instructed us to get up at three o’clock the next morning. Although by now we have become quite good at rising at early hours, our lack of enthusiasm is clearly showing this time. Which endemic rarity must be hunted for in the middle of the night? The real reason, however, is that we have to catch a domestic flight, leaving from Medellin at 9:30, which will take us to Santa Marta in the far north of Colombia. And Medellin is quite a drive from where we are staying. At least six hours. That turns out to be an optimistic estimate. We speed along the dark mountains roads only to get stuck in the morning rush hour in the outskirts of the city. For many of us the need for a sanitary break has become so urgent that the bus is parked on the shoulder of the road for a short stop. No shelter at all, but now is not the time to worry about that. Of course this spectacle has a negative effect on the traffic jam. And all our haste proves to be in vain. The plane leaves without us. In situations like this a tour leader rises to new heights. He dashes from counter to counter, calls the home country and pulls out all the stops to try and find a feasible alternative for us. And I must say, we are dealing with the situation surprisingly well, too. Gerard, one of the more enterprising travellers, has taken on the task of writing intimidating letters, in which the travel agency, the airline, the bus company and the local authorities are all held liable. We happily sign everything. It is not going to produce any result, but it kills the time and we all enjoy it immensely. And we also watch highlights of the Dutch football league, which, for some strange reason, they show on Colombian television. In the end we manage to book a domestic flight taking us to Bogota. The attentive reader of previous blogs will know that we have already been there. That is quite correct. This is the only way, however, that we can still get a flight north on the same day.

Late in the evening we arrive in Minca, a mountain village south of Santa Marta. A one-night stop, as the next day we will be taken to the El Dorado Reserve, high up in the Sierra Nevada mountains. The drive up is quite an experience. The road is nothing but big boulders and potholes and even the jeeps can only drive at walking pace. And halfway the road ends completely. The road surface is being renewed over a length of a few hundred metres. We cannot go any further, but arrangements have been made for the remainder of the journey. First we have to walk on with our luggage till the point where the road starts again. There we will be picked up by jeeps that have descended from the reserve. A specific time has even been set for this transfer. And, of course, this all works flawlessly in Colombia. We are actually loaded into the new convoy of jeeps on the same day and continue our arduous route up the mountain. 

After having arrived we are welcomed in the lodge’s reception and are all assigned our cottages. Reaching those requires a steep fifteen-minute-climb with our suitcase, albeit with some welcome assistance. When we enter our  cottage we are speechless for a good while. We sit down on our bed and look outside. A huge semi-circular floor-to-ceiling window offers a view unlike anything we’ve seen before. In the distance the 5000 metres high peaks of the Sierra Nevada form a breathtaking backdrop. 

We are looking at the roof of the world, it seems. Or maybe this is a glimpse of heaven. We are pretty close at this height after all. I don’t expect to come any closer, to be honest. Without a doubt this is the most spectacular location we’ve ever stayed in. And we live in Amersfoort, so that should mean something. Of course the next morning we have to get up so early again that it is still too dark to admire the view, but sunsets are memorable, too. I’ll get to that in the final blog.

Inevitably the lodge itself has a garden with plenty of hummingbird feeders, allowing us to indulge ourselves again. After dinner, one of the founders of the place tells how he conducted the first negotiations about setting up the reserve with an American sponsor. Huddled under a table, while FARC revolutionaries  were systematically killing off all police officers in the village. Only a few years ago this whole area was still ruled by the rebels. Just imagine the passion needed to even think about creating a bird sanctuary in those days. We are speechless once more

Crowned Woodnymph

Sparkling Violetear

Blue-naped Chlorophonia