Friday 2/25/2022 –
When I set up our flights, I thought that having afternoon flights would allow
us some birding time in the morning, but Daniel was concerned about getting us
into town for the US mandated COVID test and having time to get a second or
even third test if the result was positive. He has had experience with clients
having a first test show positive, only to take them to a different lab and get
a negative test. The entire COVID testing requirement imposed by the US seems
ridiculous for those of us who are completely vaccinated, but you can’t
re-enter the country without it, so off we went to Manizales for testing.
We arrived in busy downtown Manizales, found a private
parking area for the car (Daniel wanted to be certain regarding the security of
our luggage) and we walked up incredibly steep hills to the clinic. Manizales
is carved into the side of the Andes, and the steepness of the roads and
sidewalks cannot be overstated. Between the steep grade and the elevation of
6000+ feet we were huffing and puffing getting to the clinic. Once again we
found no English-speaking staff at the clinic, but Daniel was with us to
translate and expedite things. We got tested (both of us negative) and then
stopped at a nearby pastry shop for coffee and juice.
Since we’d allotted so much extra time for COVID testing,
it was clear that our schedule was too generous. Daniel had planned for us to
have lunch at a good restaurant in Manizales before heading to Pereira for a
1:30 check-in, but we found ourselves in the pastry shop at 9:15 with nothing
but time!
Rather than dragging our feet for hours, we told Daniel
to go ahead and drop us at the Pereira Airport and head on home since we knew
he had a tour starting the next day. We got to the airport, bid each other fond
farewells, and Teri and I went in. Right off the bat we couldn’t find the
counter for our commuter flight to Bogota on LATAM Airlines. We went over to a
security guard to ask him where the counter was, and he told us that we were
much too early and would have to wait until 1:30 (2 hours before the flight) to
check in. I asked him if there were earlier flights and he said there were not.
It turns out that LATAM only has two flights a day, one to Bogota and the other
to Medellin, so we headed to a waiting area to kill time. The time to board our flight finally arrived,
and we got on the plane. Their front-of-the-plane seats are called “premium economy”
which turns out to mean that the middle seat has a little table in it. Same
seats, but no third person in the row. Good enough…
We arrived at the Bogota airport at 4:30 pm, leaving us
eight hours before our international flight departed. Since we’d taken a
commuter flight we had to collect our baggage and find our way to the
international departure terminal of the airport. We’d hoped to be able to check
our bags, but no luck. American only has red-eye flights from Bogota, so the
ticket counter doesn’t open until around 9:00 pm. With first-class tickets we had access to the
lounge, but that is inside of the secured area, and we couldn’t enter without
boarding passes. We found a table in a food court and killed about 5 hours
until we could finally check in and go through security. Once inside we found
the lounge that American Airlines uses. It was used by several other
international airlines as well and was simply enormous. It had dozens of
different rooms. Some with televisions, others with recliners for sleeping, and
others with couches and tables like a living room. We found a comfortable couch
and relaxed until our flight boarded around midnight. It was nice not to have
to sit out in the terminal.
Since discovering the “pods” in first class on Boeing
wide-bodied jets, I’d made sure that our flight had them.
We were tired after eleven days of birding
and a long day of traveling and waiting, and both slept comfortably for most of
the flight.
We arrived in Dallas-Fort Worth around 6:00 am, went through
immigration, collected and re-checked our bags, and headed off for our final
flight to San Antonio, which arrived at 8:30 am. Although our bags were literally inches apart
when we re-checked them in DFW, they managed to lose Teri’s luggage!! We caught an Uber back to the La Quinta where
we picked up our car and drove on home, arriving around 10:30 am. In all we’d been travelling for about 28
hours and were ready to relax! Teri's luggage was delivered to our house at 1:00 am the next morning.
Take-aways from the trip:
Colombia is a fantastic birding destination, and we will certainly
be back to explore other areas.
Birding Tours Colombia did a great job of arranging the
trip, choosing the lodges and locations, etc. Daniel Uribe, the owner of the
company was also a fantastic guide and we would be very happy to bird with him
again in the future.
Colombia was the first country that we’ve encountered
where very few people spoke English. The
need to speak at least basic Spanish was obvious, so we need to keep working on
it!!
People in Colombia are very friendly, but think you’re
crazy if you don’t drink coffee.
Teri: Who won the bet? ME! (AGAIN). We always make a bet before we leave the country on what bird we will see first. This time we each picked the first bird to be seen at the first birding lodge we stayed at (La Minga Ecolodge). I picked a Golden Tanager and Mark picked Multi-colored Tanager.
Since I won, I decided to change the prize. Instead of the winner getting a free DQ Blizzard, I picked a restaurant for lunch. We have been wanting to try Peruvian food so we headed into San Antonio to Machu Picchu Peruvian Grill. We talked to the owner and he recommended a couple of typical meals. The food was good. (Yep - this is a hint!)
Souvenirs:
Bamboo wall hanging.
Hand-beaded necklace.
I will make this into a wall hanging.
Hand-beaded hummingbird necklace.
I will make this into a wall hanging.
Apron.
Magnets.
This concludes our Colombia 2022 Journal. Thanks for following along and the comments and e-mails. And a special thank you to our new followers!
