Friday, March 17, 2023 – El Dorado Reserve (Author: J)
(photo: the last remnants of the sunrise over San Lorenzo ridge)
Our plans for our full day at El Dorado Reserve were to do some hiking and birding along the San Lorenzo Ridge. This mountain ridge, even higher in the mountains than El Dorado, is a birdwatching mecca because of the number of endemic (i.e., found nowhere else) species. As I told Wild About Colombia when we booked the trip, we didn’t need anyone to work hard to find us rare birds. Any pretty bird was going to impress us.
(photo: a slightly out of focus parrot, possibly endemic, or possibly not; what do I know?)
Cristián suggested that we get up early enough to see the sunrise from the ridge. To my surprise, D agreed to this. (His agreement did not stop him from complaining about this aspect of the trip once we returned home). That meant that we had a 4 a.m. wakeup, a scramble to get dressed, and then a hike in the dark down to the parking area just above the reception building. We made it without falling off the side of the mountain, so our day was off to a good start.
The unfortunate thing about the San Lorenzo Ridge is that it is even further up the unpaved road we had used to get to El Dorado. After the prior day’s rough ride, D was very reluctant to get back into a vehicle. I gave everyone some children’s Benadryl, which I have found works for motion sickness without the drowsiness of Dramamine or Bonine. It helped somewhat.
The drive up to the Ridge was much the same as the prior day’s drive with the added complication of driving in the dark. P, who had been seated in the middle the day before, was now seated by the window. With a clear view of the road, he revised his assessment of driving in El Dorado from “fun” to “terrifying.”
To my surprise, there were hostels and lodges in the mountains that were even higher up than El Dorado. We passed some of these on our way.
(photo: views from San Lorenzo Ridge)
I don’t know if our timing was off or if it was intentional, but we did not reach the Ridge by sunrise. We instead stopped along the way to see the sun rising through a clearing in the trees. After that anticlimactic experience, we continued up the road until we reached our destination. We were the first group there. But we were soon joined by multiple groups of birders, including a birding group from Ontario that we recognized as fellow El Dorado guests.
On the Ridge, we had a picnic breakfast of cheese sandwiches, fruit, coffee, and cocoa. Then we hiked around a bit, looking for interesting birds and taking in the views. From our vantage point on the mountain, we could see the city below and even catch glimpses of the ocean. In that way, it reminded me of hiking in the Santa Monica mountains near Los Angeles. And much like the mountains in California, the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta provides habitat for large predators like jaguar despite its proximity to a densely inhabited area.
(Photo: hiking on San Lorenzo Ridge)
After an easy hike on the Ridge, we started the drive back to El Dorado. We stopped several times along the way to watch hummingbirds (and also so that Cristián, who drinks enough coffee each day to stop the heart of an average elephant, could refill his thermos). We arrived back at the lodge just in time for lunch.
We spent the early part of our afternoon relaxing in the cabins. Around 3 pm, P and I met Cristián for another hike. P was anxious for one final opportunity to view howler monkeys, so our plan was to hike down the hill towards a place where the monkeys are often spotted. We had no luck on this hike. Although we ran into other hiking groups who had seen monkeys, we did not find the monkeys themselves. Cristián did his best to save the hike for P by finding him some small frogs in the streams along the road.
(Photos: spotting frogs in the streams)
In our zeal to spot primates, we hiked a bit further than we had planned. It didn’t seem like a problem while we were headed downhill, but that changed when we had to turn around and head back up the hill. Before too long, P began complaining that he was exhausted and threatening to quit. Compounding our woes was the fact that we had left our water bottle behind at a restaurant the day before, so we were hiking without water.
To encourage P, I reminded him that he had done a much more challenging hike in Tayrona.
“Yes,” he replied. “But I was mad at Daddy then, so I was hiking fast to get away from him.”
“Is there anything you are angry about today?” I asked hopefully.
But P had forgiven D and had not developed any resentments against me that might power him up the hill, so our hike continued with many stops and starts and lots of whining. Finally, we made it back to the reception building where we poured ourselves some water and played cards until it was time for the night monkey feeding.
After enjoying our final monkey watching opportunity of the trip, we had dinner. Because it was St. Patrick’s Day, we treated ourselves to a bottle of wine so that we could celebrate the holiday in the usual way: drinking Argentinian wine in the Colombian mountains. Then, we made our final slog up the hill to our cabins to pack for our return to Cartagena the following day.
Travel Monkeys 