‘A quick birdy peep at Colombia’

No, I didn’t pack The Skirt for our trip to Colombia. In fact, I packed hardly any clothes at all. Not that I was being racy. Oh no. It’s just that the priority for the bags was gear.

Binoculars, of course. But also backpacks and daypacks and water bottles and camera bags and headlamps and bird guides and carabiners. Many many carabiners.

Birder Dude festooned with some of his gear, utilizing many many carabiners

For those of you not familiar with this amazingly versatile device, a carabiner is a thingie that pinches open and shut and can be used to hang practically anything from anywhere. We use carabiners to hang a walking stick from a pack or a flashlight from a belt or — just yesterday — a coffee cup from a pant loop. (This coffee cup happened to be red plastic and proved to be a big hit with the hummingbirds, who kept buzzing my backside thinking I was a source of tasty nectar.)

Where the heck is he? Birders patiently stalking a skulking bird. Some sort of Ant Bird, I think. I honestly can’t recall — we’ve already seen more than 200

Forgive me in advance, oh Delightful Faithful Readers, but I am now working within a very narrow window of shared WiFi service and am not be able to populate this post with my usual array of photos. Let’s see if this movie will upload. It was taken along the roadside leaving Buga for the Andean slopes. Busy road? Who cares? Birders gotta bird.

I’m working on a vacant corner of a rustic trestle table on an outdoor deck next to the hummingbird feeders, and, speaking of feeding, may need to abort this mission so that the staff — a very cool female entrepreneur and her extended family — can set up for dinner.

Anyway. We’re on the fourth day of our Colombian Adventure. The title of this piece comes from our second destination, a town called Buga, which, I was told, was founded as a religious Mecca. This made sense; the hotel we stayed for just one night on our way to the outer slope of the Western Andes felt like The Overlook meets a monastery: old and vast and stucco. The long creepy hallways made me want to peddle on a plastic Big Wheel. Needless to say, I took the stairs instead of the elevator. If the noise that night was any indication, there are plenty of religious pilgrims who enjoy discos. But, alas, no WiFi.

But this place was merely a way station on the way to the birdy — and steep — slopes of the Andes. Where we are right now. There’s no one here right now to ask how high we are, but let’s just say I’m glad that it’s dark when we hop in the 4-wheel drive vehicles for the ride up the trail each morning. The road, incidentally, was made to erect a cell tower. There are Army Guys up there who guard it. It’s so remote and the one skinny little road is so bad — the road we took, with many scary washed-out bits — that the Army Guys’ supplies are delivered by helicopter. I hope they get a large booze ration.

The hummingbirds also like our guide’s red hat. They not only buzzed him, they kept landing on his hat

We saw the Army Guys up at the top the other morning. They looked lonely. Maybe they should start wearing red hats.

Montezuma Lodge, somewhere in the Western Andes. November 2021