Brown-breasted Parakeet aka Flame-winged Parakeet (Pyrrhura calliptera)

The Flame-winged Parakeet (Pyrrhura calliptera), also known as the Brown-breasted Parakeet, is a species of parrot in the family Psittacidae.I was unable to get a photo and all Wikipedia has is a drawing.  However there are some good photos on the “Learn More” links below.

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They are endemic to Colombia and found in forest edge and shrub at altitudes of 1700–3400 m.  The best places to see them are Chingaza & Bioandina areas near Bogota.

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LEARN MORE ABOUT BROWN-BREASTED PARAKEETS

Wikipedia

World Parrot Trust

Birdlife

Neotropical Birds

VIDEOS

All uploaded to YouTube by Oswaldo Cortes, proving that he is the birding guide of choice when looking for this elusive little bird!

 

Day Trip – Birding Chingaza & Bioandina Area

Once again I was up for a very last minute off-the-cuff birding excursion-the last one in Colombia.  This time I was on my own as my husband wanted to take a day off and relax in the hotel and get over his altitude sickness.  I was targeting Brown-breasted Parakeet and had studied their locations on eBirdBirds of Passage had a nice post about their birding in the area, looks like they had bad weather to contend with as well!  I contacted Oswaldo Cortes on Facebook but he was already booked that day but he suggested we go to Chingaza for the parakeets.  So I got the hotel to book a car & driver (SUV) who arrived promptly at 5am to take me to Chingaza.  The scenery was gorgeous along the way!

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Finally we arrived at Chingaza National Park.  I was already looking for parakeets!dscn3507 img_6706

This is the desired Brown-breasted Parakeet and the mascot of the park.img_6707 dscn3508 dscn3509

This is the office where you pay admission and enter the park.  However they didn’t want to let me in since I didn’t have a guide!  I was hoping a guide might show up or be waiting around the entrance like they do at some other parks but no dice.  The area where the parakeets frequent is further into the park so I couldn’t just hang around the car park area and hope to get lucky.  So not wanting to waste any more time, I decided to try the other place where the parakeets had been seen – Bioandina which is on the north side of Chingaza.

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bogota-surrounds

You can see how we traveled from the hotel to Chingaza (blue line) and then we backtracked to where the red line begins.  I knew Bioandina was in that general area (yellow) but it wasn’t very well signposted and we ended up going all the way to where the red line ends until we realized we missed it. dscn3511 dscn3512

This is the road we turned down which finally led to the right area.  I never saw the word “Bioandina” but we did head into prime bird habitat.dscn3513 dscn3516 dscn3517 dscn3519 dscn3520 dscn3522

I think this is some kind of school, anyways it is very near the trees where we finally saw and heard a good-sized flock of parakeets!  The trees are in the photo above.dscn3525

The area was fenced off so all we could do was sit on the side of the road and wait.  It was so frustrating, I could hear LOTS of parakeets and see them flitting back and forth.  I knocked off a few Hail Mary shots but just couldn’t get them.  After about 20 minutes, they took off like bats parakeets out of hell and disappeared down the valley. The fence kept us from getting closer and I was feeling minor effects of altitude sickness from the previous trip so I was sitting in the car hoping they would come closer.  They didn’t.

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We drove around the area some more hoping to find the parakeets again.  dscn3526 dscn3527

We found a crested guan hiding in a bush near the road.img_6708 img_6710 img_6736 img_6711 img_6717 img_6732 img_6735

A few shots of the road heading back into Bogota.  I wanted to go to some craft shops but we couldn’t find any along the route.dscn3529 dscn3530 dscn3537 dscn3538 dscn3539 dscn3541

The driver dropped me back at the hotel and I found Ina in much better spirits after having a day to rest.  I was one one hand happy to have found a flock of parakeets but disappointed I didn’t get any photos.  Maybe I should have bought some flowers!

Hotel Review: Hotel Cosmos 116, Bogota

To finish off our travels in Colombia, we had a 2 night stay booked at Hotel Cosmos 116 in Bogota.  Since I had won some Orbucks in a photo contest the year before, I was able to use them to book both nights free using less than $100 Orbucks!

I was a bit intimidated by Bogota’s reputation for being dangerous so I did LOTS of homework before making my booking.  I looked on Trip Advisor and gave preference to a nice area with lots of restaurants within walking distance.

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The hotel is very modern in design and decor.dscn3549

The best part is the lounge & spa on the top floor.  It took a while for the jacuzzi to heat up but it was so worth it for the relaxation.  There is also a small gym.dscn3550 dscn3551 dscn3552 dscn3553 dscn3554

The room is attractive and modern looking and the wifi worked great.  There is a small fridge and you can buy drinks and snacks at the supermarket across the street.dscn3498

This small restaurant is right next to the hotel and has authentic Colombian fast food, half of which I didn’t understand but a friendly diner helped us make our choices.  dscn3548

All things considered, we really enjoyed our stay here and would be happy to come back if we ever visit Bogota again.

Avianca Flight Pereira – Bogota

I had originally planned to do this trip by bus for the scenery but when I stumbled onto a big sale on Avianca’s website, I couldn’t resist booking the two one-way tickets for under $100 AUD!  I had run out of Lifemiles but you can also book domestic Colombian flights for 3000 Lifemiles.   It turned out to be a good thing as my husband was feeling the altitude sickness and Bogota is lower than the Central Andes Paramo region.

We were dropped after the Fuertes Parrot Quest at Pereira Airport.

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I was surprised at how good the facilities were – lots of eateries, shops and seating space for a small domestic airport.dscn3485

Just the thing to cheer me up after the “Curse of the Cloud Forest” – Cinnabon!  It’s a more limited menu than you find in the USA but still yummy!dscn3486

Flights were going out on time.dscn3487

Waiting roomdscn3488

Standard garden-variety all-economy Avianca plane.dscn3489

Planning A Birding Trip To Colombia

Planning our birding trip to Colombia was a much bigger challenge than planning the Ecuador trip.  Even though the countries are next to each other, there is a huge difference between the tourist infrastructures.  Ecuador has been a travel hotspot for years and places like Mindo, Napo, Southern Ecuador & the Galapagos are well equipped to handle travelers of all types and budgets.  But Colombia was off limit for many years due to safety concerns and has only recently been returned to birders’ itineraries.  Even now, there is a preference for organized package tourists.  Many of the large birding tour operators are going to Colombia but there is still a good market for us budget minded independent birders!  We just have to work harder to manage it!

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SET YOUR BIRDING GOALS FIRST

With over 1900 bird species, Colombia has a lot to offer and unless you have unlimited time and money there is no way you are going to see it all.  Before you can choose which reserves you want to visit, you need to know what species are your priorities or which reserves have the biggest bird lists if you are looking to build up your life list.

My #1 target is to see as many parrot species as possible and lots of other bird species who live in the same habitats.  While I am not a “life-list ticker”, I do want to see as many different species of parrots in my life as I possibly can.  Therefore, when choosing between destinations within a country I consider these elements:

  1. Endemic species (can only be seen in one country such as Yellow-eared Parrot ( Santa Marta Parakeet).
  2. Species that I haven’t seen before.
  3. Species that are more easily seen elsewhere (Ecuadorian Amazon vs Colombian Amazon for example).
  4. How easily can I get to the reserve and is it in a safe location?
  5. Are some species just too rare that we probably have no chance of seeing them? (Sinu Parakeet – Pyrrhura subandina)?
  6. Can I hire guides in the reserves or nearest town?

So after looking at the 57 species of parrots that can be found in Colombia, I prioritized species that I hadn’t already seen on previous trips to South America and that I wasn’t likely to see in Ecuador, then I eliminated species that had no sightings on eBird and I was unlikely to be able to find.  Actually eBird played a HUGE part in planning this trip as I was able to get really good data on birds such as Fuertes Parrots which were being seen regularly near Santa Rosa and Rufous-fronted Parakeets which were being seen near Manizales.

This is a snippet of my planning spreadsheet for Ecuador, Colombia & Trinidad.  A yellow-filled box means that species is an endemic and needs to be prioritized.  Light green font indicates I have already seen the species elsewhere (but I am always happy to see them again) but I don’t need to make a special trip for that species.  Some birds are seen in both Ecuador & Colombia so I had to figure out which location would be easier logistically.  Just to get to this stage involved hundreds of hours of looking up each species on eBird, tracking sightings, cross-referencing species to get them down to as few sites as possible and making sure we can logistically get to the location.

ColParrot1 ColParrot2

ORGANIZING THE LOGISTICS

I was now down to 6 locations and less than 2 weeks to squeeze them all in.  I should probably say 5.5 locations as Minca is enroute to El Dorado.

  1.  Minca & El Dorado – accessed via Santa Marta airport
  2. Jardin – Yellow-eared Parrot Reserve – accessed by Medellin airport and a bus to Jardin.
  3. Rio Blanco & Surrounds – lots of species here, accessed by taxi or bus.
  4. Pereira – nearest city to accessible Fuertes Parrots.  I was trying for Giles Fuertes Reserve but told by ProAves that this reserve was not accessible to tourists.
  5. Chingaza Reserve – accessible by road from Bogota, planned to hire a taxi to get there.

I would need 3 flights.

  1. Quito to Santa Marta via Bogota (used Avianca Lifemiles).
  2. Santa Marta to Medellin (used Avianca Lifemiles).
  3. Pereira to Bogota (originally was going to use bus but found super cheap fare on Avianca).

This is what it all looked like on paper computer screen.

Colombia Plan

FINDING ACCOMMODATION

This turned out to be the easiest part.  Broken down by site:

  1. Santa Marta – flight got in at 9:30 so used an Expedia voucher for budget hotel.
  2. El Dorado – booked online via ProAves.
  3. Minca – booked online via Booking.com
  4. Jardin – got off bus from Medellin and walked into budget hotel on main plaza.
  5. Manizales (Rio Blanco) – must have advance booking so booked by email.
  6. Pereira – booked a backpacker place as I knew they would be able to find a cheap taxi to take us to Fuertes Parrots location at low cost.
  7. Bogota – was going to use Club Carlson bogo redemption but they closed their cheaper hotel so I used Orbucks from last year’s photo contest with 15% off promo code.

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This is an extremely succinct version of all the work I put into organizing a budget birding trip.  It’s very time consuming, especially if you have target species to track down and are limited by both time and budget.  But the end result was worth it for my high success rate.  Birds highlighted in peach were seen on this trip.  Those preceded by a 9 were allocated to Colombian sites (1-6 were allocated to Ecuador).  Red font on white background (ahem – parrotlets!) were total dips for this trip and my lifetime.  Lilac background was a dip on THIS trip but seen previously elsewhere.  For Colombia, out of  15 allocated species, 11 were seen, 4 were dips but the Brown-throated Parakeet had been seen in Panama so not a life dip.  Lilac-tailed Parrotlets could also be seen in Trindad so there was a 2nd chance (which ended up failing).

Colombia targets

So how can you do a trip like this?  Join me for the fantastic ride through Colombia during the next few weeks!

Getting To Colombia With Airline Miles

Most frequent flier programs divide the continent of South America into northern and southern regions.  Colombia, which has an amazing bird list with over 1900 species recorded, falls into the northern region.  I already have a blog with my recommendations for which programs to join if you are new to the world of miles and points.

The major gateway cities for Colombia include Bogota (BOG), Medellin (MDE) and Cartagena (CTG).   It will be the same number of miles no matter which you choose.   Once you have been in the miles and points game for awhile, you will get a feel for which airline to use where but if you are just starting out Wikipedia will show you all the airlines that fly into Bogota, Medellin, Cartegena and any of Colombia’s airports.  To present examples below, I will be using Bogota as the example gateway airport.

ONE WORLD OPTIONS

From North America you can use American Airlines,  LATAM.

From South America you can use LATAM.

From Australia and New Zealand you can use Qantas or LATAM via Santiago.

From UK and Europe you can travel via the USA using BA or IB to get to the USA, then AA, LATAM to South America.

From Asia or Africa there are no direct flights so you will need to travel via the USA or Europe.

STAR ALLIANCE OPTIONS

From North America you can use United, Air Canada, Avianca-Taca or Copa.

From South America you can use Avianca-Taca or Copa.

From Europe you can use Avianca, Lufthansa or Turkish Airlines.

From Australia and New Zealand, Asia and Africa there are no direct flights, you can use NZ to Buenos Aires (EZE) or travel via the USA.  Depending on which program’s miles you have, this may require one or two awards.

SKYTEAM OPTIONS

From North America you can use AeroMexico or Delta.

From Argentina & Southern South America you can use Aerolinas Argentinas.

From Europe you can use Air Europa, Air France or KLM, or you can connect in the USA on Delta.

From Australia, Asia and Africa there are no direct flights, you will need to travel via the USA or Europe.

HOW MANY MILES WILL IT COST?

Every airline member of the 3 main alliances has it’s own frequent flier program.  They often have alliances with other airlines outside the program.  I have made some reference charts for the airline alliances and I strongly recommend that you check out the program of the airline in your country and the USA based partners of each program as the USA airlines tend to have the most lucrative bonuses.  Americans can get very generous credit card bonuses.  Details of credit card partners (and other partners) will be on each airline’s website, however often there are more lucrative sign up bonuses.  Details are usually posted in the Flyer Talk thread so I strongly suggest you read this thread and the Miles Buzz forum before you apply for any cards just in case a better bonus has been offered.  I don’t have any affiliate links and I recommend you do extensive research on your own when applying for airline credit cards.

USING ONE WORLD

AMERICAN AIRLINES

No matter where you live, frequent flyer programs based in the USA usually offer the best deals but it’s still a good idea to look at other members of the alliance.  Try to avoid carriers that charge a fuel surcharge.  Looking at AA’s award chart, we can see that Colombia is in South America Zone 1.

So let’s look at the chart.  AA no longer has all zones on one convenient chart so you need to look at the website for the region you are departing from.  You will notice there are taxes and fees with certain routes and that the awards are prices as one way trips.

We can see that a South Pacific to Central/South America award will cost 45,000 miles each way (90,000 round trip) in economy, 82,500 (160,000 round trip) in business class and 112,500 each way (225,000 round trip in first class.  AA doesn’t allow you to transit the USA on this award so you must fly on the only carriers that operate between Australia and South America-Qantas and LATAM.

If you are based in North America, economy will cost 30,000  each way (60,000 round trip), business class  is 57,500 each way (115,000 round trip) and first is 85,000 each way or 170,000 round trip.  You would be flying on AA or LATAM.

AVIOS (BA OR IB)

Avios can be a great bargain for shorter flights.  The awards are priced by distance flown per segment rather than zone to zone.

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Avios chart

Using the Great Circle Mapper, we can see that a direct flight from Miami to Bogota would cost 10,000 Avios each way, a direct flight from LAX to Bogota would cost 20,000 Avios and a direct flight from NYC to Bogota would cost 12,500 Avios.  If you are using credit card miles, transferring them to Avios rather than UA or AA could save you some points.  If you need a connection from elsewhere in the USA to the gateway city, you need to pay for that segment separately with the Avios cost for the distance flown.  Example OKC-MIA is 1222 miles so you need to add 10,000 Avios to the total price of the ticket.

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QANTAS FREQUENT FLYER

For Qantas, it is easiest to use their points calculator to see how many points you need, then look for availability.  Not all itineraries can be booked online, sometimes you have to call them.  Using the example of Sydney to Bogota we can see that they route through the USA (probably because the Santiago route is very hard to get) and economy is 60,000 points one way.  If I were making this trip for real, I would be putting a lot more effort into finding a routing on QF through Santiago.  Although business class shows availability on the random date I chose, if you hover over the seat icon you will see that the DFW-BOG segment is in economy.  I am actually amazed that SYD-DFW has premium seats!  On the next screen you see the points plus taxes & fees that must be paid by credit card.

QF BOG1 QF BOG2 QF BOG3 QF BOG4

If you are based somewhere else, leave a comment if you don’t understand this part and I will help you out.  Meanwhile, here is a reference list for other One World carriers.

USING STAR ALLIANCE

United, Avianca and Singapore are probably the most common Star Alliance programs in use because of good credit card deals and buy miles promos.

UNITED AIRLINES

United Airlines is a USA based carrier that offers one way awards on its own flights and other Star Alliance carriers.  Due to the size of their award chart, I can’t paste it here so will link to it and give examples.  For example Orlando to Bogota has availability on several dates which I picked at random.  They are colour coded for economy, business/first or all three classes.  Make sure you scroll all the way down to see all the options.  Some routes are only 20k and others are a whopping 45k!  And beware of routes where it is cheaper to fly business class than economy!

UA BOG1 UA BOG2

AVIANCA TACA LIFEMILES

Lifemiles has some very attractive promos to buy and share miles.  While this doesn’t give you a free trip, it can greatly reduce the cost of a trip especially if you are after business or first class awards.  You need to be an existing member of Lifemiles when they announce  a promo so join now if you haven’t already.  Use their calculator to get an idea of award costs.  This will be a range which depends on class and any promos.

 

They have a Star Alliance Award chart and you can see that they divide the continent of South America into northern and southern regions.  Colombia is in the Northern South America region.  Australia and New Zealand are in the “Others” category.  The chart shows one-way awards.   I prefer to keep my Lifemiles for intra-South/Central America awards which can get pricy but are bargains using awards.

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SINGAPORE AIRLINES

SQ miles have become much easier to get in recent years.  Americans can use Chase Ultimate Rewards, Citi Thank You, Amex Membership Rewards.  Aussies can use the Australian Amex Membership Rewards.  Everyone can use SPG.  Just beware of the high fuel (carrier) surcharges when you use Krisflyer.  Personally, I would be happy to use SQ miles for intra-South America awards where surcharges are low or even non-exixtant but would use other programs to get from Australia to South America.  SQ has only one region for all of South America so their awards can be a bargain if you are traveling around the continent!

SQ South America

I don’t use all the programs that are out there but these are the most commonly used programs by travel hackers in the USA and Australia so do some research to see which one works for you!  Bear in mind that the tickets are not completely free, there is usually a booking fee of $25-50 and various taxes, but you would have to pay the taxes whether you pay cash or miles for the ticket in any case.

WHAT ABOUT JUST PAYING CASH (WELL, CREDIT CARD)?

No, it’s not blasphemy but sometimes it is a good idea to save your miles and simply pay for the ticket.  The 3 main Central/South American carriers – Avianca, Copa & LATAM have been very competitive lately ex-USA and releasing some very good deals.  These are a few examples but they expire soon so always check the airlines’ website for current specials.

Avianca Colombia Avianca Colombia2 Copa Bog Latam Bog

 

 

 

Quito To Santa Marta, Colombia Via Bogota With A Few Dramas

When you are flying to Colombia, Avianca Lifemiles are a great miles currency to have.  Flights are easily booked online and sometimes they have better award flight availability than their other partners.  I found this to be the case at the time I was booking this route.  For some reason, United was only giving availability in the early morning when I wanted to travel around mid-day to squeeze in one more morning of birding at Guango Lodge.

Lifemiles charges 11,000 miles one way for this routing.

AV8374 Quito (UIO) 16:45 Bogota (BOG) 18:25

AV9792 Bogota (BOG) 20:44 Santa Marta (SMR) 22:18

Theoretically, United should charge 10,000 miles but even on my test run these flights weren’t available and their connections were terrible on what was available.

Up until the day of departure I got several emails from Avianca trying to sell me upgrades on a per segment basis but I didn’t think it was worth it for such short flights.

The taxi from the bus stop at Pifo dropped us right outside the terminal and checking in was quick and easy.

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I would have been tempted by the Johnny Rockets as we don’t have them in Australia but there wasn’t time and I was desperate to get online.  The only stop we made was at the ATM inside as the currency of Ecuador is the USD and I wanted to withdraw some to use in the Caribbean Islands coming up.  DSCN2598

Typical over-priced airport shopDSCN2599

We used our last remaining Lounge Club passes from the Chase Ink (now discontinued) to access the lounge.  I had no internet access for the last 3 days and was dying to know more about the earthquake and check my emails.  DSCN2601

I was shocked to see the extent of the earthquake on the coast, it was really horrifying.  It didn’t seem to have affected the airport and all flights were going out on time.DSCN2602

We grabbed some snacks and drinks at the small buffet in the lounge.DSCN2603

Typical Avianca shorthaul flight, an A319.  It wasn’t full and we had an empty middle seat.  I was glad I didn’t pay money for an upgrade.DSCN2604

Beautiful Andean scenery enroute to Bogota.DSCN2606

We arrived at dusk and had just over an hour to make the connection.DSCN2607

We had to use a bus to get to a different terminal which was easy as we only had carry on bags.  I would have worried about checking bags with such a short connection.DSCN2610

I had one errand in the Bogota airport – use an ATM and withdraw some local currency – Colombian Pesos for things such as taxis, buses, food and anything else I couldn’t pay by card.  Much to my surprise, the NAB ATM card wouldn’t work in any of the different bank’s ATMs!  Not wanting to miss the flight, I changed a $50 note cash so we could get a taxi to the hotel.  At the time I just thought the line was down or banks were updating or something.

The flight brought a new drama.  We all boarded just fine but then as we tried to taxi away, something started beeping.  The pilot brought the plane back and although I didn’t understand the details which were in Spanish there was something wrong with the plane.  We were delayed about 2 more hours while they found another plane for us.

It was only about an hour flight and I was much relieved to see Santa Marta airport lights out the window and to watch the plane on the seatback air show get closer.  I was exhausted and just wanted to get to the hotel and get some sleep.  But all of a sudden, I felt the plane pull back and start gaining altitude and I saw the air show plane get further away from the airport.  WTF?  Why doesn’t he just land?  The crew were strapped in and no one around me spoke English.  The pilot did come on and say something in Spanish but it was way beyond my tourist-level basic Spanish.  We circled for around 15 minutes, then FINALLY descended and made a normal landing.  DSCN2611

We got off the plane as quickly as possible and joined the taxi line outside with pretty much the whole plane.  Taxi fares from the airport are posted and fixed rates.  Santa Marta is 27,800 at night but good luck trying to get change from 30,000 pesos!  Direct to Minca would have been 90,000 night rate, 80,000 day rate.

After around 20 minutes, we arrived at our hotel ready to drop from exhaustion!