On to South America: Venezuela and Colombia

Peter Alden’s upcoming memoir will feature stories from his pioneering nature journeys the world over. This chapter takes us into the jungles of South America to find new exotic species. Warning: Peter and his group end up having to spend a night in a house of ill repute!

Scarlet Ibis, Orinoco River, Venezuela

By Peter Alden

South America is known as the bird continent, hosting more species than any of the other continents. There are over 11,000 bird species in the world, and about one-third of them live in South America.

In the late 1960s, ecotourism in South America had not yet developed. There was no network of local experts, no color field guides to help you identify what you saw, no national parks protecting the birds and other creatures. Hardly any bird watchers tried to go. The few of us who wished to learn more about birds in South America had to carry very heavy and poorly illustrated guidebooks when we traveled.

Eager to expand my operations into more countries at this time, I had come up with a method for creating homemade field guides. I’d buy two copies of the few books on South American birds and bird families of the world as they came into circulation, cut out the relevant illustrations and texts with ranges for the regions I was going to be visiting, and then tape the pages onto pieces of looseleaf paper that could then be stored in 6 x 9-inch three-ring binders. My experience with homemade field guides would come in handy later in my career as an author for the National Audubon Field Guide series.

Venezuela

My practice when I wanted to add a new destination to my repertoire as a pioneering tour leader was still, almost always, to do a thorough scouting trip before organizing any tours there. When it finally seemed viable to go to Venezuela, I planned a trip there with my brother David and our friend Peter Willman, whom I’d first met when I was a teen in Concord helping people to spot that rare Northern Hawk Owl that paid us a visit (see Chapter 1). The three of us rented a car and spent a month traveling all over Venezuela: out to the Andes, across the Llanos vast grassland plains, and over the Orinoco River, down toward Brazil. As Peter remained wheelchair-bound, we always took care to go places that were accessible for him.

Harpy Eagle

Venezuela, on that first scouting trip in 1970, struck me as a very safe country with nice hotels and good food. Gas was twenty cents a gallon. The crime rate was low, and the infrastructure was reliable. We saw numerous birds throughout the countryside. A highlight of that trip occurred in a jungle south of the Orinoco. The three of us were out very early in the morning walking up a muddy road when we spotted a Harpy Eagle, the most spectacular of all the eagles. It was the first time I’d seen a Harpy, and I’ve seen only a few since then. 

I began doing annual Mass Audubon tours in Venezuela and continued for a dozen years. As I was planning our first tour, a woman named Betsy Thomas who lived in Caracas visited us at Mass Audubon. She had heard about our planned tour through some ornithologists I had met in Venezuela. She was active with the Venezuela Audubon Society chapter. (Audubon has chapters in various Latin American regions where there are concentrations of Americans, including Belize, Panama, and San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. In Venezuela in those years, there were a lot of Americans living in Caracas.) Betsy suggested we allow her to be our local operator. She made the hotel reservations and found us a medium-sized bus that could accommodate twenty people plus luggage. 

Being a bus driver for a bird-watching tour, at least on my bird-watching tours, wasn’t like being a driver for other kinds of group tours. On other groups’ trips, drivers knew that they would be driving as directly as possible to a museum or park or landmark, then stopping and parking for a set amount of time while all the travelers toured the destination. With bird watching, though, we might have a destination in mind, but I was always in the front seat looking out for something to show my clients, and if I saw a pond covered with waterbirds or an interesting flowering tree, I was likely to request an unplanned stop. Our driver was fine with that, and so we used him for every tour we did there for the next dozen years. 

Trips to Venezuela began with a flight into Caracas, which is only five hours from JFK International Airport. We’d take a teleférico (cable car) up into the mountains, where I once saw a highly endangered species called a Red Siskin. It’s similar to a goldfinch but bright red. We’d visit Henri Pittier, a national park located in a mountain range with heavy vegetation. Cloud forests result when the breezes come off the warm water and work their way up the side of the mountain, leaving the landscape covered with clouds.

White-tipped_Quetzal, photo by M Zieger

Most people have heard of the Resplendent Quetzal of Central America (described in the previous chapter). Additionally, there are four species of quetzals in South America, one of which—the White-tipped Quetzal—was commonly seen in these cool highlands of the Coastal Range. Another interesting bird we sometimes saw in the Amazon region was the Blackpoll Warbler, which has an amazing migration. These birds breed across the boreal forest of Canada and in northern portions of the U.S. In fall they wait for favorable northwesterly winds, launch from the northeastern coast of North America, and fly for 72 hours non-stop over the ocean to their wintering grounds mainly in the Amazon. Some arrive emaciated in northern Venezuela just in time to rapidly refuel before continuing on to their wintering grounds.

On the somewhat primitive buses we used in Venezuela, we’d leave the door open as we drove so that I could listen for birds. Winding our way back down the mountain, I once noticed a White-necked Jacobin (a beautiful little blue, white, and green hummingbird) hovering right over the roadway feeding on insects. Excited, I alerted my clients to look ahead for the hummingbird. I put my hand out the window and to my great surprise, the bird flew right into my hand. Carefully, I brought it into the bus and let my travelers have a close look and take pictures. It was a magical moment, the kind of thing you can’t possibly plan and just have to appreciate when it happens by chance.

South of Rancho Grande, we’d reach the great plains of Llanos. One bird we’d often see there was the Hoatzin, whose young are born with extra claws on their shoulders. They live in piranha-infested waterways in Orinoco, and if a snake or hawk approaches them, they can dive into the water to escape, then crawl back up the banks using their extra claws. As they get older and larger, the extra claws fall off. 

Just north, along the coast of the Caribbean, is one of my favorite spots in the world: Chichiriviche, in the state of Falcón. This coastal lagoon is a unique location for observing all three species of rosy red waterbirds—the American Flamingo, the Scarlet Ibis, and the Roseate Spoonbill—together in large numbers. You typically see American Flamingos in the Caribbean, around the Bahamas, Bonaire, and the Yucatan. The Scarlet Ibis has a long, curved bill and bright scarlet feathers. The Roseate Spoonbill’s coloring ranges from pale to bright pink.

Normally, we would bring picnic lunches and fold-up tables; we’d look at the birds, eat our lunch, and then head to the beach for a swim. On one such stop, I lay down under a palm tree while my clients were enjoying the waves. As I drifted off to sleep, I was jolted awake by a thud and saw that a coconut as heavy as a concrete cinderblock had fallen off a branch and landed inches from my ear. Lesson learned: never again did I nap under a palm tree!

From the Caribbean coast it was a three-hour drive west through greenery and a cactus desert to Barquisimeto, a small city halfway to the Venezuelan Andes. There was a very nice hotel along the way where we’d overnight our groups. One year we arrived at the hotel about five-thirty as usual, all of us looking forward to a quick shower and a swim in the pool before cocktails and dinner. Instead, we were greeted with the news that the hotel had been sold since the trip had been booked, and the new owners didn’t keep any records of pre-existing reservations. Moreover, the city was hosting a large medical convention, so not only was our hotel full but so was every other hotel in town.

Thinking fast, I told the bartender to give my group all the drinks they wanted while the bus driver and I went scouting. My travelers were happy to hear it was open bar; most of them drank while a few sneaked into the hotel pool or used the poolside showers. A hotel staff member told us it was possible that the local hostel, something like a YMCA, might have room. Well, they did—one room. We reserved it for the couple we’d identified as most likely to raise a stink about the snafu, but we still had a dozen or more other travelers to house. Several other hotels were sold out.

Then the bus driver came up with a suggestion. Leaving our group to enjoy the open bar, we drove to the edge of the city and into the desert. We spotted a big block of beer billboards and some small buildings. “Casa de citas” the bus driver explained, using a term I’d heard bus drivers use before when pointing out the small seedy lodging we often passed in the outskirts of South and Central American cities. “Maybe they can help us?”

Really, renting rooms at a brothel? Well, my travelers needed a place to sleep. Together the bus driver and I went to see the desk clerk. He offered to show us the rooms. There were suspect sheets on the mattresses, but they were beds, and doors with locks.

“We need rooms for the night,” we hastened to explain. We struck a deal with him and rented twelve rooms for the night. Then we had to go back to the city to update our clients.

“There’s good news and bad news,” I told them.

“Any news is good news!” they replied cheerfully, blitzed and full of goodwill after enjoying free cocktails all evening. 

“All right then,” I forged on. “We found a place. Everyone will have a private room, a bed, a toilet, and a door that locks.” 

“Peter, you’re the greatest!” they exclaimed. They didn’t ask about the bad news, so I decided not to tell them—which included the fact that the twelve rooms constituted only part of the establishment. Maybe they wouldn’t notice. We slipped into our rooms after nine o’clock. For the next eight hours, the air was full of a cacophony of roosters crowing, dogs barking, horses and mules and donkeys milling around, drunks shouting in the parking lot, and clients of the hotel’s usual business arriving and departing.

At dawn we returned to the city for breakfast and then resumed our drive to the Andes. My travelers were tired and upset; no one spoke much that morning. But gradually they warmed up, and by the time we reached the Andes, where we had fine accommodations and there were plenty of birds to see, they had all bonded over the shared experience of spending the night at a brothel.

The rest of the trip went perfectly: lots of wildlife to view, good food, and no one got sick. And wouldn’t you know, of all the tours I’ve led (other than my round-the-world tours), that’s the only group I’m aware of that held annual reunions for several years thereafter. Trauma bonding is real, I suppose—even if the only trauma is spending a noisy sleepless night in a house of ill repute.

In the Venezuelan Andes, the University of the Andes had protected one forest region where we could usually find Crested and Golden-headed Quetzal, plus many other interesting birds. From there we’d go west to the Colombian border, spend a night at a coffee plantation, and then continue north to Lake Maracaibo, stopping along the way for views of falcons, caracaras, raptors, and numerous creatures of the swamps and the rainforest. Finally, we’d reach Maracaibo, Venezuela’s second largest city, from where we could fly home to Miami.

I look back to my time in Venezuela fondly and am saddened by the current state of affairs under the Maduro regime. Since he came to power in 2013, conservationists and scientists have expressed concerns about the damage to fragile ecosystems caused by infrastructure development projects in environmentally sensitive areas. The country remains unsafe for Americans as of this writing.

Colombia

I made my first scouting trip to Colombia in the late 1970s. Joining me was the artist Guy Tudor, who was painting all the birds of South America, and several other top birders including Stuart Keith, Tom Davis, and Mike Gochfeld. After that scouting trip, I ran several private-invitation tours to Colombia in 1978 and 1979.

Steve Hilty and Peter Alden

It was around that time that I began to realize the problem with my vocation. Much as I loved the work, I was trying to survive on no more than $14,000 per year. I enjoyed the travel and the bird watching, and most of all I appreciated the opportunity to introduce people to remarkable birds and landscapes they’d never seen before, but it didn’t feel sustainable. Then I came up with the idea of earning supplemental income by doing private, invitation-only tours in addition to my work for Mass Audubon. I joined forces with Steve Hilty, an old friend from my University of Arizona days who had become an expert on the birds of Colombia and authored the second Birds of Colombia. We’d see up to 500 species of birds in three weeks.

The trips provided excellent bird watching. We’d start off in Bogotá but then spend most of our time in the remote regions of the country. First, we’d go to the city of Cali in a verdant section of western Colombia. For safety reasons, we’d ask all of our travelers to put their passports, documents, airline tickets, and travelers’ checks into the hotel safe. But when we arrived at our hotel in Cali one year, the desk clerk informed me that the previous week, there had been a robbery. Thieves had broken in and made off with the safe itself, along with all of its contents. 

The hotel couldn’t help us with a secure place to keep valuables, so I opted to collect my travelers’ passports, air tickets, and other items, intending to hold on to them myself—I trusted myself more than I trusted each of them to keep track of everything important in this risky scenario. But I left the cash to them. Some of them put their cash in their socks and then rolled up the socks in a bureau drawer; others put it under the mattress. None of those efforts succeeded; thieves or the hotel’s housekeeping staff found it all and made off with it.

After Cali, we’d cross the west Andes to the Chocó-Darién rainforests, one of the wettest places in the world. Traveling along its narrow dirt roads, we’d glimpse an amazing variety of hummingbirds, tanagers, and various species found nowhere else in the world. But my greatest claim to fame in that region actually took place in a seedy coastal town called Buenaventura on the Pacific coast. It was there that I saw the first House Sparrow ever recorded in Colombia. 

Another favorite spot in Colombia was Leticia, where we would board a boat to travel along the Amazon. The Amazon River is so wide that there are entirely different species of birds from one side to the other. It can be easier to spot birds on the Amazon’s smaller tributaries. Sometimes we’d spend a whole afternoon traveling along a tributary on a motorized longboat with a thatched canopy over the top and room for ten or twelve passengers. I was constantly reminding people to duck out of the way of low-hanging branches. Sometimes I’d even walk along the length of the boat pushing their heads down before they got smacked.

After my Amazon plunge

On one such journey, I was so focused on keeping my travelers safe from branches that I didn’t notice that a tree trunk had somehow notched itself onto our boat, building up tension as we moved. Finally, the tension snapped, with the branch catapulting me out of the boat and flinging me upstream into the water. The boat driver was trying to turn around to save me and I was swimming as fast as I could, knowing the water was full of piranhas, large snakes, and tiny catfish. But more dangerous than any of those was the river water that I couldn’t keep from swallowing as I tried to stay above the surface. The little villages along the Amazon have no sewage treatment plants, and the river water is likely toxic as a result. As I finally reached the boat and was lifted in, I was coughing up water. Among our travelers was a physician who advised me to immediately chug a can of beer as fast as I could. As soon as I finished it, he handed me another one, and then another. The alcohol killed all the toxins I’d ingested, and I was fine after three beers. Tipsy, but fine.

Colombia’s appeal to bird watchers is primarily due to its staggering number of species—nearly 2,000, including some 79 endemics. When it became safe, bird tourism exploded, spurring conservation efforts. Recently, the post‑2016 peace deals unlocked previously inaccessible regions. Birding trails like the Southwestern and Northern Andes launched in partnership with Audubon and USAID. Today, ProAves, the nonprofit environmental organization established in 1998, manages over 28 private reserves protecting key forest habitats for threatened birds. Colombia is now regarded as one of the world’s premier birding destinations and a textbook example of how community‑led ecotourism and habitat protection can lead to economic benefit.

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Stay tuned for an update on the publication of Peter Alden's memoir, due to publish later this year.