Birding & Nature to Chicaque Cloud Forest Nature Reserve

Highly recommend! We went on tours to the Chicaque Nature Reserve and Chingaza National Park and had a great experience. Our guide León was excellent, very knowledgable and helped us see so many incredible birds.

The all-day trip to the cloud forest with Oswaldo and Freddy was excellent. They are both extremely knowledgeable and pleasant to spend time with. Many birds seen including some endemic species new to me. Everything was first rate including the coffee, and meals. They definitely catered the trip to my wishes. The driver was also experienced, safe and professional. Vehicle condition was new and clean. They also did an excellent job of coordinating with me pre-trip using WhatsApp.

I went on the Chicaque Nature Reserve (Cloud forest) day tour. It was a great day trip, highly recommended for anyone who loves birds! This reserve has native forest that has never been logged. My guide Leon was extremely passionate and knowledgeable about birds (and Colombia in general), knowing all their calls, identifying them immediately by name (scientific name too), and also letting me know if they were endemic or not. When he heard a bird, he played a recording of the call of that bird (he has a large collection of bird calls on his iphone) and lured most birds out into the open where we could spot them. Leon has a digital SRL camera and was able to take some great photos of birds we saw (if they were still and close enough), then sent them to me later through WhatsApp. He also had a telephoto lens on a tripod, to which I connected my iphone and was able to get some great videos of hummingbirds feeding. AND he carried all this gear quite easily in a lovely walk down through the cloud forest. They drive you back up. Breakfast and lunch provided were very good. All in all, we spotted 50 birds (Leon said it was a good day), which was a lot more than I expected! And the most I have ever seen in one day. So the price of the tour was well worth it. Some of the highlights of the trip was seeing the Black Inca (Coaligena prunella), twice, and the Golden-bellied Starfrontlet (Coeligena bonapartei) only found in this small pocket of Colombia! I found that Oswald and Daira were very helpful, easy to communicate with, responding to my emails and WhatsApp messages very quickly so I could decide what to do. I was also very happy to hear that they are very interested in the conservation of the beautiful fauna and flora of Colombia, so a company well worth supporting.

We thoroughly enjoyed our experience with our wonderful guide, Hernan. He was very knowledgeable and helpful. The park was beautiful and we learned a lot!

I took a birding tour with Bogota Birding in Feb 2024 and it was great. Thank you so much for allowing me having a great birding day! I really enjoyed it. I saw many birds. Camilo is really great! He knows the birds! And he was available to answer my many questions and helped with the ID. He really is a great guide! He picked me up at my hotel on time. I really enjoyed the day in Chicaque! Thanks for everything! Valérie

Very good organization of the day tour with Camilo, our guide, very professional and friendly. We saw more than 80 species of birds (including the black inca!!!) in a site with high diversity of ecosystems. My wife and I recommend it 100%!!!

What impressed us right off the bat was the fact that the amazing photographer-guide-owner of Bogota Birding responded to my inquiry thru WhatsApp very quickly. I had contacted few others, but their response was tardy and/or very late. Second, their website provides ALL the details and more very clearly and that takes a lot of effort. I was convinced that it was not a casual operator. Third, the co-founder Diara Ximena was very responsive as well with more details and suggestions for the tours as we had very few days in Bogota and we let them decide which places we should visit. And on top of that, they assigned an excellent guide, Camilo Orjuela. We were extremely impressed with Camilo. He was very knowledgeable about bird behavior, bird calls and best locations to expect specific birds. He was very patient and used calls to attract the birds multiple times so that I could photograph them. And on top of it, he is a very nice guy with a global travel experience and speaks excellent English. The fact that we saw 86 species in one day and in one reserve was amazing and that's a testament to his guiding skills! Camilo picked us up at 5:00AM from our hotel in Bogota and we started birding at 6:30AM in the morning on the way even before we reached the reserver. Prior to that, we had breakfast at a very nice place, which was included in the price along with the lunch at the lodge later on. We were well fed and taken care of. It was a long day and Camilo took good care of us. Thank you, Camilo! Once we reached the reserver and after Camilo obtained the tickets and also booked the return ride by 4x4, we started hiking downhill on the brick lined steps and cobbled pathway. You need to be careful here as they are slippery due to moss and wet conditions. We just followed Camilo's steps and we were just fine. In spite of the constant fog and light drizzle, we saw a very large number of birds, which we weren't expecting in these conditions. I had read reviews of the reserve and people have complained that they didn't see much because of the conditions. I can only say that, they didn't have a good guide like Camilo. Next time, don't skimp on a good birding guide. After reaching the lodge, which by the way is at a spectacularly beautiful location, we were surprised at the quality of birding from the balcony at the back of the restaurant. I interrupted my lunch multiple times to photograph birds. We saw the beautiful Puff-breasted Tanager and Southern Emerald Toucanet among many others from the balcony. Most people and kids were hiking up the hill back to the parking lot, but we took the 4x4 as we were pressed for time. We were dropped back at our hotel around 5PM. It was a solid 9 hours of birding plus the driving time. And Camilo was busy preparing the eBird list for us after that. I asked him to rest instead as we were going for another early morning birding the very next day. I highly recommend Bogota Birding and guide Camilo Orjuela. Just let them decide where you should go once you are in Bogota. It is that simple! I can't go birding with anyone else when we come back for a longer time to explore Colombia.

+14

I had a 16 hour layover in Bogota, so contacted Bogota Birding and arranged a trip to the Chicaque Cloud Forest. Raul was a fantastic guide. We birded a bit on our way to the forest, then spent the whole day walking on trails and having a great time birding. We saw over 50 species including a couple regional endemics, and Raul also had tremendous knowledge of the cloud forest ecosystem, and the plants and the birds within. Highly recommend.

I whole heartedly endorse Bogota Birding! They are very communicative and let me make my own adventure. My guide, Camillo, is fantastic. He is super knowledge and seemed to know where all birds were. I'm still not sure how he does it, lol. The restaurant we went to for breakfast and lunch were clean, modern, and had authentic cuisine. Having fresh brewed coffee in the cloud forest watching sword-billed hummingbird is a memory I will cherish forever. Thank you, Bogota Birding

My guide tailored my private tour to my interests (hummingbirds), which was great to see. Saw a couple lifers, missed out on some others that just weren't around. We had multiple mixed flocks throughout our day, too which isn't always the case, I was told. Very interesting topography at Chicaque combines opportunities to see quite different species in a very compact space. The service and guiding I received was excellent - my 4/5 stars is based more on the few species that ended up eluding me or my photos perhaps not being as good as I was hoping rather than any issue with my guide or the service from Bogota Birding.