Last day at El Dorado EcoLodge, Colombia

We finally walked the lookout trail the morning of the day we were leaving. The forest is still quite new and despite how thick the trees are they are only about 20-30 years old. There were no new birds to note and no new reptiles or amphibians either. The view was much less spectacular than the one from the trail at the cabins.

Before we left we were still getting new species like a Sickle-winged Guan at the compost heap and also got an even better look at the Masked Trogon.

Sickle-winged Guan

Masked Trogon

Masked Trogon

I managed to snag two recipes from the chef before we got a ride from Silvana Travel back down the mountain and to Kankui Hostal near Tayrona National Park.

Night at El Dorado EcoLodge and Reserve, Colombia

At night they fed the monkeys just after dinner and shortly after had a night walk just down the road to a small creek. They tried to call in owls with no luck but we did see glass frogs, endemic frogs, endemic tarantulas and a climbing salamander very very deep in a bromeliad. If only we had a bit more rain there might have been even more out.

I believe the many anoles sleeping on leaves were only one species of Anolis sp. but I am not sure what it is yet. I do suspect it is a Solitare Anole (Anolis solitarius).

Pristimantis megalops
Pristimantis sanctaemartae

Pristimantis sanctaemartae

Scinax ruber
Ikakogi tayrona are small bright green glass frogs and sadly I didn't get to see more than one of them.

 Ikakogi tayrona

I only got to see one Bolitoglossa savegei, a species of climbing salamander and it was very very stuck in the nooks of a bromeliad.
Spider scorpions

Kankuamo marquezi is the only species within the Genus and is endemic to the Santa Marta Mountain Range area but it was incredibly abundant around the ecolodge.

Kankuamo marquezi

Kankuamo marquezi

El Dorado EcoLodge, Colombia

We left Hotel Minca around 10am with a company called Silvana Travels that drives up the dirt road to El Dorado EcoLodge. I wouldn't reccomend driving yourself unless you have 4-wheel drive and a lot of patience for slow driving and letting oncoming traffic pass on a road that is about 1-1.5X a car width. The EcoLodge is up high on the mountain and you take the winding dirt road up for about 2-3 hours to get there.  It's not that far for distance but just the road conditions make it quite slow.

El Dorado EcoLodge, Colombia

El Dorado EcoLodge, Colombia

The ecolodge is very secure with a door that you actually can't open so you have to knock to get let in and basically that means not going out at night at all because there is nobody at the desk past 10pm.

El Dorado EcoLodge, Colombia

But anyways the first impression of the lodge was wonderful. You walk into the wood building and they offer you tea or coffee and since we arrived at lunch we got to sit and eat lunch while we waited a little bit for our room. The view through large windows is a lush green garden and the cabins just before the sloping forest beyond. The garden is full of hummingbird feeders, fruit feeders and seed feeders. This is definitely a place for birds because the garden in swarming with them.

Crowned Woodnymph

Santa Marta Brush-finch

Blue-napped Chlorophonia

Crowned Woodnymph and a bromeliad flower

Brown Violetear

Our first hike was the Quetzal Trail up to the cabins. It is a really nice trail through forest and crossing a few streams. I found a large rock surface with 3 snake skins and some very tiny brown frogs around the streams.

Where the trail opens up into a more scrubby area near the cabins a long thing brown snake with a lighter brown stripe pretty much jumped off in front of me and slithered away before I  could even turn on my camera. Imagine a snake coming straight off that ledge you see to the left of the photo like a bat outta hell. Well I bet it was curled up and enjoying the sunshine before we scared the wits outta it.

El Dorado EcoLodge, Colombia

El Dorado EcoLodge, Colombia