Eco Park Rio Blanco

Trip Start Feb 06, 2007

332

Trip End Jan 14, 2008

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Where I stayed

Platypus Hostel Bogota

(Bogota hotels)

Flag of Colombia Manizales, Colombia
Monday, April 2, 2007

April 2nd 2007, Monday, Manizales
Sometimes things do not go quite to plan. This was one of those days. We called Platypus Hostel in Bogota because we had received an email saying our definite booking for Tuesday, made last Wednesday, might not be going to happen. We have a 95% chance of having a bed, but German said he would organise something else if no room in Platypus.
We debated going to either Rio Blanco or to Recinto de Pensamiento, another ecological park in Manizales. It turned out that Recinto was closed on Monday so there was no choice. To get entry to Rio Blanco you have to go to Aguas de Manizales (the water company) and organise a permit. This cannot be done on the weekend, only Monday to Friday, even if you want to visit on the weekend. After the formality you need to get to the entrance. The options are a taxi for 10,000 pesos, or walk the '3 kilometres' to the gate. The walk was beside the river, and at various points along the river there were men knee deep in water shovelling dirt into sieves. They were accumulating either river sand, or small pebbles, or large stones, and trucks were picking up the fruits of their labours. We assumed this was for a garden centre. What a hard way to earn a living.
It was more like 5 or 6km and we got there 3/4 hour after our guide had been booked. Our guide turned out to be a young girl, who could neither slow her speech down nor speak clearly. It was not an auspicious start. Suffice it to say, the only part of the day that was a real pleasure was to sit for quite a while next to a collection of humming bird feeders, and watch these amazing little birds zip all over the place, stopping for sips of sugar water.

Hummingbird 1

One was quite tiny and it both looked and sounded like an outsize bee.
There are a couple of enclosures with two deer in one and a pair of spectacled bears in the other, but in both the animals were too far away to see clearly. The only other attraction we were offered was to walk further up the hill to see a panoramic view of Manizales. Even if we had been interested in yet another city view it would have been impossible, as the clouds were all around us and it was bucketing down with rain. We returned down the hill, very disappointed at having seen almost no birds other than the hummingbirds, and been given very little information about the trees and plants, and indeed about the few birds we had seen. The whole walk back into Manizales was accompanied by rain, often heavy. We debated going back to Aguas de Manizales and expressing our disappointment with the quality of the guide, and decided we would. This seems a bit mean, but we had paid 16,000 pesos, and for what ? You are not allowed to walk around without a guide, so it is reasonable to expect something for the money paid for a compulsory guide. The staff were very dismayed, and later someone came round to Mountain House with a pack of bird identification cards, by way of an apology.