Serrania de los Yariguies

The Yariguies range stands west of the main Eastern Cordillera, separated from it by the Chicamocha and Sogamoso valleys, and that isolation has done what isolation does - populations diverged, and the range holds species and subspecies found nowhere else, including the Yariguies brushfinch, first described from this range in the mid-2000s and now often treated as a subspecies. The park covers around seventy-eight thousand hectares from about six hundred metres to over three thousand, running through tropical forest, cloud forest and paramo, which is why the bird list is long. It is named for the Yariguies people, who resisted colonisation and were destroyed. Access is difficult and infrastructure is minimal.

Highlights

• A range isolated from the Andes - by the Chicamocha and Sogamoso valleys.
• Endemic birds - including a brushfinch first described in the mid-2000s.
• Forest from six hundred to three thousand metres - tropical to paramo.
• A park named for a destroyed people - the Yariguies.

When to go

December to March. A full day or several.

Practical notes

Access is genuinely difficult with few roads and minimal facilities. Permits and local guides are needed. Trails are rough and wet.

Nearby

San Vicente de Chucuri is east; Zapatoca is north-east.

Key facts