Colombia Wildlife Holidays and Tailor-Made Tours

Nowadays Colombia is very different from the country once synonymous with FARC rebels, Pablo Escobar and the Medellin drugs cartel. The reign of the Medellin cartel has long since ended and, with a recent peace accord signed with FARC, Colombia is once more a land rich in natural and manmade attractions just waiting to be discovered.

Colombia is a huge country covering over one million square kilometres. Occupying much of northwest South America, it stretches from the Central American jungles of the Darien in the north to the vast Amazon basin at Leticia in the far south. Brazil, Peru, Ecuador, Venezuela and Panama (which was once part of Colombia) all share borders with the country, and its unique geographical position allows Colombia to have both Caribbean and Pacific coastlines simultaneously. There are some 3,200 kilometres of seashore in total, encircling a remarkable array of geographical and climatic regions: the wet Pacific Choco region; the mighty Amazon rainforests which covers one third of the landmass; the vast tropical savannas of the Llanos to the east that continue deep into Venezuela; the tropical Caribbean lowlands of the east; and the majestic mountains of the Andes.

Within Colombia the giant Andean chain splits into three immense ranges that run almost to the Caribbean, dividing the country into distinctive, isolated regions. The result, along with the tropical lowlands, is a stunning and unparalleled wealth of cultural, natural and geographical diversity, much of it unique and little known.

Culturally, Colombia has indigenous peoples such as the Kogi and Kamsa; burgeoning urban centres striving to innovate and reinvent themselves like Bogota and Medellin; beautifully preserved Spanish colonial towns such as Cartagena de Indias, a UNESCO World Heritage Site on the Caribbean coast, and Villa de Leyva in the eastern Andes; highland landscapes of rolling coffee farms; verdant wooded valleys and snow-capped volcanoes; dense rainforests in almost every corner; and possibly the most extraordinary concentration of biodiversity on the planet – the mystical Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, the world’s highest coastal range.

With all this wealth of variety, Colombia has to be seen to be believed and is without doubt one of the world’s great destinations.

When To Visit Colombia

With its five distinct tropical regions and two widely different coastlines, Colombia has a range of climatic zones, each best visited at particular times of the year. Generally, though, there are two main wet seasons and two dry seasons, with the wettest months being April, May, October and half of November. The warmest and driest months are usually January, February, July and August but with today’s unpredictable weather patterns the boundaries between wet and dry are increasingly indistinct.

Colombia’s tropical latitude ensures that lowland/sea level temperatures range between the high 20s and low 30s centigrade all year round. In the Andes, where over 70% of Colombia’s population live, temperatures vary in direct relation to the altitude. Bogota at 2,600masl (metres above sea level) has a climate bordering on temperate and rainfall is more constant. Cali at 1,000masl has more distinct dry/wet seasons and temperatures are in the mid to high 20s. Generally in the Andes temperatures are very comfortable and summery, with Medellin calling itself the ‘City of Eternal Spring’ for its 23ºC average year-round temperatures. In the mountains, rain is always a possibility even in the ‘dry season’. The rainier months on the Caribbean coast tend to be between May and October.

In Colombia’s vast Amazon regions January to May and October to December are the months of highest rainfall. In the Llanos the driest months begin in November and last through to March; with a monsoon-like weather pattern prevailing during the rest of the year.