Colombia’s future involves fewer terrorists and more ecotourists

THE dirt road that links the small town of Vista Hermosa in the department of Meta, in south-eastern Colombia, to the village of Santo Domingo is a slow and bone-breaking drive. But its tedium is relieved by magical bird life. Hoatzins, a kind of tropical pheasant, flap noisily between copses; kingfishers flash like jewels above the streams that gurgle down from the Sierra de la Macarena, an imposing outcrop of the Andes. Hawks hover above while parrots flit noisily by.

Colombia is to birds what Ascot is to hats; the number and variety are extraordinary, and many are photogenic. It has over 1,900 different species, more than any other country. At least 270 are endemic or near-endemic. The Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, an isolated, snowcapped massif rising sheer out of the Caribbean, is a particularly rich aviary. It is home to some 15 species, including a pygmy owl, a mountain tanager and a foliage gleaner, which are found nowhere else.