This was an excellent trip. George and Roger were excellent guides and worked well together. It was a fun trip with lots of great birds.

My trip to the Santa Martas and Caribbean Coast of Colombia with Hillstar Nature was fantastic. We were all very well taken care of with lodging, meals and transportation, despite having to walk across a partially collapsed bridge on the way to La Guajira! Our guides, Josh Covill and Manuela Zapata, were fabulous. First of all, they are both wonderful human beings - friendly, knowledgeable, enthusiastic and patient. Josh's eyes and ears for the birds were outstanding. I will say that this trip is for those that want to be busy and see lots of birds. We were up early every morning (anywhere between 3:00 and 5:30 am) to get to our first birding spot until returning to our lodge in the mid-afternoon. Some of us would continue to bird the grounds until dinner time. We were on the go for most of the 8 days, including some very memorable trips in 4x4's up and down the mountain. "Hold on to your optics, it's gonna be a bumpy ride!" - but so worth it. We saw an awe-inspiring sunrise at Cuchilla San Lorenzo after getting to eyes on a Santa Marta Screech-owl on the way up in the dark, not to mention a large number of high-altitude species and several endemics. We got 40 of 46 of the local endemics on this trip! The whole trip was filled with new birds and new experiences (I now have to learn how to make coconut lemonade). I cannot wait to do another birding trip with Hillstar. I can't recommend them enough and I sing highest of praises for Josh and Manuela. A big shoutout to George Armistead and his whole team. Thank you for an amazing trip!

The Colombia Cordillera Central trip this Feb 2026 was excellent. Phil Chaon and Roger Rodriguez were excellent together as bird guides, the group worked well together, and we saw many of the birds of Colombia's central Andes. Phil and Roger complemented each other well, in that each performed well at what they do best. They were essentially co-guides. I enjoyed very much being with both of them. The effort of the guides and birders in finding birds was excellent. Nearly everyone was highly engaged throughout the day in bird-spotting. That is an excellent gauge of how well the trip worked. There was commonly too much food presented, but that has been a common issue on tours. I struggled in getting adequate sleep, but this has been a common issue for me - this part was by far the hardest for me. Leaving the first morning at 4 a.m. and having sleep interrupted by thunderstorms during nights 2-3 put me into a sleep jag that I didn't recover from until after the tour ended. The altitude at PNN Los Nevados bothered me. Overall, even though I was very tired throughout, I loved this trip.

Joshua and Manuela made the trip, they were both friendly, engaging and knowledgeable. They both were very good about making sure everyone could see the bird. The playback and laser pointers need to be better coordinated, sometimes there were multiple playbacks at once or 2 pointers. The Chiniiu hotels’ water system needs improvement, the pressure could be low and occasionally the water was brownish.

What an amazing trip! Incredible diversity of very unique birds, and our guides Josh and Manuela were so good at getting us on them. The food was great, the accommodations were lovely, and the transportation comfortable. Would recommend this trip to anyone thinking about visiting Colombia for birding, and would recommend Hillstar generally for any birding adventure!