Pijao - La Finaria

The Pijao-La Finaria road is our newest and most promising area of exploration. Pijao is a beautiful and historic mountain town, similar to Salento but without any crowds. The road leaves town at 1600m and climbs up into the mountains all the way to the paramo at 3700m. So far we have explored the first 7km up to 2400m. The rarely used road offers perhaps the best mountain scenery in Quindio, initially winding through traditional shade based coffee farms and then passing through commercial forest before reaching old growth forest in the 2300-2400m altitude range. This is an excellent area to search for hummingbirds, toucans, guans, trogons, and quetzals. The eBird hotspot lists 163 species: Alto de la Finaria Illustrated Checklist. However, we expect the species count to increase significantly over time in this lightly birded area, with fewer than 10% of the checklists recorded compared to Cocora. Coming back down the road toward Pijao, we have located an excellent picnic site at 2000m with an incredible view down through the mountains and into the valley.