Colombia's Best Kept Secret - Van Life Colombia

So in our last video we made the decision that we're getting my knee replacement surgery in Medellin Colombia but the soonest we'll have that scheduled is about two weeks away so we are making the best of it. We're leaving the Cali area. We are headed north and we're going to do a little zigzagging to show y'all some cool stuff as we drive back towards the city up in and our first stop is climbing up out of the valley into these beautiful mountains back into the clouds and we think we don't know we got to get there and see if it's open but we think we are headed to a fika which is a farm for those of you that don't know where there are lots of really cool birds and maybe some coffee so let's go see what we can find there we have got stopped at our first police checkpoint let's see how it goes that went well uh we see places all across Colombia called point of control where the policia are we've always been waved through and we got stopped at that one but as soon as they saw we weren't a passenger vehicle taking passengers like a tourist vehicle or a share ride type thing they waved us on so i think those places are where they just make sure the vans and the cabs and everything are following the covid protocol so i think yeah because as soon as they found out this was just our vehicle and we were the only ones in it they smiled we're very nice and waved us on our way didn't even want our paperwork yeah so we're good one of the things about all these mountains in colombia is they're so steep and you can see how the road kind of snakes along the mountain and how steep this valley is that's cali off in the far distance and the other area houses along the side of the mountain that we just came through but it's really beautiful here but even down in the lower parts of these mountains you can see where there's houses all right so this guy has it figured out so we're out here stopped at this mirador and he's got a little stand here so we're going to get some fresh orange juice squeezed right here it's about two thousand colombian pesos fruit juice so we're going to get two so it's going to be a little less than a dollar for both of them he's also got some snacks and stuff like that what a beautiful view to have a little roadside business gracias so we pulled over at this little mirador for the juice what do you think snow it is so good it took like a fresh squeeze juice from the side of the road yeah it took like a dozen oranges to make these cups of juice but it's so sweet and good how much was it it was two thousand pesos a piece of four thousand pesos so hi buddy so kurt is going to get out see about getting some goat cheese and from the looks of things i think it's going to be fresh goat cheese hi buddy all right this little goat stand did not have any goat cheese but it sure had some cute little baby goats you have goat's milk you can get goat's milk go slow if you can so none of them have the cheese they have meal and guys this road out here is so cool i don't know if we're gonna be able to capture how cool it really is and the videos we were trying but just this drive out to this finca is pretty amazing and bumpy and bumpy but that's okay we could get in there we're getting closer to the finca finca alejandria and they have a lot of signs along the way with cool birds on them we are getting excited hopefully we can find some of these bright pretty cool birds that we've never seen before so where we parked here at this finca is literally right next to a row of hummingbird feeders our cats are going to flip out today look at that vanna doesn't know what to do there's a hummingbird right there they're gonna have a good day some of you have asked why the bird silhouettes in our van or maybe you're wondering why are we getting so excited about all these birds before i tell you that i want you to know that some of these birds you're seeing are endemic to colombia and that means this country is the only place where they exist in the wild and let me tell you bird enthusiasts from all over the world come to this area right here just to see these rare birds now my love of birds came from my mom and my dad after they retired they picked up bird photography and i can remember them traveling all around the u.s chasing birds and of course they were always showing me these beautiful pictures and sharing the stories i can always envision the two of them lugging around these giant lenses and pointing them up at the trees or at the wires and taking amazing pictures of birds and wildlife now snow and i have traveled a lot together and early in our relationship we did a lot of city vacations but one year we decided to go to fly to costa rica instead and do an eco tour vacation and we rented a car and spent our time traveling and touring costa rica looking for quetzals and toucans and monkeys and all sorts of other beautiful birds and to be honest with you we just had the times of our lives and that basically locked in my love for birds right there now you've seen a lot of different colorful birds but i haven't even showed you the best ones yet and i'm not going to go through them all but i want to go through a few that i thought were really cool so here we go the first one on the list is the red-headed barbette and it's found in the highland humid forest of the andy mountains now you'll notice the beautiful red head the green back the yellow underbelly and then he's got this stout yellow bill and also around the back of the nape of his neck the back of his neck there you can see a white band and it just makes for a really beautiful bird especially when the light hits him now these their diet consists mostly of bananas and other fruits but the next bird is the emerald toucanette now we've seen the emerald toucanette in a lot of countries in central america but we love the toucans and these are a smaller mid-sized toucans they're a vibrant green color with actually a few different tones to them they have a little red puff just above the back side of their tail and then their beak their bill is this like rich mahogany color with a little white band around it and as they bounce around you can just see some different shades and different colors and i think these are really striking birds just like the others they're found in the humid highland forests and they love fruit aguacates and bananas are among some of their favorites the next one is a bird we've also showed you guys before and talked about a little bit it's one of my favorites and it's the matmat and of course it's characterized by its turquoise blue eyebrows and its long two pendulum tails and to me it's just a stunning bird i love the turquoise colors and also when they perch in a they just have sort of a dignified stature and they're just a really neat bird now the next one up is the multi-colored tanager and that this bird right here is endemic to the mountains of columbia it's only found in this region right here and it is also categorized as vulnerable so it's not endangered but certainly vulnerable and if you look at it it's appropriately named you can see all the beautiful colors it's sort of got green wing green wings and the green wraps around to the crown of his head he's got a yellow face a blue underbelly white on his back and then he's got a little black dot on his cheeks so a small bird but nonetheless really colorful and really unique now we had a hard time getting this bird but i'm glad you were able to see it with us and i can't complete this segment without talking about hummingbirds now there's a hummingbird that's endemic to columbia that we spotted and i'll show it to you right here and to be honest he looks like a lot of normal hummingbirds that i see but this one is very very rare and this is one of the few places you'll actually be able to see it film it but these little guys right here with the pendulum tails and the poofy legs stole my heart i haven't seen these any place else snow and i loved watching these in video and as they float around they're just the most unique hummingbird that i've ever seen of course we see hummingbirds all over and we saw them all over in the u.s mexico central america and all around our travels but we saw some really unique hummingbirds right here at this place all right guys i was making fun of the kitty cats for flipping out but look at kurt there are so many birds here it is amazing oh here you go so we're here in this most beautiful place watching the birds and they have a little restaurant here so we're gonna have a little chicken pollo chicken and enchilada i'll have a little bit of rice kurt will eat all of his rice looks really good guys what an amazing place we're gonna eat enjoy and film some more bird although i gotta be honest we have way overshot so far it's all right though that just means that we are going to get to find the best shots and share with y'all so y'all won't have to watch five hours of bird footage only three you're gonna get three to five minutes of really cool birds guys all right so we have told you guys that down here in columbia not near as many people speak english so we're having to step up our studying skills but we just bumped into some people one of them from canada that speaks great english my name is daniel and this is my wife miss bunny miss bunny hello and um they are super nice guys and as you can see they're extremely fit and they have a youtube channel tell us about it that's right so our youtube channel is in spanish only but we do videos about training working out as well as nutrition and some traveling as well because i know a bunch of you have been watching my journey over the past six months losing all the weight and of course we had to do that with just diet because the knee is bad and the pain makes it where i couldn't work out but the knee replacement is coming and we are about to go on the exercise journey so y'all go check these guys out okay i just saw a critter go down here i'm sure i'm too late to get him but i'm gonna try let's see here look at the size of those leaves hey buddy you getting a good walk so the guy that owns this place is being an amazing host going too far too much he bought our lunch he's insisting we stay here and sleep here tonight for free and just being incredibly kind and look at this beautiful view the cats are getting their walks and kurt's going to get to go on a walk first thing in the morning and hopefully he will see the cool critter that i just saw i googled him and he's called a tyra so we'll see there goes g into the jungle you keep going back to the van i assure you that you don't know my boy so they just brought us some fresh colombian coffee out to the van they're incredibly nice here guys but i think the favorite thing i'm enjoying about resting my knee here in the van is watching vanna watch all these birds right outside her window she does not quite know what to do it's adorable guys so raul's up early this morning feeding his as he says feeding his niños or niñas there's a mat mat up in that tree okay on the ground all right a morning with the birds would not be the same without breakfast and raul hooked us up he's gonna have breakfast with us ever he really is i mean everyone around the world take notice i have just met the best host in the world this is i think an arepa i don't know what's in it clearly we have some scrambled eggs salchicha and some queso we made some coffee this morning i think snow's having oh look at this perfect thank you gracias muchas gracias all right it's about time for us to leave this beautiful magical place raul has been an amazing host he has fed us and refuses to let us pay he let us sleep here last night this morning he insisted we use the shower in his house it was hot water great pressure i think we've been invited as special guests so if you're an overlander i'm not sure if you'd be able to stay here or not but it doesn't matter there's many hotels and restaurants within 10 minutes of here that you could stay at if you're not allowed to stay here overnight and you just really need to come to this place but kurt is giving raul a tour of our van so and it sounds like he likes it step back a little kurty there you go perfect hello you guys ask us a lot if we ever just want to stay somewhere and sometimes we run into those kind of places and we do stay for a long time this was a place that we wanted to stay and unfortunately we're on the clock for my knee surgery and we couldn't stay more than one night but i'm going to call that my favorite campsite so far on our journey magical amazing the best host ever but it's time to hit the road time to wind this video down we're headed somewhere else pretty darn cool we'll see you guys in a few days cheers cheers guys if you like this video be sure to subscribe to our channel and hit that notification bell so you guys know when we put out new videos and don't forget you can always follow us over on instagram to see what's going on in between videos cheers guys