Traveling to Cano Cristales and Photography Workshops

Me at a spot near Taganga, Colombia

The following blog tells the story of my five day trip to Cano Cristales and since I’m a serious landscape photographer the information will lean towards being told from the perspective of a photographer. The story may be longer than what some would prefer, but hopefully most will find it fairly informative and enjoyable.

If you’ve heard of Cano Cristales which is located in the Meta Department (which is the equivalent of a Province or State) of Colombia, you will have read that it has been dubbed ‘the world’s most beautiful river’ and so you might be wondering if such a lofty title is justified. You may be wondering whether or not it would be worth the time and extra expense to go there and so I’m hoping that my write-up and photos will help you to decide.

Before I talk about my five day trip to Cano Cristales, I’d like to mention that I’m a professional photographer and that as of this writing, I’ve been to Colombia ten times. I’ve travelled to many different towns, cities, villages and areas in Colombia and all totaled, I’ve spent well over a year’s worth of time there.

I’d rate my Spanish as average, however, I’m more than able to get around via the various modes of transport, to order food, to make hotel reservations and to deal with whatever needs to be dealt with. As you’ll read later on, the ability to deal with things in Spanish definitely came in handy several times during my trip to Villavicencio, La Macarena and Cano Cristales.

La Macarena is the small town where you’d be staying if you were to visit ‘CC’.   

Some of you may be wondering if you’d be able to take the trip to Cano Cristales without knowing much, if any Spanish? You probably could and I’m sure that there are those who have, but it would likely be a challenge at times. There’d be time wherein you’d pretty much have to follow what others were doing because you wouldn’t know what the people were instructing you to do in Spanish.

So sit back and allow me to take you through some of the challenges I faced during my trip as well as the some of the things that made it all worthwhile. 

First off, how does one get to Cano Cristales? The only realistic option is to fly from either Bogota or the smaller city of Villavicencio. Apparently, there are no roads all the way to La Macarena, however, I’d be curious to know how the people of ‘LM’ get their vehicles there. My guess, however, would be that it’s accomplished via by the larger military planes or possibly by barge on the main river that runs right past the town.

It’s possible to get to La Macarena by taking buses and then boats, but not advisable. If you were as adventurous as the one young man from Spain who’s blog I read, you could get there via the latter mentioned buses and boats, but be forewarned that you’d be going through territory where not only does F.A.R.C. (who are the ones that kidnap people) roam about the jungles, but it’s also an area where cocoa plants are grown for producing cocaine. Also, after you’ve entered the area where you have to take boats, there are no hotels. At least the guy from Spain was able to speak Spanish in addition to looking more like the locals whereas a white skinned gringo with limited Espanol might not fare so well.  

Next, you should know that the colourful algae growing in the river does not bloom all year round and so you have to go between the months of July to mid December. I asked some of the guides about the best time to go for the most spectacular colours and I was told August, but the month that I went, November, was still pretty good. To be quite honest, my biggest concern about going in mid November was that I would get to CC and find that the algae had mostly died off, leaving only a sad remnant of colour.

I asked the woman who runs the hotel where I decided to stay about how the colours were looking leading up to the trip and she said excellent, but I’m also aware that people trying to make money will say most anything to get business and so I was hesitant to believe her. Seeing how I was going there to take high quality photos, you can probably imagine the relief I felt when I arrived and saw that the colours and quantity of the algae was still quite good.

A month before my trip to Colombia, I tried to book a flight to ‘LM’ (La Macarena) via Bogota, but all the flights were sold out for the dates between November 17^th to 25^th and so if you want to go there from Bogota, my first piece of advice would be to book the seats as far in advance as possible. For the Satena flights from Bogota, you can either go to the Satena Airlines web page in order to try and book a seat or you can get one of the tour agencies to do it for you.

Most tour agencies offer 1 day to 3 day tours of the area and there are sites besides Cano Cristales that you can go to. I was open to discovering some interesting and beautiful locations while there, but unless I was to see some photos of a pretty amazing location, I was quite set on just visiting ‘CC’.

I’m guessing that there may be some tour agency staff at one agency or another where they speak some English, but none of the people I spoke with seemed to know any English. The web sites that I looked at which described the tour options were in English though. At least that’s a start!

What I ended up doing was calling a tour agency that was recommended by the woman who ran the hotel in the town of LM. How did I find out about this particular hotel and the woman who owned it? It was recommended by a female traveler who wrote a blog about her trip to CC. I eventually learned that the woman who owns and runs the hotel in LM also had a travel agency based in La Macarena and that she could book everything including the flights and tours to CC, but for reasons that I’ll explain in a while, I didn’t want to book the tours to CC.

The travel agency I dealt with was located in Villavicencio and I was able to get a r/t flight on the dates I wanted for November 18^th to 24th.

I’m going to preface the details of my trip by telling you that I specifically told the woman who ran the hotel that I was a pro photographer who preferred to go with a smaller group rather than a larger group so that I’d have a better chance of seeing more in combination with having less people in my photos.

I only booked my flights via the agency in Villavicencio rather than any tours in advance. Be forewarned that the tour agency I dealt with does not send out organized flight itineraries or confirmation numbers once your flight has been booked. It may seem to be a rather unprofessional way to run a business, but many businesses are run like that in Colombia. You can either deal with the way things are or want things to be different according to what you’re used to, but having the expectation that things be done by Canadian or American standards can just lead to becoming really frustrated and annoyed.

Basically, they just ask for your name and from there you pretty much have to hope that when you get to the airport, that your name will still be on their list for the flight. They give you some basic but really imprecise instructions about when you’re supposed to arrive at their office near the airport and so it doesn’t give you the sense that things are well organized, but again, that’s often the way are done in Colombia.

I tried to give the woman at the agency my email address so that she could write and send more details and information, but despite asking for the specific flight times and flight numbers more than once, I never got them. I ended up having to email a friend in Colombia in order to ask him to call the agency to get their email address so that I could ask for more info. After that, I’d send them three questions and only get the answer to one and so I had to send several emails to get my basic questions asked. The same thing held true of the woman who ran the hotel in La Macarena. I’m quite certain that my Spanish was good enough that they understood what I was asking too.

I’m telling you these types of things so that you can be prepared for what you may have to deal with. It gets even more interesting though.

I had to get the agency in Villavicencio to book me a hotel out towards the airport for the night before my flight because I had to be at the travel agency’s office right by the airport in ‘Villao’ by 7am on the morning of the flight.

So let the journey officially begin!

Before the trip to CC began, I had been staying in a hotel located in La Candalaria in central Bogota. Hotel Zaragoza isn’t a big or well known hotel, but the owner – manager, Doris, has become a friend and I feel safe there and so if you’re interested in a reasonably affordable place to stay in La Candalaria, contact Doris and tell her that I gave the recommendation. They have been renovating a lot of the rooms and so for $35.Cdn, you can have a basic but decent room near the city’s main plaza, Montserate, restaurants, supermarkets, outdoor markets and only two blocks from the Gold Museum (Museo del Oro) and more.

La Candalaria during Christmas (Navidad)

Photo of gold items at Museo del Oro (Gold Museum) in Bogota.

I first had to catch a bus from the main bus terminal in Bogota to Villavicencio and the cab driver that I had from the airport told me that the trip shouldn’t take any more than 2 ½ hours. The cost of bus travel in Colombia is quite cheap and so the ticket from Bogota to Villao was only around $12.Cdn (Canadian).

There was a lot of road and tunnel construction going on between Bogota and Villavicencio and so it ended up taking closer to five hours. It can also take quite a while just to get out of the rather large city of Bogota. The trip to Villao, however, is quite scenic and there are large and smaller buses going back and forth at regular intervals.

If you were flying to La Macarena from Bogota then of course you’d be able to avoid the extra bus travel, but at the same time, it’s nice to see more of the country too.  

Once at the bus terminal in Villao, I had to get a cab to my hotel. As we looked around for the hotel along a dirt road located ten or so minutes outside of the city, the scenery was nice and it looked like it was going to be a quiet area. When we finally pulled up to the hotel the main gate was closed and locked. It was so inactive that I joked to the driver that it looked like it wasn’t even open.

The driver then got out and found an intercom at the gate. I could hear him talking with someone in the hotel which made me more optimistic, but after he got back in the cab he told me that the hotel was in fact closed. So much for my joke! I wasn’t impressed that the travel agency had booked me into a hotel that wasn’t open, but I wasn’t about to make a big deal of it. If you’re going to travel in Colombia, these are the types of things that you can expect and so if you aren’t very good at going with the flow, you could find that your blood pressure will be going up on a regular basis.

“No big deal” said the cab driver, “we’ll find another hotel in the area.” It appeared as though there were a few other places nearby that looked just as nice, but as we pulled into each one, they all appeared to be closed. We found one that was open, but they didn’t serve any food and there were no restaurants in the area and so that one had to be eliminated too.

After trying out three places without any luck, the cab driver informed me that he had a friend who owned and ran a nice hotel in the city centre. Cab drivers always have connections! I asked how much the room would cost and after making a call I was told that it was going to be more than the first hotel where I was supposed to stay, but I wanted to stay in a clean, safe hotel with wi fi and hot water for the shower and so I went with his suggestion.

Thankfully, the rates for taxis in Colombia are quite reasonable and so after an hour in this guy’s cab, it only cost me less than $15.Cdn (which at the time of this writing would be only $11.US). By this time, it was completely dark and I was getting really hungry and so that was another factor that led me to say: “vamos, let’s go to your friend’s hotel.”

After we got there and I went inside, I was actually quite impressed at the hotel and the room. Despite being by the city centre, it was also quite quiet too. The room ended up costing me $45.Cdn and the wi fi signal was really strong. That’s always a bonus! I used that strong signal to send a message to the woman I had been dealing with at the travel agency to ask why she booked me a room at a hotel that was closed. I had a feeling I knew the basic reason why, but I’ll tell you more about that in a while.

As previously mentioned, I was told that I needed to get to the airport for 7am, but I was never told if 7am was the time of the flight departure or what the case was. Because of my uncertainty, I got up at 5am and headed to the airport after a quick shower and no breakfast. I ended up arriving at their office by 5:45am. Apparently, I wasn’t the only person who thought they needed to get there really early because there were already three other Colombian people there ahead of me. It was no surprise to find that the door to the travel agency was locked.

Approximately twenty or so minutes later a young woman came walking up to the door and it was fairly obvious that she worked with the agency, but naturally, she didn’t have a key to get in. Fortunately, it was quite warm outside even at these early hours. Speaking of temperatures, Bogota is quite high in altitude and so it can get a little chilly at night or whenever there’s thick cloud during the day so you’d be wise to bring a sweater or jacket. It can also rain a fair amount in Bogota so bring an umbrella.  

To make a long story short, the office was finally opened up and then things started getting done. Everything, including each person, was weighed so that the small plane wouldn’t be overloaded. Next up, it was time to pay with my Visa card, but surprise, surprise, the telephone lines were down and so it wasn’t possible. When I asked about the actual flight time I was only give an approximate time rather than a firm time, but that time was getting close.

I also asked if any of the women in the office were Yuli because I wanted to find out why I was booked to stay at a hotel that was closed. Apparently, the girl I was talking with in the office had spoken with Yuli and she claimed that the hotel never informed her that they were going to be closed, hence, why I was never told.

In Colombia, there are a lot of holidays and so the city people tend to flock en masse to other places for the weekends and Villao is one of the places that the people from Bogota go to. That means that the hotels and fincas (guest houses) will be filled to capacity during busy holidays and then super quiet during the week days. I was there during a week day and so I guess that these places close down unless they have enough business to warrant staying open.

I told the girl that I was dealing with about the payment that I could pay when I returned, but they weren’t going to let me do that.

She then asked me to walk with her to their other office that was nearby in order to see if the lines were working there, but once we got there and tried it was a no go. So now what? Well…….. when in Colombia, you do whatever’s gotta be done. Another girl told me that we’d have to go to the city centre so that I could go to an ATM machine in order to withdraw the cash. That meant that I had to hop on the back of her motor scooter.  

Not all the ATM machines accept my chip card in Colombia and so I was a little concerned that we’d have to go from one to the next in order to find one that worked, but we lucked out the first time. Back to the airport we went where I paid with cash. The simple solution to this problem, of course, would have been to pay via credit card in advance, but when I asked about paying for the flight from Canada I was told to pay when I got to Villao which was why I did things that way. Anyhow, at least it finally got done.

After noting that all the other passengers I had seen at the office were gone by the time we got back I thought it was going to be a big rush to get me to the plane. That wasn’t the case though. After going through the screening at Customs, we still had to wait for close to another hour before being led to the waiting plane.

I can also tell you that I met a Japanese girl while in the office and she didn’t speak very much Spanish. I helped her out with some translations, but she was brave enough to do the trip to Cano Cristales with her limited Spanish and so I’m sure that others could do the same. She looked pretty confused about a lot of the things that were going on though.

I should mention at this point that the cost of the flight was far more than what most other flights cost from city to city in Colombia. The round trip ticket was a little over $200.Cdn and the flight is only thirty minutes from takeoff to landing. I’ve paid less than that for flights that took more than double that time within Colombia, but Cano Cristales is a popular out of the way place and so they’re able to command the higher prices.

The only Colombian person who spoke any English during the entire trip was the pilot of the plane and he spoke it quite well. Apart from that, I literally didn’t hear a single Colombian person speaking any English unless you want to include the time my tour guide said hello in English. There were, however, a few other English speaking tourists in La Macarena – Cano Cristales.  

As far as the people working at the tour agency in Villavicencio, along with the people living and working in La Macarena were concerned though, none of them seemed to speak any English.

I was told by one guide that there were a couple of English speaking guides in LM, but if true, I never ran into any of them.

The flight to LM was smooth and by the time we landed just before noon, I knew that there was no point in trying to see CC on the first day. The first thing that gave me a chuckle after landing at the ‘airport’ was how they unloaded the luggage onto a horse drawn cart. 

The baggage cart and jet

After landing, all us foreigners were directed to a table located outside under a canopy where there were a couple of military guys. I read on a blog that I’d have to pay a $22 000 COP (approximately $11.Cdn) fee after getting off the flight and sure enough I did. The travel agency didn’t mention anything about it, but the woman who owned the hotel confirmed that it was true after I asked her about it. I forget how they justify the fee but I think that it was something like an environmental protection fee.

I can tell you that the Japanese girl didn’t know anything about the entry fee and she literally brought zero pesos with her. She was under the impression that everything including meals was included in the tour price that she paid. She had to borrow the 22 000 COP from someone to get in to town.

If you’ve read some other people’s blogs about Cano Cristales, you might have read that they flew to LM in a really small prop plane, but as you can see from the photo below that we flew there in a fairly new looking jet. Perhaps the flights from Bogota use the smaller and older planes.

Next, after getting my luggage from the ‘baggage claim area’, which was a mostly empty concrete building structure nestled between other offices and stores, the woman from the hotel came along and said hello.

This spot shows where my breakfast was cooked one morning in addition to where the baggage gets delivered just half a block from the 'airport'

I asked what my options were for the remainder of the day and it turned out that there were a couple of fifty-something year old women from Bogota who didn’t have any tours booked yet either. We arranged to go to CC the next day together with a guide. It’s quite simple; the less people on a tour, the more it costs each person and so I ended up having to chip in around $40.cdn for the next day’s tour. That included all transportation and guiding for the entire day, but no food or beverages.    

Soon after the following day’s tour was arranged, I was taken to my room at the hotel which was actually a guest house. I expected the room to be really basic and that’s what it was. Once again, all I cared about was having a semi-comfortable bed, a warm or hot water shower along with a quiet and safe place to stay, which it was. No wi fi though. The cost of the room was $30 000 COP ($15.Cdn) per night.

As I would soon learn, however, it was possible to get wi fi in the town centre by logging on to the military’s wi fi and I was told that it was okay to do that.  I was given the wrong password by the boyfriend of the hotel owner’s daughter, but there was an English speaking foreign woman at the wi fi spot who gave me the correct password.

The ladies from Bogota were also staying at the hotel and what happened next was that they bargained with the owner about giving the three of us a cheap, private afternoon tour to a place called Cristalitos. After the owner agreed upon what seemed like a pretty good price we were taken to a restaurant so we could get some lunch before heading to Cristalitos. While there, we were told that we could pre-order a lunch to be prepared for the following day’s tour.

After lunch, myself, the two ladies, the owner of the hotel, her young daughter, two of the daugher’s friends, along with the owner of the Jeep, headed off to Cristalitos.

All the roads in La Macarena are dirt roads and most of the locals have small to medium sized motorcycles forgetting around. As I would see on the way to the restaurant, the town had several small restaurants which mostly served Colombian food along with things like hamburgers or pizza. There were also plenty of bakeries and places where people could get ice cream. There were also a couple places where the locals were playing billiards and there were small shops that sold local fruits and vegetables, plus other basic packaged foods. Along with a few other small basic businesses, there are a whole bunch of shops selling souvenirs.

If you go to LM, you’ll see plenty of young men in military uniforms (which is also common in a lot of Colombian towns) and the basic story is that the area used to be controlled by F.A.R.C. a couple decades or so ago and the military was sent in to drive them away so that tourism could be built up. It’s my understanding that they were driven far enough away from the town that the town and CC are really safe. I asked some of the locals about this and they said that the area was in fact really safe and I can certainly tell you that I never felt uneasy. In fact, I was a little concerned about how safe the people at the hotel thought it was because I kept coming back to my room to find that my door was unlocked after I locked it upon leaving.

I asked why that was so and the teenage girl working there just told me that I didn’t need to worry about my things being stolen. My thinking was that it was better safe than sorry. 

In my mind, the word Cristalitos implied that the place would be like a smaller version of Cano Cristales and so I was hoping to see something reasonably nice there, but it turned out to only be a small creek that looked rather low on water. There was a tiny amount of colourful algae in the creek, but not enough to prompt me to take out my camera. It took approximately half an hour to get there.

We walked upstream and eventually came to a spot where the water was deep enough that people could swim in the refreshing waters, but that was about all there was to do there. At that moment, I was thinking that if Cristalitos was an indicator for how Cano Cristales was going to be that I was going to be really disappointed, but as I already mentioned, it turned out to be quite good.

Cristalitos swimming area

Temperature-wise, it’s quite warm in this area of Colombia. The humidity levels weren’t near as bad as the Colombian coast, but let’s just say that the swimming hole was really welcomed for cooling down. After Cristalitos, we went to ‘La Mirador’ (the viewpoint). Off in the distance, it was raining and so a rainbow formed which made for a decent photo. Within two minutes, however, it started pouring on us and so we hit the road after that.

After returning to the hotel, I went off on my own to wander around the town before finding somewhere to eat dinner.

After settling upon a small place to get a burger I noticed what I thought was a pretty Colombian woman pulling up on her motor scooter. She had dinner at another table and I couldn’t help but to glance her way a few times, but that was about it.  After finishing my meal, I walked back to the guest house and retired for the evening.

I’d like to mention that I had actually wanted to visit Cano Cristales for a few years before this, but I had never gone during the right time of the year before. Normally, I went to Colombia from February to March, but for this trip, I deliberately went earlier than normal so that I could finally visit the river before the colourful algae died off. Aside from the time of year, it was a bit of an added expense too. In order to visit Cano Cristales for approximately three to four days, it generally costs around $500. Cdn. per person. That had been a factor why I hadn’t gone earlier as well.

I will also mention at this point that all visitors going to Cano Cristales are required to go to an orientation centre in order to watch a video that goes over the rules of going to Cano Cristales. Probably the biggest no-no is going in the river anywhere that the algae is blooming. It is also mandatory to go with a qualified guide. You cannot go on your own without a guide!

If you’ve signed up for a tour, the organizer will make sure that you get to the orientation centre which is approximately four blocks from where the planes land. The video is only around fifteen minutes long and there are English subtitles. The ladies and I were taken there by the owner of the guest house.   

After a decent night’s rest, the big day had finally come!

After having breakfast at same place where we had lunch the previous day the ladies and I got our meals to go and off we went to meet with our guide. That didn’t happen until 9:30am and so it wasn’t exactly an early start! Not my fault though!

After meeting with our guide at the city square near the Cathedral, we walked less than five minutes to the fairly large main river (not Cano Cristales) which ran right by the town. After verifying our identities at the small military post, we went onto a wooden long boat that was powered by an outboard motor.

The colour of the water was mud brown and it was big and wide enough that you felt like you were going down the Amazon. Speaking of which, not a lot of people realize that there’s a tributary of the real Amazon River which flows into Colombia. You need to take a flight to the town of Leticia to see the Colombian Amazon.

After a really nice, relaxing twenty minute trip down the river, we got off at what was essentially a mud bank. In other words, there were no docks or landings whatsoever. The boat just nudges its nose up onto the muddy banks and off you get. From there, we had to walk up a hill that was inclined so that vehicles could drive down it. The makeshift road was completely filled with ruts and potholes.

At the top of the hill awaits a few Toyoto 4 x 4’s and there’s also a small refreshment stand that has the usual things such as water, Colombian beer, snacks such as chips and pop, etc.

After getting into one of the Toyota’s, we went for almost a half an hour down a badly maintained dirt road full of more potholes. Eventually, we came to a stop at another small military stand where there were three machine gun toting men in uniform. There is also another small snack and beverage stand there.

At one point a couple days later, I was chatting with one of the soldiers and he was telling me that he had family living in Canada, but I had never heard of the place he kept mentioning. He kept saying what sounded like Raheena and it finally dawned on me that rather that pronouncing the name of the city like we Canadians would he was pronouncing the name of the city like a Spanish person would. I finally said, “oh, you mean Regina!” and he said “siiiiiiiiI!”. I couldn’t resist but to joke with him about why in the world his relatives chose to live in Regina of all places and I think he knew what I was getting at because he had spoken with them about how cold it could get there in the winters, not to mention how flat the landscape is.

In case it’s a concern for any of you readers, I have chatted with plenty of the machine gun toting military guys and they’ve always been quite friendly and so you don’t have to worry about them being a problem.  

From the military check point, we walked for yet another half an hour along a dirt road that eventually turned into a dirt path. Then finally, at long last, I got my first glimpse of Cano Cristales! I was pleased to see that the colour of the algae was really nice and that it was quite thick, but the river scene itself wasn’t overly spectacular. I also noted that the scene wasn’t one of the scenes that one typically sees when searching the internet for ‘Cano Cristales’ and so I was hoping that it was a prelude to far greater things to come.

My first glimpse and photo of Cano Cristales

At this point, I want to mention that when you search the internet for photos of Cano Cristales, that you’re normally going to see pictures that have had the colours over saturated during post processing or you’ll see plenty that have really bright, over exposed areas such as when people take photos that include the sky or the water in waterfall pics.

Add to that plenty of blurry photos and it’s hard to get a sense of what the colours truly look like, but as you look at my photos, you’ll get a far more accurate sense of what Cano Cristales really looks like.

The first thing that became apparent as we walked along the paths was that the two ladies from Bogota were really, really slow. That was great in that it allowed me to really take my time with setting up my photos and they were fine with me taking as much time as I needed at each spot, but it got to the point where the guide was even telling them to hurry it up otherwise we’d hardly see anything during the entire day.

As we took our lunch break at a beautiful, but overcrowded waterfall, our guide talked to the guides from another group and they agreed to let me go with their group which was going at a far faster pace.

This ended up being the exact opposite of the previous situation though. We were trekking along the trails like there was no tomorrow and between the facts that it was so hot out and that I had the extra weight of my camera gear with me it was challenging to keep up with the pace that they set. It turned out that the group was on a one day tour wherein they were being shown as much as possible, but it allowed literally only seconds for me to find my picture compositions and to take my shots. 

One of the most photographed areas at Cano Cristales

This is another one of the spots you'll see most often when searching the internet for photos of Cano Cristales

If you’re into photography, that’s not good. After arriving to each spot, naturally everyone wanted to take photos and so I had to set up and snap my shots as quickly as possible. The really nice thing, however, was that I talked with the one guide named Ingrithe, (it sounded like she said Ingrid and so I joked that her name was Dutch and not Colombian), about how I was a serious photographer and after the talk she made sure that her and I left each spot a minute or so before the others so that I could arrive at the next spot first allowing me to take my photos before the other seven or so people arrived. I really appreciated that.

The funny thing was that I was fairly certain that Ingrithe was the pretty girl I had noticed at the hamburger place the night before. After asking if it was her that I saw she laughed and admitted that she recognized me from the night before as well. We ended up having some friendly chats J. 

This is one of the waterfalls from the day I was really rushed

  

I didn’t say anything to any of the guides, but I was rather disappointed how they timed things so that all the groups at CC converged at the one spot for the lunch break. That meant that people were all around and even in the waterfall, making it impossible for me to get any useable or decent photos. It would be really nice if they’d either take the different groups to different spots for lunch so that people could take photos of the nice waterfall as they each got there at different times or to at least stagger the times of arrival there.

Having mentioned that I can tell you that there is a maximum number of people who can visit CC each day. I think that I was told that the number was 76, but don’t quote me on that one. The reason is simple. They determined that they needed to minimize the number of people visiting so that the habitat would be damaged as little as possible.

On the bright side, however, the conditions for photography were fairly good. The other big concern that I had before going to CC was that it was either going to pour with rain or that there’d be nothing but cloudless, clear skies during my limited time there. Clear skies are rarely good for serious landscape photography. In actuality, however, there were nice puffy clouds in the sky every single day and that meant that I’d get some full sunlight and then shaded conditions off and on which made for a nice mix. The clouds also add far more character to the photos.

Waterfall in the upper river area.

The colours of Cano Cristales!

I also joked with Ingrithe that they must be trying to kill all the people in our group, because the heat was really doing a number on my energy and it looked like the others were laboring to keep up too. I was actually relieved when we met back up with the two ladies I started off with and I was switched back to going with them. I’m not sure if the meeting was pre-planned or coincidence, but hopefully, it wasn’t because Ingrithe got tired of my so-called sense of humour.  

Soon after the switch, we went to a swimming area for a really welcomed dip in the water. The temperature of the water was just right! We were told not to drink the water because there is phosphorous in it.

After the swim, we headed back to the town via the same methods of transport that we used to get to CC in the morning.

Note to other serious photographers: A couple pro photographer friends asked me if it would be possible to stay overnight at CC and the answer would be no with a “but” attached to it. Anyone who takes photography seriously knows that in general, the best time for taking photos is during the ‘golden hour’ which is the first and last hour of light each day. When the conditions are right, that’s when you can get nice colourful sunsets and sunrises, plus the potential for nice diffused light, etc.

Unfortunately, the tours always began after sunrise in the mornings and then ended before the time of sunset in the afternoons. Sunsets are generally at around 6 – 7pm in this area, depending what time of year it is and the tour groups generally left the area by 4 – 4:30pm.

The one adventurous and dedicated photographer friend I have then asked if it would be possible to sneak into the CC area in order to stay overnight. As I replied to him; you’d never find Cano Cristales without a guide because there are absolutely no signs directing people where to go. Not only that, but you’d need to cross the rather large muddy river I talked about earlier. If, however, you were able to do that and find your way CC, you’d then have to sneak around the military check point and if they heard someone sneaking around in the bushes, they could easily think that it was some ‘guerillas’ or members of F.A.R.C. That means they could shoot first and ask questions later and so no, it probably wouldn’t be a good idea to sneak into the area in order to take some photos.

If I really wanted to go to CC in order to shoot, for instance, the sunset, I’d offer to pay a private guide extra to stay there longer with me. He or she would then in turn have to set things up (meaning that I’d also have to pay extra to) with the guys at the small military post and the guy who takes people across the river. I’m sure that all those people would have their price that they thought would make it worthwhile for them to stick around longer, but I doubt that they’d allow someone to stay overnight so they could then catch the sunset as well (although I suppose that the right amount of money could make that happen as well). If a guide saw a foreigner without a guide during the day, that person would probably be told to leave CC and to not return (unless they were paid enough to over look the situation).

If there’s enough interest, I will lead a group of serious photographers to Cano Cristales for a workshop in mid November of 2016 and so if, by chance you’re interested, please send me a message to let me know of your interest. If I can get a big enough group to make it worthwhile I would indeed try to set things up so that the group could shoot the sunsets.

One of the many small pools that appear to glow when the sun is shining on them

So back to my adventure: That evening I asked the woman who owned the hotel if she would set me up with a small group for the following day. After making a couple of phone calls, she wasn’t able to make it happen. “So now what?” I thought to myself. I told her well in advance that I preferred to go with smaller groups and here she is making last minute calls that yielded no results. I was a little ticked off about her lack of effort.

The following morning, I asked her again if she had managed to arrange something, but the answer was no. At that point, I decided to take matters into my own hands. My first thought was to go to the boat launch area in order to talk with some of the guides to see if there was someone I could talk to at a head office of tourism for the area in order to see if they could help me out.

This is the largest waterfall at Cano Cristales

To my surprise, the first guy I talked to about my situation then asked his small group if they’d mind having me along and they said no problem. Unfortunately, however, I wasn’t expecting that to happen and so I didn’t even have my camera gear with me.

I then asked for the location of the head office and he wrote it down for me. Off I went. Again, it’s a tiny town and the main street is only five or so blocks long meaning that it didn’t take me long to get to the ‘head office’. As I entered the door, it didn’t look like much of a head office and the only person in there was a girl who looked to be approximately twenty years of age working at a tiny desk with a computer.

I told her about my situation and she then made a phone call. Within a couple of minutes, she asked me to pay a two dollar fee for something and I had apparently been hooked up with a group. The first thought that ran through my mind was, why was it possible for me to solve the problem so quickly and easily whereas the woman who ran the hotel and a tour agency right next door not able to?!

A couple minutes later, I was picked up on a motorcycle and then taken to meet with my group. It turned out to be a large group of approximately twenty five Colombians, many of whom seemed to be acquainted with each other already.

If you’ve never hung out with Colombians, they can be a lot of fun, albeit quite noisy as well.

One of the more commonly photographed areas at Cano Cristales.

Overhead view of a waterfall.

After doing the previously mentioned routine to get to CC, we stopped at a place to have lunch near the river. Their tour had apparently included lunch and drinks. I hadn’t been asked for any money to this point and so I was reluctant to take any of the food, but they were telling me to join in and eat, so I did!

The mood was really festive and as expected, fun. After lunch, we went to the river and it became apparent that the group wasn’t going to see much at CC. One guide asked if any of the people wanted to see an area where the algae was all green and only myself and two others were interested and so off we went. The rest of the group stayed at the swimming area and took it easy.

Further downstream is the area where there's bright green algae

I was really glad that I went because I didn’t even realize that this area of CC existed. After getting a few photos we hiked the two kilometers back to meet with the main group and thankfully, they still weren’t going anywhere which meant that I was able to go for a swim.

A small group of the guys waved me over to hang out with them and not surprisingly, out came a bottle of whiskey. The one guy pretty much insisted that I have a drink and even though I’m basically a non-drinker I knew that it would be far easier to take a small drink rather than to turn it down, which was what I did.

Before I knew it, I was being invited to go on a day trip for the following day, but the location they were describing was a few hours away and I wanted to concentrate my efforts on shooting Cano Cristales. It would have been fun, but I had already been there 2 ½ days while having taken a minimal amount of photos.

The group saw a surprisingly small portion of Cano Cristales, much of which I had already seen the previous day and so I knew that I’d have to do something different in order to see and capture more photographically.

A nice patch of the algae

After the group returned to town, I was invited to come along for dinner. If you’re a vegetarian, you might want to skip the next couple of paragraphs.

I went in an SUV with some people from Bogota and once we arrived to the rural ranch I could see several cuts of beef on large sticks that were being cooked outdoors by a good old fashioned fire. At the same time, some vegetables were being cooked in a large pot.

Colombians love their meat and they also love their beer! When I turned down some more beer there were a few people in the group that truly thought that I was downright strange. There aren’t a whole lot of Colombian people who care about things like healthy diets and lifestyle. They’re more about enjoying the moment, having fun and not worrying about the consequences. To each their own I say.

The interesting thing about day three was that after all was said and done, no one asked me for any money and so I guess that the group had decided to allow me to come along as their guest for the day which was extremely nice of them!

The following morning, I knew that I had to find myself a personal guide, otherwise, I was going to miss out on way too much at CC. While having breakfast at a small ‘restaurant’, I saw one of the guides from the previous day and he was just wearing his regular clothes as opposed to his tour guide shirt.

I asked him how much it would cost to use him as a person guide for the day and he left on his motorcycle to talk with the people at the orientation office. He came back with a signed permission form and told me that it would be $150 000 COP (Colombian Pesos). That was roughly around $75.cdn. By Colombian standards, that isn’t cheap, but by Canadian tour guide standards it was a great bargain and so I decided to go for it.

It turned out that this guy was the same guide whose name I had read about in another person’s blog. Archimedes was really easy going and closer to my age and so it worked out quite well. He had lived in La Macarena since he was a young boy.

Hiring a personal tour guide was definitely the way to go! We returned to the area that had the green algae first because I wanted to re-shoot some of the spots I had been in a rush to shoot the previous day. He also took me further down river where I saw some more nice areas.

The green algae area

Further downstream at the green algae area

After that, he took me to a totally new area that was on a totally different fork of the river. Besides the fact that I was able to take my time shooting, I didn’t see any other people for the rest of the day after we went to the second area. It featured some really nice spots that I had not seen photos of before and so I was quite happy about it all. The last spot we went to featured a swimming area and it was much needed after the reasonably long hike.

The swimming area near the green algae area

The fork of the river where I didn't see any other people all day

A couple of beautiful gnarly trees

One of the cascades and ponds during my first day with Archimedes

A small gorge area where the small stream drops into yet another beautiful swimming area

Archimedes never rushed me and we never even got back to the boat until after 5pm, meaning that I was able to utilize more of the day than I had the previous two days.

For my last full day, I was hoping to use Ingrithe as my personal guide. If I’m going to have to pay more for a personal guide I figured that it might as well be a pretty one. In actuality, I had returned to the place where I ate on my second night in LM and I had asked the chef if she’d try to contact her in order to see if she was available for day three, but no luck.

On the morning of day five, I had given up on trying to find and use Ingrithe as my guide when lo and behold I ran into her at the orientation office. I asked her if she was available, but she was actually working at a desk that day and so couldn’t do it. I then saw Archimedes pull up on his motorcycle and after asking him, he wasn’t available either, but he called another guy who was able to do it.

My personal guide riding his motorbike on to the barge in order to cross the main river. This was during my last day at Cano Cristales 

During my last full day, I wanted to visit the main waterfall where all the groups met for lunch on day one, but I obviously wanted to get there before all the others did. It was going fine until another small group arrived, but at least I was able to get a couple decent shots beforehand. While there, I kept hearing someone calling out, “Thomas, Thomas!” but it turned out that one of the guys in the other group had the same name.

The waterfall that was overcrowded during lunch on day one

A swirly pool of gorgeous colour

After going to the waterfall I told the guide that I wanted to return to where Archimedes had taken me the previous day, but he seemed hesitant, telling me that it was too far from where we were. I protested a little bit and got him to take me to most of the areas I had been to. It was during the second half of the day that it started pouring with rain.

I’m sure that he was glad that I had talked him into going to the area we did because it just so happened that there was a big rock overhang where we were both able to protect ourselves from the rain. That’s where I ended up getting a nice photo too. The rain was actually nice in a sense because it made the temperature just about right. After hoping that the rain would ease off, it didn’t and so I told the guide that we might as well get back out there so I could take some more photos. An hour or so later, the rain stopped and my time at CC had come to an end. I was soaked, but overall, I felt that I had seen more of CC than what most do and all in all, I couldn’t complain about the conditions while there.

Hanging out where it was dry while it poured with rain for a while

One of the spots from day one where there was a lot of the beautiful algae

This was my guide on my last full day at Cano Cristales

One of the ponds in the area where I didn't see any other people.

The following morning, I still didn’t know when my flight was to leave, but after finding out, I headed back to the ‘airport’. I was told to hang out at the waiting area and that’s when I met the other Thomas from Germany. After meeting that Thomas, he told me that his other friend was also named Thomas which explained why I kept hearing the name being shouted out so many times at the waterfall.

On the flight back, the plane went through some beautiful cloud formations and so it was a nice end to what turned out overall, to be a pretty good trip.  

You can see my official photography web site at:

Official site: http://thomasdawsonphotography.zenfolio.com/

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