Join me in Bolivia Sep .2025 and/or Colombia Jan 2026!!
Hi everyone,
I’m excited to be planning 2 mega trips to South America where I’m looking for fellow Mammalwatchers to join me!
The first trip is to Bolivia, in September of 2025, and the 2nd trip is to Colombia in early January of 2026. It sounds like a long time from now, but we’ll get to it – it’s booking up fast!!
In Bolivia, We’ll be joining the increasingly-famous Nick McPhee of Nick’s Adventures to 3 prime locations over 16 days: Jaguarland, Kya Iya and Cojiba, with a quick stop in Trinidad to secure Bolivian river dolphins. Jaguarland and Kya Iya will be focused on cats, with a special focus on Jaguarundi, a species that seems to be more reliable in this region than anywhere else. But with high chances for ocelot, jaguars, pumas, and possible Geoffroy’s cat. The other prime target at Kya Iya will be the Chacoan peccaries (which I, personally, missed in Paraguay). But of course plenty of additional species are expected, from Tapirs, to Capybaras, several species of primates, deer and small carnivores, southern tamanduas and others. There’s also possibility for 3 rare armadillos.
Cojiba will be focused on Geoldi’s marmosets and other primates, and Nick is working on Short-eared dog in that location as well (though it’s still considered rare). Possibilities include White-lipped and Weddle’s tamarins, Tobbin’s titi, Ryland’s saki, Shock-headed capuchins, plus kinkajous, tayras, squirrel monkeys, possibility for Emperor tamarins and pygmy marmosets (Nick is working on optimizing locations for these two – I’ve personally seen both but wouldn’t mind seeing again if participants are interested), 2 species of porcupines, sloths, etc. There is also a small chance for Andean bear on either of 2 half-day excursions from La Paz, on days that we have to pass through and wait for flights the next morning. For full list of species, itinerary and a rather attractive cost, please email me, I’m looking for a total of 3-6 participants including myself:
tomer.ben-yehuda@hotmail.com
Colombia will be focused on the Andes, with a few visits to remote lowland locations. There are many many prime targets, so Rob from the world-renowned Wild about Colombia and I worked hard on a precise itinerary. We will be targeting: Andean bears, Mountain Tapirs, Northern Oncilla (now potentially split into “Clouded oncilla”), Olinguito, Mountain coati, Mountain Paca, Pacarana (the last 2 are still hard but possible), Golden-backed Uakari, 3 species of night monkeys, Brown spider monkey, Stump-tailed porcupine, Andean white-eared opossum, Water opossum (just because it’s feasible and I still haven’t seen one), Mottled-face and Silver-brown tamarins and Botos, among others. But Rob and I put together a list of ~80 species not counting bats, many of which are super cool and realistically-feasible. Email me for a full list of species and itinerary. This 17-day trip is kind of a fast-paced but Rob is pretty confident about our chances to see most of the big targets and has had great success recently! Again – email me if you want to join, I’m looking for up to 4-6 participants:
I’m very excited about both trips! They may both be to South America, but the ecosystems are quite different, and so are the mammals! Also, both Nick and Rob have been working their way up the list of super-mega-successful mammalwatching guides who are also notoriously fun to hang out with, and I have been waiting to go on trips with them! As their names keep getting bigger they book up further and further in advance, so don’t repeat my mistakes with Bitcoin – get them while it’s still early ;-P
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11 Comments
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tomeslice
Thank you Steve!
Yes, I saw your pictures from Bolivia – it looks very promising!
Specifically, Andean bear isn’t a big target for the Bolivia trip (but it is a MAIN target for Colombia, where it is practically guaranteed). But since we have 2 occasions where we arrive in La Paz and have a free afternoon, Nick threw in 2 visits to locations where they can be found. There are lots of other potential surprises in those places as well. -
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ChadJ
I’m actually just back from Jaguar Land and Kaa Iya. We had really good luck at Jaguar Land–6 different sightings of Jaguar, 2 of Ocelot and 2 of Jaguarundi. Kaa Iya was much, much tougher. Only the briefest glimpse of Jaguarundi and I was able to find an Ocelot on a walk by myself at night. We had good luck with Chacoan Peccary at Kaa Iya, though. Also, talking to the guide who has done this trip dozens of times, he’s only seen Geoffroy’s Cat once. So not very likely in case that was a target for you on the trip… Enjoy the trip! I wish I could go with you to Colombia!
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tomeslice
Hi Chad,
Thank you for the input!
To be honest, Geoffroy’s cat is not a huge target for me because I’ve seen it and have a horrible, Tomer-style record picture of it.
In fact, I’ve seen all these cats except Jaguarundi, but I don’t have pictures of pumas or ocelots, so I’m really hoping to get these two despite not being lifers.How long did you spend at each location?
And when you say “Just back” you mean late October/ Early November?
Just curious.
Thanks so much for the info, and I hope you make a trip report! 🙏🏻😉
Tomer-
ChadJ
Hi Tomer. Yes, I’m really just back. I was there at the end of October. I was thinking of doing a trip report but there’s suddenly a million trip reports on the site of the trip I just made! Not sure I’ll have anything new to add. On the jaguarundi–we had two sightings at Jaguar Land, both on the same road, at the same spot and I’m assuming it was the same individual. They weren’t great looks but I was able to get a fuzzy, yep, that’s a jaguarundi photo and to get god looks through the binoculars. The look at Kaa Iya was very brief and we had to debate amongst ourselves whether it was a jaguarundi or tayra. I’m confident it was jaguarundi based on the tail. We missed on puma at both spots though the tour before us had good looks at puma. Such is life. You should definitely get ocelot at Jaguar Land. At Kaa Iya I had a long encounter with an oceleot right on the grounds of the ranger station where you’ll be staying. Definitely see if you can make time for a walk at night for some spotlighting. The guides work really hard and will have you on the road a lot, but try to fight off the urge to sleep anyway and get a walk in. We spent 4 days at both Jaguar Land and Kaa Iya, which consisted of the afternoon of arrival, two full days and then a morning before departure.
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stevebabbs
Hi Tomer. I think you saw my FB post but I saw Andean Bear at Los Volcanes in August and it might be worth checking if these sightings have become regular.