WhereNext People – an Interview With Chris Bell

Meet Chris Bell, our Storytelling Agency’s Head of Content

Chris Bell is the producer and host of The Birders Show and our resident office birder (his is the office covered in bird posters!) and Colombia travel expert. In fact, he’s visited every one of Colombia’s 32 departments, observing over 1,300 species of birds in the process.

Chris worked as the editor and social media manager of Colombia’s biggest bilingual travel blog, the Colombia Travel Blog, for three years. This job saw him travel to every corner of Colombia, working with local tourism authorities to promote Colombian birding tourism. He also worked as a freelance writer about Colombian travel and ecoutourism for World Nomads, Culture Trip, Bradt, and Swarovski, and was the protagonist of the CNN natural history documentary #MyColombia.

Tell us about yourself.

My name is Chris Bell. I was born in Shrewsbury, England. I first moved to Colombia in 2011 when I was 23 and apart from a year back in England to complete my Masters degree, I’ve been here ever since. I also lived in Venezuela for a year and spent six months travelling around South America when I was 19. So most of my adult life has been spent on this continent. When I’m not writing blog posts and presentations for WhereNext, you’ll usually find me out birding, running, or bouldering at WhereNext’s local climbing gym.

Video: Chris Bell describes 10 birds that you can only film in Colombia.

Tell us about your most memorable travel experience.

I’ll never forget the journey I took along the Caquetá River to the Araracuara Canyon in the heart of the Colombian Amazon. Ten days by river in a crappy old boat with a busted engine, sleeping on the floor of Indigenous malokas, eating fish we caught ourselves in forgotten little creeks, encountering guerrilla soldiers, and more mosquitoes than I thought possible. It was the sort of adventure I dreamt of as a child obsessed with Jules Verne and Willard Price novels. Trekking to the summit of Roraima in Venezuela is a very close second.

Chris out exploring the cloud forests of Colombia, scouting locations for our storytelling agency

Dead or alive, who would you like to join you on an adventure?

I’d love to travel with someone like Alexander Von Humdoldt, or Richard Evans Schultes. They were people who just had an insatiable curiosity for the world around them, and a deep well of knowledge about all sorts of different things. Imagine the things you could learn travelling through the jungles of Colombia with Humboldt?! It would either be them or my old Scottish housemate in Venezuela, Colin. I’ve never had as much fun travelling with anyone as I had with him backpacking across that country.

What are your travel equipment essentials?

I never go anywhere without my binoculars, they are always the first thing in the backpack. A few dry bags are always useful in Colombia, the weather can often change quickly and there’s nothing worse than a bag of soaking wet clothes. My hiking boots go everywhere with me as well: they are pretty old and cracked now but they fit my feet like a glove and I’ve never found a more comfortable pair of boots. My top packing tip for travelers - especially if you’re trekking or on a trip in wet regions like the Amazon - is always “bring plenty of pairs of socks.” The worst sensation in the world is pulling on a pair of wet socks first thing in the morning. It makes your feet freezing cold, gets the insides of your boots wet, and you’re going to end up with all sorts of nasty skin fungus. Pack light when it comes to jackets, shirts, and trousers, but take an excessive number of socks!

When do you feel happiest?

One of the things I love about birding as a hobby is that it’s defined by hundreds of moments of pure happiness. Seeing a species that you’ve dreamt of seeing for the first time is always special, and in the moment it feels like the happiest you’ve ever been. One day especially stands out to me. It was when I was birding with friends in the Bajo Caguán region of southern Colombia and we saw a Harpy Eagle and the rare Black-necked Red Cotinga on the same day. That was a pretty joyous few hours.

I also got into bouldering recently (thanks to the obsessive climbers of WhereNext!), and that’s similar to birding in terms of those small, regular moments of pure joy. Topping a tough boulder problem that you never thought you’d be able to do is a real rush of happiness. There’s something wonderful about that moment when your hand just sticks when you were convinced you’d fall.

Chris on another birding expedition in Colombia

Who taught you your biggest life lesson, and what was it?

I don’t think it was a person. It was moving abroad at a young age that taught me the most about life and about myself. I don’t think you can fail to move to a new continent, with no friends or family at 21 years old and not learn things. I think the most important thing that I learned when I moved to Venezuela and Colombia was that, in spite of our cultural differences, people are much the same everywhere. It taught me to listen more, and try to learn from the people I meet. Most people know something you don’t.

You can teleport to any restaurant on earth: where do you go and what do you order?

I remember an amazing street food stall in Bangkok that had the most intensely flavourful and rich brothy noodle soup I ever tasted in my life. I stumbled across it during a long wander through the backstreets of the city in the days before I had a smartphone - and therefore, easy access to Google Maps - and couldn’t for the life of me remember exactly where it was in the following days. If my teleportation device allows me to travel somewhere on the basis of memory, then I want to go back there.

The same goes for a little bus station restaurant in Puerto la Cruz, Venezuela. They served a pabellon costeno (black beans, rice, and shredded fish) that blew my mind. I often wonder if that place is still there.

Tell us about the most adventurous food you ever ate?

There have been a lot! Scorpions and cockroaches in Thailand, a whole snake in Cambodia, various assorted bushmeats in the depths of the Colombian Amazon. Those are the ones that spring to mind. Having said that, the food that gave me the most trouble was the lumpy custard they served in my school canteen. I would gladly chow down on a hundred scorpions if I never had to touch that stuff again.

Drink of choice?

If we’re talking alcohol, then a good dark rum. Otherwise, a cup of black coffee or green tea.

Where do you feel most at home?

I feel most at home when I’m out birding. It doesn’t really matter who I’m with, although there are a handful of good friends whose company I enjoy the most in the field. There’s a bird reserve on the Suffolk coast of England named Minsmere. When I was very young I bugged my parents until they took me there, and it was everything I wanted it to be. I ended up working there as a volunteer warden when I was 17. I went back with my mum and dad a few years ago and I remembered every inch of the place as if it were yesterday. I felt very at home there.

Chris ’ five essential items for birding trip in Colombia.

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