UTRÍA NATURAL NATIONAL PARK

Few places contain such beauty and mystery as the Utría Inlet located on the Colombian
north Pacific coast, in Chocó department. The calm, warm waters make this an ideal place
for the arrival of migratory species like marine turtles, birds and whales. The park also
protects the coastal marine environment, and is known for visitors by humpback whales,
who give birth in the lagoon after which the park is named. It is estimated that each year
between July 15th and October 15th, the largest number of individuals occurs in the
Colombian Pacific.7
Utria National Park includes four of the world’s most productive, but also most fragile
ecosystems: coral reefs, mangroves, tropical rainforest and marine. Other ecosystems
present in the area include cliffs, estuaries (estueries) and beaches.
UTRÍA Natural Park has the most important geological feature in the Colombian Pacific,
a fracture of the land that happened millions of years ago and allowed the entrance of the
sea to the land for almost seven kilometers in length and a mile wide on average; this
blocks the swell, creating a unique landscape: Virgin jungle on both sides of a strip of calm
sea as if it were a lake.
The Park forms part of the bio-geographical province of the Chocó department, a world
high-priority conservation area due to its biodiversity and endemism, and for this reason it
is considered a National Heritage area.
WHAT TO DO IN UTRÍA
Eco-tourism is the Park’s raison d’etre given its numerous (niumeres), exceptional natural
attractions, including the coastal and marine environment and tropical rainforest, the
conservation of its ecosystems and its cultural heritage. Among other activities, visitors
may enjoy hiking, diving and snorkeling, whale watching, observation of wild flora and
fauna, canoeing, photography and video filming, environmental research and education and
the TatsiraTrua interpretation center, where visitors can have information about the
biological and cultural richness of the jungles that the park protects, the marine area and the
cultures that are related to these territories such as black communities and indigenous
people.
To get to Ensenada de Utría, you can travel to Bahía Solano or Nuquí by plane and then
take a boat or take a boat from Buenaventura or if you prefer by land, by car and walk from
Bahía Solano.