Meet Our Tour Leader Urs: Experienced, Prepared and at Home in Colombia
Exploring Colombia with Urs: Experience You Can Feel Along the Way
Travelling through Colombia with Chaska is all about experiencing the country up close: walking through cloud forests, following trails through the Andes, exploring small villages and discovering vibrant cities.
For us, that requires more than a tour leader who simply knows the best places to visit. Experience, a strong sense of responsibility and the ability to stay calm and act appropriately when something unexpected happens are just as important.
Our tour leader Urs Diethelm brings all of these qualities together. He has been leading trips for Chaska for several years, and Colombia is much more than a travel destination to him. It has been his home for decades.
Recently, Urs also refreshed his first-aid knowledge by completing an emergency first-aid course. The training covered how to respond in an emergency, patient assessment, CPR and the use of an AED, the recovery position, bleeding control and wound care.
We thought this was the perfect opportunity to introduce you to Urs and the person behind the role of a Chaska tour leader.
From the Swiss Pre-Alps to Colombia
Urs grew up in the beautiful foothills of the Swiss Alps. Shortly after finishing school, he set off on his first big journey through South America – and of all the countries he visited, Colombia was the one that stayed with him.
In the mid-1990s, he returned to Colombia for what was originally meant to be a temporary break and settled in Cali.
That break ended up lasting a little longer than planned.
Urs stayed, and Colombia became his new home.
For around two decades, he has been sharing his enthusiasm for the country with travellers as a tour leader.
Over the years, Urs has explored Colombia far beyond its best-known sights. His travels have taken him from the Amazon and the savannas of the Orinoco across the Andes to the Pacific and Caribbean coasts. He has led well over a hundred tours through the country, yet he still describes every new journey as a unique experience.
That combination of deep experience and genuine curiosity is very much Urs.
A Tour Leader Who Looks Beyond the Obvious
Ask Urs about his favourite ecosystems and you probably won't get the answer you expect:
Rainforests, cloud forests – and neighbourhood bars with plastic chairs.
That actually sums up his way of travelling rather well.
Of course, he loves Colombia's spectacular landscapes. But the small encounters and unassuming places interest him just as much. He enjoys wandering through lesser-known corners of cities and appreciates the spontaneous encounters that happen along the way.
In his free time, you'll often find Urs on his bike or, as he puts it himself, trying his hand at being a “machete-wielding hobby farmer.”
His three words to describe himself?
Birder. Biker. Billiards player.
And then there are horses.
San Agustín: A Special Place for Urs
One place that holds a particularly special place in Urs' heart is San Agustín, in southern Colombia.
Surrounded by green hills where coffee, bananas, avocados and citrus fruits grow, the region is home to mysterious stone statues and ancient burial sites left behind by a long-lost culture.
Urs especially loves visiting the archaeological park early in the morning, when mist still hangs between the statues.
With a twinkle in his eye, he says that on mornings like these, he's sometimes not entirely sure whether he has just seen the spirit of a shaman disappearing into the mist.
Urs enjoys exploring the surrounding countryside on foot and by bike – but his favourite way to experience it is on horseback.
There's a personal story behind that, too. On his very first trip to Colombia, almost 40 years ago, San Agustín was where Urs got on a horse for the very first time.
It's this kind of connection to a place that you simply can't learn from a travel book.
Experience Also Means Responsibility
Our active journeys through Colombia regularly take us beyond the familiar comforts of everyday life. We hike, spend time in the mountains, visit more remote regions and explore places surrounded by nature.
Naturally, we hope that first-aid skills will never be needed during a trip.
But being well prepared also means knowing what to do if they are.
That's why we're pleased that Urs refreshed his knowledge in 2026 by completing an emergency first-aid course. His training included emergency response and alert procedures, assessing patients and vital signs, heart attacks and strokes, the recovery position, CPR using the BLS-AED-SRC protocol, as well as bleeding control and wound care.
For us, it fits perfectly with the tour leader we know: having a wealth of experience while never assuming there's nothing left to learn.
Travel Safety Starts Long Before an Emergency
At Chaska, travel safety isn't about making travellers feel as though danger is waiting around every corner.
Quite the opposite.
Good preparation helps our guests relax and enjoy their journey with greater peace of mind.
An experienced tour leader needs to know more than the sights along the route. They need to understand their group, remain attentive, make decisions and know how to respond when things don't go according to plan.
Up-to-date first-aid training is one part of that preparation, alongside the knowledge and judgement a tour leader develops over many years and many journeys.
With Urs, the two come together.
Colombia Is Home
Perhaps there is something even more important when it comes to understanding the way Urs leads his trips.
After all these years, he doesn't see Colombia as a product to present to visitors.
It's his home.
He talks enthusiastically about cloud forests and the mountains of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, the Pacific coast and San Agustín. He tells stories about the openness and humour of the people he meets and the unexpected encounters that happen along the way.
Even after well over a hundred tours, Colombia still seems to give him plenty of reasons to stop and marvel.
And if that big lottery win ever finally comes along?
Urs already has a plan: head to Tangier and learn Arabic.
Until then, you'll probably find him somewhere between the Andes, a cloud forest and a Colombian neighbourhood bar, sitting on a plastic chair.
Would you like to experience Colombia with someone who has called this country home for decades? Perhaps Urs will be your tour leader on your next Chaska adventure?
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