Norbert and I were excited about visiting La Guajira before
we even moved to Colombia. A remote desert near the border of Venezuela, the
region is known for its sweeping sand dunes that meet the ocean and its
indigenous inhabitants, the Wayuu people. Last week, we were finally able to
make the arduous voyage to the desert and witness the magic of La Guajira.
I know that route talk is one of The Seven Things You're Not Supposed to Talk About, but in this case, the voyage was as much a part of the adventure
as being there.
We started our journey with an 8-hour bus ride from
Cartagena to Valledupar, a city in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada and the capital of vallenato music. This was the least
exciting leg of our journey, although we did find ourselves like Mary and
Joseph when we arrived at midnight—no vacancy at the inn. At last, we found a
bed and crashed. The next day, one of my students, Harold, was our personal
tour guide of Valledupar.
We visited several of the roundabouts which are
artistic homages to the city’s rich musical history. Norbert and I quickly
learned about Diomedes Diaz, everyone’s favorite vallenato singer songwriter,
and were implored by nearly everyone we met—taxi drivers, waiters, strangers—to
visit his birth home and the various homages to the legend all over the region.
We enjoyed our time getting to know Colombia’s greenest city, which was busy with Sunday festivities. We hiked to the top of a big hill, walked alongside the Rio Guatapurí and learned about the legend of the mermaid.
In the afternoon, we took a trip to the countryside and visited a mountain village, La Mina, where we swam in a lovely river with the most gorgeous rocks to jump off!
We enjoyed our time getting to know Colombia’s greenest city, which was busy with Sunday festivities. We hiked to the top of a big hill, walked alongside the Rio Guatapurí and learned about the legend of the mermaid.
In the afternoon, we took a trip to the countryside and visited a mountain village, La Mina, where we swam in a lovely river with the most gorgeous rocks to jump off!
On the way, we got a firsthand experience with contraband
gasoline coming from nearby Venezuela. We learned that gasoline is practically
free over there and it’s being brought into Colombia in Coke bottles and such
to be sold on the side of the road by little kids who hide the bottles in the
bushes so the authorities don’t find them. Then, when a car pulls over to buy
gasoline, they scramble into the bushes and emerge with a plastic bottle full
of yellow liquid and a funnel. Life in Colombia is never boring!
Back in the
city, we visited the Christmas fair and tried a signature ice cream, the cholada. We’re so grateful for our fantastic guide and
we hope to be back in Valledupar for the annual vallenato festival in April. For more pictures of Valledupar, please go HERE!
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| We came across this fellow on the side of the road, looking down at a river below. |
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| View of the Sierra Nevada in the distance |
The next day, we continued our journey towards the
desert. Now is when the voyage became more exiting, especially when we piled
into a beat-up Land Cruiser in Uribia, the last outpost before the desert. We
followed railroad tracks for a while, and even saw the train pass us full of
coal headed from the mine to Puerto Bolivar for export. Even that part of the
trip was bumpy, but it wasn’t anything compared to what happened when we turned
off the “road”. This was La Guajira that we’d heard so much about—a roadless,
lawless territory. Norbert said a silent prayer for his kite surfing equipment
that was strapped to the top of the car and we plunged into the desert.
The way from Uribia to Cabo de la Vela, a small beachside
Wayuu village, was closed during the rainy months and only accessible by boat.
But the ground had dried out recently, making the desert trails passable once
again. We journeyed as a caravan of Land Cruisers across mud, sand, rocks, and
cacti. Every once in a while, we’d see a group of kids up ahead holding a rope
across the road, hoping to make cars slow down long enough to give them some
pesos or a piece of candy.
Unfortunately, the men driving us across the desert
weren’t at all sympathetic to the cause, barely slowing down when they saw the
little kids waving by the side of the road. The Wayuu people of La Guajira are
one of the most disadvantaged groups in Colombia, and it was conflicting to be
benefiting from their land without really giving back to them. This feeling
remained during the rest of our time in La Guajira, and it led to many
discussions with our travel companions. At Cabo de la Vela, Wayuu children
roamed the streets, selling handmaid woven bracelets. Our guilty conscious made
us buy a dozen or more, although I’m more than aware that my purchases will do
little to change their overall circumstances.
Once settled in our hammocks at a hostel in Cabo, we
recovered from the arduous journey by swinging over the sea and sipping on our
Venezuelan beer, Polarcita. Then we were off again on a motorcycle tour of the
surroundings. We hiked to a monument with great views of the region, visited a
beach where a rainbow appears whenever the surf splashes over the rocks and a
freshwater spring in a small canyon beside the ocean, and watched the sunset at
a lighthouse. Dinner was fresh lobster and then we collapsed into our hammocks
for sleep, only to be awoken many times throughout the night by intense waves
crashing against the shore right beside us. I never thought I’d be annoyed by
the sounds of the sea!
In the morning, we were up early again for another
exciting motorcycle ride through the desert with our trusty guides, Pablo and
Benito. We rode by several Wayuu establishments, including a playground where
the children were running around in their beautiful, colorful dresses. They
brought us to some cliffs where we checked out a cave, hiked down to a secluded beach, and hung out with some gorgeous reptiles. The surf was wicked but we managed to stay afloat—and make
friends! Two Colombians from Bogota joined us at the beach, and it turned out
they were also staying at our hostel. We ended up journeying with them to Punta
Gallinas the next day, as well. On the beach back at the hostel, we came across
a fisherman hawking his fresh catch of the day and we chose our dinner, a red
snapper that was still flopping around.
Later that afternoon, Norbert went kitesurfing and I
walked around the town, checking out the gorgeous wares sold by the Wayuu
women. They specialize in woven bags made from strong, colorful fiber, but more
than their bags, I admired their beautiful dresses! Alas, no one in town was
selling any, but I made sure to stop at a market in Riohacha, the capital of La
Guajira, in search of the traditional dresses. It was very cool to listen to the locals speak to one another in their native language, Wayuunaiki. Luckily, the Wayuu seem to still be passing on their language to their little ones.
The next morning, we were out of the hostel before
daybreak and on our way further into the desert, to a tiny outpost called Punta
Gallinas. This trip was a solid four hours of bouncing madly across all kinds
of crazy terrain, with many more makeshift “toll booths” set up along the way.
Although we were exhausted from another sleepless night, sleep was not an
option on this drive, which felt more like an extended rollercoaster than
anything else. For the last leg of the journey, we had to cross a little
isthmus in a boat. Thankfully, we (and the kitesurfing gear) made it all in one
piece.
At Punta Gallinas, we were herded like sheep from the
boat to breakfast and then into Jeeps to begin our tour of the region. The
people in Punta have this tourist thing down to a science. The first stop was
the northernmost point of South America! Then we were headed to the iconic
oceanside dunes that everyone associates with La Guajira—the real reason why
all of us made the journey out here. Unfortunately, we got word that the “road”
to the dunes was closed. We soon understood this to be a euphemism for: the
indigenous people are not letting the white people on the dunes. Totally
understandable, in my opinion. Our guides brought us to different dunes instead,
and it was while we were frolicking around on top that a sharply dressed Wayuu
woman came marching up the side of the dune and demanding that we leave
immediately. We complied, heading back down the dune with our tail between our
legs.
For more pictures of La Guajira, please view the entire album HERE.
The experience led to many heated discussions between us our
international group of traveling companions about indigenous rights, globalism,
capitalism, colonialism, and all the other -isms. In my opinion, this is their
land; I would think that anybody leading a tour to a sacred place like the
dunes would get consent from the Wayuu first before bringing paying tourists to
enjoy the scenery. Indigenous people have different notions about personal
property than we do, and shouldn’t we respect the fact that we are visitors
here? One of the people in our group was a clothing designer from Bogota that
had just spent over a month living with the Wayuu and helping them organize
their artisanal crafts to be more profitable, efficiently produced, and
globally exported. She’s worked with indigenous people all over Colombia and it
was fascinating to get her perspective.
My favorite part of La Guajira was the night sky. Being
so far from everything meant that there was zero light pollution. The sky was
inky black and, unbeknownst to us, our trip was timed perfectly with a meteor
shower. We hadn’t planned it, but we
were gifted with an amazing show of shooting stars lighting up the pitch-black
night. It was amazing to wake up in the middle of the night to shift in my
hammock and see a shooting star streak overhead.
Getting back from La Guajira to Cartagena was just as
much of an adventure, and it took forever! We basically spent 2 full days
traveling each way, but it was worth it. We stopped at a few "toll booths" on the way back and watched the women scoop enormous handfuls of shrimp into buckets for sale. We bought a bag of "guaraya," cactus fruit, and while they were delicious, we suspect they might have been to blame for a sleepless night Norbert spent vomiting.
Our experience in La Guajira was complicated, exciting, frustrating, beautiful, isolated, lonesome, crowded—a surprise at every turn. It would be fantastic to visit again, but the super long journey might prohibit us from returning. Either way, we feel very lucky that we got the opportunity to experience the magic of this strange and faraway place.
Our experience in La Guajira was complicated, exciting, frustrating, beautiful, isolated, lonesome, crowded—a surprise at every turn. It would be fantastic to visit again, but the super long journey might prohibit us from returning. Either way, we feel very lucky that we got the opportunity to experience the magic of this strange and faraway place.
