Tatacoa Desert ​Nature

Saturday, September 23

During our vacation in Colombia we first traveled to the North of Colombia, visited many exciting places there and after a few days we set off to the next place on the trip: the city of Neiva, which is located more in the South of Colombia.

Although Neiva was not exactly easy to reach from Northern Colombia, where we were currently staying, and was not close to our home base of Medellín either, we decided to visit the region around the city of Neiva to see the famous Tatacoa desert. Since Colombia has a lot of rainforest and a tropical climate, we could hardly imagine that there would actually be a desert in this country.

We rented a beautiful little cabin a few kilometers from the town of Neiva and planned to stay there for a few days, enjoy the tranquility of the desert and of course take a day trip to the desert. When we arrived at our little hut, we were amazed by the silence, the barren nature around us and the incredible view from our terrace. Who would have thought that a landscape of sand, rocks and various prickly bushes would look so amazing?! I liked this view and vegetation so much that I had to capture it in my sketchbook.

For the next day we had booked a guided tour through the desert, which turned out to be even more amazing than we had imagined. The Tatacoa Desert is consists of many different areas, all of which look different. At first the road led through wide, barren fields where hundreds of cacti grew, then the landscape gradually became rockier and the gray sand suddenly turned red. Later the rocks were completely white and shaped like ghosts. We kept getting out of the moto taxi and our guide Claudia explained the surroundings to us. At one point we went for a walk through a particularly impressive valley of rust-red, furrowed rocks. Suddenly we found ourselves surrounded by beautiful red rocks. It really felt like being on another planet, as there didn't seem to be any other people around that day other than us. Together with our guide we walked through the desert and marveled at all the huge cactus trees and red rock walls, while black eagles flew above us. Despite the heat, we felt so lucky to be able to visit such a special place and had a super interesting day with our lovely guide Claudia!