A 'kind-of' desert - Tatacoa, Columbia

What a relief to be drier and hot again! The Tatacoa desert (if you can call it that, as it is green and tropical and even rains) sits between two mountain ranges and is only a few hundred metres above sea level. Its rather strange name comes from the Tatacoa rattlesnake that used to inhabit this area before becoming extinct.



We were hounded by taxi drivers upon arriving in Neiva, the town close to the desert. We'd missed the last bus so had to opt for a tiny taxi, and watched amusingly as our 4 massive backpacks were tied to the boot. As we are experiencing, South Americans are not particularly practical when it comes to tying items onto their vehicles- our backpacks were precariously hanging out of the boot ready to fall at the slightest bump!



The next day we found Chopo, our desert guide, we loaded our backpacks onto his chug-a-long moto-taxi and headed to the desert. This so-called desert is mini in every sense of the word - cacti are smaller than usual, and the landscape and rock formations look like they have been shrunk. We had a short tour of the rippled dunes and the carved cathedrals, jumping through the mud and acquainting ourselves with the various animals - very skinny and strange looking long eared cows and lots of goats.



We ended the afternoon with a sunset dip in a spring water pool with beers in hand! That evening we had the usual Columbian food of steak (almost inedible cardboard tasting) with rice and beans washed down with some cactus wine. Definitely an acquired taste, resembling the flavour of balsamic vinegar rather than wine. That evening as the rains came down we went to sleep to the sound of Claire shrieking each time a bug came near her, though we were all screaming when the giant moth (the size of a bird) flew into the room!