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Published: June 22nd 2012
Last weekend (yet another bank holiday weekend, or puente), was one of my mate's birthdays so to celebrate a group of us went together to the Tatacoa Desert, about 8 hours by bus south of Bogotá.
Having had some unexpected delays on the way there, we ended up having to spend Saturday night in a small town called Aipe. This was a very typical town, well off the beaten trail (as is the desert itself) and having wondered around for a few hours desperately seeking a hotel we finally got ourselves settled and had a brilliant night dancing salsa with all the locals, and drinking the local aguardiente.
The next day, off we went on foot ith our tents and all our kit, searching for a river which we knew we had to cross. The scenery was amazing, slowly turning more and more desert-like. We had to cross a few rickety wooden bridges and dried-up river beds, before finally coming to the most enormous river. Apparently, we were told, a ocal from the village on the other bank would come past in a canoe every few hours to see if anyone needed a lift across.
So we waited and waited and waited, and eventually the guy showed up. He usually just ferried locals across, so to suddenly find 13 gringos with a ton of kit blew his mind a little, but anyway we got across to the village (where a bunch of locals had come out specially to watch us!). From there, we jumped in the back of a pick up van and off we went to the campsite in the desert, and that was the end of our fairly epic journey!
The desert itself was awesome, absolutely stunning and extremely calm place to just chill out and drink some beers by the pool. At night as well, the night sky was incredible.
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