The plan was to head to Punto Gallinas, the northern-most
tip of South America – the problem was that it’s not exactly well traveled and
the route is essentially impossible to surmise from the discombobulated
information available on the web. You basically just have to wing it and hope
for the best. So, after a two-and-a-half-hour bus ride, which was pleasantly
short since we were expecting four hours, we made it to Riohacha, a
largish-city en-route. After turning down the hoard of taxi drivers vying for
our business, we walked to our hostel and promptly peppered the receptionist
with questions about how to get to Cabo de la Vela the next morning. Lucky for
us, the owner of the hostel was a super friendly expat American and we did not
have to strain our Spanish skills to get the answers that we needed. Now
slightly more confident that we might actually make it to our destination, we
walked to a Middle-Eastern place for dinner and chowed down on some falafel
before showering and going to bed. Unfortunately, sleep was short lived since a
truck with compensating Colombians with massive speakers parked right outside
of the hostel (which, by the way, was on a residential street) and blared
excessively loud music until after 3 in the morning. Not cool compensating
Colombians, not cool.
 |
| Riohacha and lots and lots of hand-woven Mochila bags. |
The next morning, we left a bag at the hostel and caught a
colectivo to Uribia, about an hour away – less when you are traveling over 120
kph (75 mph) on a small one-lane road. The driver dropped us off in town with a
driver heading to Cabo de la Vela. We thought we had lucked out when Hugo, our
driver, told us we would leave within a half hour. We had heard horror stories
about tourists waiting 4+ hours for the SUV to fill up with people. Oh wait,
that did end up happening to us… 30 minutes turned into an hour, which turned
into two, all confined to the overheating car parked in the hot desert – now we
know how dogs feel locked up in a hot car. Unlike a dog, we were able to buy
some impeccably timed popsicles from a passing street vendor, we even bought
one for a kid who had been hanging out with us hoping for a handout.
Eventually, two Wayuu tribal women joined us and we sped off at crazy,
uncomfortable speeds through the arid desert-scape. The road to Cabo de la Vela
was less of a road, and more of an internal compass setting toward the
direction of the town, each driver just made up their own route. After an hour
and a half (most of which was spent trying to stave off Hugo, who was trying to
sell us transport to Punto Gallinas), we made it to the seaside town of Cabo de
la Vela. Promptly after arriving, Hugo’s SUV broke down – not a shocker
considering his driving style. With some coaxing, he was able to get it
starting again and dropped us off at our “hotel” where the car died again.
 |
| En-route to Cabo de la Vela, including our popsicle receiving friend in Uribia. The bottom two photos show our accommodations in Cabo. |
Apart from being a Wayuu tribal village, the town is known
for wind, and where there’s wind and water… there’s kite surfing!
Unfortunately, learning to kite surf is a costly and lengthy process so we
didn’t get the opportunity to try it. Instead we took it easy at our hotel,
walked the beach, got pelted with flying sand and rocks, and waited for Hugo,
who was supposed to pick us up for a tour to the surrounding areas. Apparently,
Hugo wasn’t able to get his car working, so we improvised and hired 3 moto-taxis
through the hotel to take us to a viewpoint and nearby lighthouse. Luckily one
of the drivers was not the drunk moto-taxi driver in the parking lot trying to
sell us his services… we think that’s what he was trying to do anyway. Albeit
windy, the views in the surrounding areas were astounding. The scenery really
gives the impression that you are at the end of the world (or on an alien
planet). After a pseudo sketchy 30-minute walk back to the hotel, we met up
with our driver, Anyelo, who the hotel had arranged to take us to Punto
Gallinas early the next morning. Although he was a bit standoffish, we went
with it, since at that point, he was our only known option to drive us the last
leg.
 |
| The views around Cabo de la Vela. |
Unsurprisingly, Anyelo showed up 15 minutes late after he
was adamant that we be on time for a 5am pickup. Even less surprisingly, we
rushed into town, picked up one more passenger, and then waited over an hour
while Anyelo chatted to his friends and ignored us completely. Sometime after
6am, with no notice whatsoever, Anyelo brutishly got in the car and drove off
as if someone was chasing us. Unlike the moto-taxi ride to Minca, Anyelo’s
driving was legitimately terrifying. His personality can easily be equated to a
mix between Magilla Gorilla and Godzilla – essentially, he was a complete oaf
who believed himself to be a rally car driver. Our hatred for him will become clearer
after you hear about our return trip.
Along the almost 3-hour journey, we made several stops,
where we first thanked our lucky stars to still be alive, and second took
pictures of the crazy, alien, desolate scenery. We also had to stop at least 50
times for the local children to remove ropes which were spanning the “road.”
The ropes were intended as tolls to force drivers into giving them a bribe
(mostly food or water). To Anyelo, they were an excuse to almost run over young
impoverished children. He would accelerate, staring the children down, until
the kid caved and lowered his or her rope. In one instance, the toddler was not fast
enough, so Anyelo drove through the rope, breaking it, leaving the poor kid
crying on the side of the road… nice guy, our driver.
 |
| En-route to Punta Gallinas. |
 |
| Accommodations at Punta Gallinas - the northern-most tip of South America! |
After a basic lunch of rice and lentils, we rested for a few
minutes, before jumping back into the boats with just two other tourists to go
see the flamingos – yup, FLAMINGOS! After scaring the flock of flamingos (which
doesn’t take much, they scare easily), the driver dropped us off on a peaceful
beach to watch the sun go down. While walking the beach, we hit the sand-dollar
jackpot! There were hundreds of intact sand dollars! We kept some of the best
ones, but spoiler alert, they all were found crushed in our bags less than
24-hours later – turns out they are quite fragile. After a very long walk on
the beach, we were only marginally worried when the boat did not return until
significantly after sundown… the locals here seem to operate on their own schedule.
 |
| View at Punta Gallinas and FLAMINGOS! |
 |
| More views and the in-tact sand dollar jackpot! |
Back at camp, we were looking forward to a shower to expel
the sand that had found its way into every and all crevasses. Unfortunately,
the water tanks had ran out, leaving only one operational shower which provided a trickle cold salty water… still better than nothing. Dinner was bleak and even more
frustrating was the moment that we discovered that we had significantly over
paid for the trip with our oaf of a driver, apparently it was not a set price
as the hotel (and internet) would have us believe. Oh well, the alien-esque
beauty was definitely worth the effort, even if we did suffer a sleepless night
in fancy hammocks.
The next morning marked the single worst-event of the entire
year – Anyelo, the oaf, showed up with three of his friends, raging drunk to
pick us up. His lack of sobriety became painfully obvious when I opened the
passenger door to find 15 empty beer bottles – this occurred at approximately the
same time as Anyelo stumbled out of the car to collapse on a nearby bench. His
friends found this hilarious… we did not. Having no other option but to be
stranded at Punto Gallinas for another day (and not fully understanding the
extent of his inebriation), we got in the Land Cruiser and hoped for the best.
The best did not occur. Anyelo drove at over 120 kph (75 mph) through the
road-less desert, often times allowing his tires to veer off the path into the
thicker sand and only nearly avoiding a high-speed roll-over accident. After
these near-death experiences, he would bend down and pretend that he had just
been pre-occupied by the radio dials (smooth…), only for it to happen again a
few minutes later. In addition to the crazy driving, his head kept bobbing
asleep as he passed in and out of consciousness. At the mid-way point, he
finally pulled over and passed out on a bench, while his friends partook in
more drinking. The consequence to firing our drunk driver was to being stranded
in the middle of nowhere… we were now ready to face that consequence and,
united, decided to not get back in the car with him. We were bracing ourselves
for a full-on Godzilla attack, when another driver pulled up for a short break.
We explained to his tourist passengers what was going on and they came to our
rescue, pleading with their driver to give us a ride. At first, the other
driver refused, stating that it was a different company so he could not, but
after observing the extent of Anyelo’s inebriation, he called his boss and they
agreed to take us the rest of the way. To our surprise, Anyelo was not angry,
but content that he could be rid of us and take a nap (or more than likely,
continue drinking). To our delight, this driver did not drive like a deranged
lunatic or make starving impoverished children cry. He instead stopped at each
toll, gave them some fresh water, chatted to their parents, and continued on
his way (how human of him).
 |
| Our near death experience at the hands of a drunk. Anyelo the troll is shown in the top-left photo, passed out on a bench. Also, my sand dollar perished... |
By the time we arrived back at the junction town of Uribia,
our heart rates had almost returned to normal. It is surprising that someone
like Anyelo is still alive, and even more surprising that that kind of behavior
is tolerated at all (sadly, alcohol abuse is common among the tribal people of
the area). Arriving in one-piece was shocking enough, but when the expat owner
of our hostel in Riohacha randomly turned up and offered us a free ride back
the last hour, we knew our luck had turned around. He drove calmly while we
ranted about our dreadful experience… we were relieved to say the least. An
hour later, we were back at the hostel. We retrieved our bags, booked a hotel
for that night, did some souvenir shopping, and had a delightful lunch by the
ocean, before boarding a comfortable bus (with terrible movies as
entertainment) to Palomino.
