I’m in a country that’s mostly jungle and I go and visit the deserts. Tatacoa Desert is a day’s ride south of Bogota and is Colombia’s second biggest desert after the Guajira Peninsula which I went to last month. It’s only about 330 square kilometres so pretty small by Australian standards and has a nice little 70km circuit you can do to check it out. I decided not to do the whole thing in one day from Bogota and so I spent the night in the town of El Espinal which got me out of the mountains and onto the flat valley roads.

I didn’t prebook and had a bit of trouble finding a place to stay. A nice couple on a bike told me to follow them because some parts of town were dangerous. I had found a place called Leno Verde but it turns out it is also a local swimming pool during the day, which caused confusion. But I eventually booked in (a little over budget) and was told that the lady who runs it would be home soon. It had a big pool, yelling kids and loud music. But that all stopped at 6:00pm and I had the whole thing to myself. It was nice.

The place was run by a mother, daughter and granddaughter with the mother being slightly older than me, I’m guessing. The daughter spoke good English which was nice. I learnt a bit about the commonality of single mother families in Colombia and other bits and pieces. I was also introduced to Nopikex which apparently is the best mosquito repellent ever made. It’s like a block of soap in a nice little box and you just wet it and lather it up in your hands and wipe it over everything. It smells okay and doesn’t seem as toxic as sprays. It’s also much easier when you have limited space like me. I’ll let you know how it goes.

I left about seven which was way later than the owner who was a school teacher and classes had started at 6:00am. There was an easy option to get the desert or a harder one on a back road. I chose the later because someone had posted pictures/videos of a couple of tunnels on that road and a nice bridge. The turn off to it was one of those blink and you miss it turn offs. There was a little store where I bought some water, another little place where I bought 4 litres of fuel in glass bottles and a third little building which was a restaurant and where I had some breakfast. Lovely people and good spanish practice. And the road was not the obvious looking one next to the shop but a track around the back. I left hesitantly but eventually came across the first tunnel. Not long but pretty cool all the same. The floor was dirt and full of big potholes and it was dark. It opened up on to the bridge and then there was the second tunnel which was similar.

I passed through a couple of small villages and a nice Mary in a cabinet statue. There were a few places with accommodation and places to eat and get fuel out of bottles and so it wasn’t as outback as I was expecting. I was looking for a particular turn off that was the start of the desert circuit. I found it and had been warned about the sand. My favourite. And it started almost straight away. It wasn’t as deep as the tracks in the northern desert, and I managed to make my way gingerly through the sandy bits without falling off. While it was a well defined track it had ruts and sand and rocks that made it a little challenging. I almost came off once when I glanced a view to the side.

About a quarter of the way in I came across a restaurant and stopped for a well earned coke and some water because my other water had bounced out somewhere along the way. I chatted to the guy for a bit who explained its basically two deserts for the price of one. The northern section is a grey desert and the southern section is ochre or red and more like the Kimberley. The southern section is more popular because it has a better road and closer to the towns of Villiavieja and Aipe which are either side of the Magdalena River. This river seems to be everywhere or maybe Magdalena is spanish for river and I’m getting it wrong. I was happy to know I had done the hard part of the road and it should get easier.

In the early 1500’s one of the spanish conquistadors called this area the Valley of Sorrows. It’s actually regarded as more of a tropical dry forest, not unlike where I live. The first section was grey and then it slowly transitioned to red. And there were more tourists on horses and quad bikes and small accommodation places. It is supposed to be a good place to see fossils and for astronomy and also wildlife but I was busy keeping the bike upright and didn’t see any of that. I did stop and take a few photos and snapped a pic of a cowboy riding off into nowhere.

At the end of the circuit I had heard about a small ferry that crosses the river and saves you having to drive back the way I came or having to travel further south to another town with a bridge. I thought the ferry sounded cool. I followed the signs and drove down a nice concrete ramp and onto the ferry which looked like it could fit about two cars. There was another bike already on it and a guy turned up with some boxes and then we crossed the Magdalena. See what I did there? As we crossed I couldn’t work out where the other side was. There were a few people standing on a bank but no ramp or road. Surely not. Surely yes.

Before mounting my bike, I watched the other guy ride across the rocky riverbed and stall his bike. After some discussion he made it out of the river and only just made it up the steep bank. And was gone. The ferry captain was either psychic or saw the look of fear on my face and asked me if he could ride my bike over for me. Well, that was a no brainer. I think I could have managed it with wet legs and only a couple of falls if I’d had to do it myself. Once safely reunited with my bike up on the riverbank, I thanked the captain and found myself following farm trails with gates and bridges and eventually ended up in Aipe and back on the nice flat bitumen road.

I found a nice spot for a late lunch and booked a hotel 175kms north in a city called Ibague which despite its spelling is apparently a word I pronounce correctly. I’ll take what I can. Ibague. Google said it should take less than two and a half hours to get to Ibague so it was a good road and not much traffic. I was hoping it was a nice place to stay for the night and to plan what I was going to do next because I had absolutely no idea.