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Tatacoa Desert (Google images)
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In 2008, when I was studying in eighth grade, I went
in a school trip to the Tatacoa Desert, the second largest arid region in
Colombia, located in Villavieja municipality at North of Huila department.
The day of the excursion, we only could travel a small
region of the extensive zone because we didn't have enough time for realizing a
longer hike. I remember that it was a very sunny day with a temperature of 38
degree Celsius, whereby we had to protect from sunbeams with sunscreen, caps,
sunglasses and long sleeve shirts. The hike lasted all day and during it a
guide accompanied us and told us about the formation process of the desert, the
fossil discoveries and the animals and vegetation present there.
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Sunset in The Tatacoa Desert (Google images) |
The most interesting of this experience was to find
that the Tatacoa Desert has two zones of different color: a region named El
Cuzco where the ground is reddish and a second part known as Los Hoyos of
grayish soil. At the end of this trip we arrive to the paleontological Museum
in Villavieja, place in which some Fossil remains found in the desert are
exposed.
Furthermore, because of its atmospheric and geographic
conditions, the Tatacoa has an astronomical Observatory, in which are realized permanent
investigations and studies about the desert evolution and astronomical topics.
Unfortunately we could not enter in the Observatory because the excursion day
it was closed.