Tatacoa: a desert color.

Tatacoa Desert (Google images)

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.

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.