So I was a little torn about leaving the party central of Bogota for my birthday but I was also very excited about spending it somewhere unique so I teamed up with a cool Spanish girl and we took the bus to Neiva to begin the journey to the desert.

We got out at Aipe where a taxi driver was waiting and he took us to down through the town to a dirt track by a little stream where we were to follow a path across a little bridge and through some fields to get to the river we needed to cross. Thankfully a little old man appeared who was going the same way and said he'd take us, otherwise we wouldn't have had a clue where we were going. But as we continued on the path our little group grew with two Colombian tourists and a local woman and her kids. One of whom was really scared of the cows. To be fair there were some serious sharp looking horns around that I wasn't so keen on myself. We then got to the river where we all piled into a little boat and sailed 5 minutes downstream to Villavieja.

Villavieja is a pretty small dusty town with not a lot going on but the people there were lovely and we just hung out with one of the local families and their baby goat whilst they called a friend with a jeep who could take our now 4 strong tourist posy on into the desert. It was crazy how quickly the landscape changed from the mountains we'd drove through on the bus, the green fields we'd just walked through, sailing down the river even had a tropical jungle feeling to now rock and desert. There are also two areas to this pretty small desert; the grey area and then the much more impressive red area with stunning red rock formations.

Our driver was cool and stopped to let us take pictures and go climb like kids all over the first section of red rocks we came across and then dropped us off at the accommodation we liked the look of most. It was definitely the multi coloured tipi that swung me. Unfortunately I don't even know the name of the place we stayed but it's just after La Tranquilidad and it has a pool and tipis so pretty hard to miss. We opted for the 6 man tipi (they must get a lot of dwarves coming through here) painted like a mushroom. We lost our Colombian couple at this point as they were camping so headed off to find a good pitch.

We went off exploring around sunset and tried unsuccessfully to find somewhere for dinner. The two places close by didn't have anything in and we didn't want to go too far as we didn't have a torch, only the light of a phone to find our way back. So we sheepishly came back to our place and the woman cooked us up something as we played cards and drank beer under the stars.

Next day we rented bikes to go exploring properly. I felt the extra year I had just gained had aged me 10 years; the cycling was killing me. I ended up having to get off and push the bike every time we went up hill- which there were lots of. In the end Clara offered to swap bikes as hers had gears to see if this would help. I was quite relieved that she couldn't cycle my bike either. We discovered that the problem was my bike weighed an absolute ton and it felt like pulling a bus uphill. Then about 15 minutes later a boy came along on a motorbike beeping away at his horn eventually we realised he wanted us to stop. Turns out he was the son of people we rented the bikes off and they'd realised they'd given us the super heavy bike and so he'd brought another bike (tied on the back of his motorbike- skills) to swap it.

After that things were much easier but we still decided to ditch the bikes completely at the next house (about an hour later) and walk the last 20 minutes to 'Los Hoyos' amazing natural swimming pool in the middle of the desert. It felt amazing after cycling in the desert heat to jump into a cool pool and sip on some beers whist being serenaded by the attendants Bachata music from his phone.

Close to the pool they have a restaurant that served an amazing lunch. We avoided the local delicacy of goat after hearing from a guy in the hostel in Bogota he was served goat testicals in his soup. I wasn't down for that today so we opted for good old fried chicken and rice. But the guy said we'd have to wait a while for the chicken, I thought he was going to say they'd have to kill it first as there were a few chickens running around. But luckily we didn't have to witness the murder, they had some pre done. These little towns definitely reconnect you with the basics of where your food comes from.

They have a tiny observatory here in the desert and the local astronomer gives nightly talks but unfortunately it was pretty cloudy the night we went so it didn't happen but we did still get to see some amazing stars later in the night. Clara was on a bit of a tight schedule so after 2 nights in the desert we decided to head back to Neiva where we were going our separate ways.

Practical Info

Bus Bogota- Aipe 5hrs 25,000 with Coomotorflorencia 16 seater minibus

Jeep Villavieja - desert 35,000

Tipi in the desert 40,000 per night