Riohacha

The Wayuu, an Arawak-speaking people, lived around the mouth of the Ranchería long before Europeans arrived, and they call the place Süchiimma, "land of the river". Alonso de Ojeda sailed past in 1498 and Juan de la Cosa landed at Cabo de la Vela soon after. In 1535 the German conquistador Nikolaus Federmann founded a settlement there, and in 1538 pearl fishers from the island of Cubagua were moved in. The pearl beds made it rich and a target: after a pirate raid destroyed it, the town was moved to the mouth of the Ranchería in 1544–45 as Nuestra Señora de los Remedios del Río de la Hacha. Its name, the River of the Axe, comes from one of three legends about an axe and Spanish soldiers at the river.

The pearls drew the English. John Hawkins forced the settlers in 1564 and 1568 to buy his cargoes of enslaved Africans and goods in defiance of Spanish law, the second time with his cousin Francis Drake, and Drake pillaged the town in 1596 in search of gold and pearls.

During the wars of independence its port served ships fighting for Colombia and Venezuela, and its most famous son, Admiral José Prudencio Padilla, born here in 1784, won the Battle of Laguna Salada for the city on 25 May 1820 before becoming the leading naval hero of the independence campaign. Riohacha became a municipality in 1954 and in 1964 the capital of the new department of La Guajira. When the national government closed its port, the old pier was given over to tourism, and in 2015 the city was declared a special tourist and cultural district.

Riohacha calls itself a mestizo city of the north-east, and its mix is unusual even on the coast. The Wayuu are the largest Indigenous group, alongside Wiwa, Kogi and Arhuaco from the Sierra Nevada, a large Afro-Colombian community and mestizo and Creole families, and since the 1970s migrants from other Colombian regions have settled in numbers. The Wayuu language, Wayuunaiki, belongs to the Arawakan family and is the most widely spoken Arawakan language.

Wayuu women learn to weave at an early age, and their crocheted bags, the mochilas, are the craft most associated with the city; they are sold directly by artisans on the seafront boulevard. Wayuu society is matrilineal and organised in clans, families keep goats and sleep in chinchorros, large hammocks, and the yonna dance is performed to honour guests. Visits to rancherías on the outskirts of the city are arranged by community tours and agencies.

The city has a strong musical and literary place in Colombia. Riohacha is described as the 19th-century cradle of the music now known as vallenato, and the tomb of the legendary Francisco el Hombre lies in a village within the district. Gabriel García Márquez's maternal grandparents came from Riohacha, and the town appears several times in his novels. The National Festival of the Dividivi is celebrated every year from 29 June to 1 July.

The district had an estimated 308,000 people in 2020, spread between the city itself, 15 rural corregimientos and 8 Indigenous reserves. In the 2005 census about one in five residents identified as Indigenous and about one in eight as Afro-Colombian. As departmental capital and the only city in La Guajira with an airport, Riohacha is the administrative and commercial centre of the peninsula: commerce makes up about half of economic activity in the town, alongside government, fishing and livestock — cattle, goats and sheep — in the surrounding countryside.

In La Guajira chronic water shortages and child malnutrition affect Wayuu communities, the vast Cerrejón open-pit coal mine has been the subject of environmental and human-rights complaints by Wayuu communities, and the border with Venezuela brings heavy migration and informal trade.

Life in the city follows the heat and the wind. The seafront fills early for sunrise on the pier and again at sunset, families crowd the beach at weekends and holidays, and the afternoon trade wind brings out kitesurfers at Anasmai. Shared cars and minibuses link the city with Maicao, Uribia and the coast road.

Riohacha eats from the sea and from the goat country of the peninsula. Fish and shellfish are caught by small-scale fishermen along the coast, and shrimp cocktails sold from stalls on the seafront boulevard are a local habit. Fried fish with coconut rice and patacones, flattened fried green plantain, is the standard coastal meal in the simple restaurants facing the beach.

La Guajira's signature dish is friche, young goat boiled and then fried with its offal and blood, a reflection of the goat herding that is central to Wayuu life. Livestock — cattle, goats and sheep — is raised across the countryside around the city.

Breakfast is often bought from street stalls on Plaza Padilla in the morning, and the usual coastal staples — set lunches of soup, a main dish and juice — are found throughout the centre. Fresh fruit juices made with water or milk, cold beer and sweet black coffee are the everyday drinks of the heat.