Villavieja

Long before people arrived, the Tatacoa was a wetter landscape of forests and rivers. During the Miocene, around 15 million years ago, giant turtles, ground sloths, crabs, fish and other animals lived here, and their remains, buried in the layered clays and sandstones of the Honda formation, have made the area renowned as a rich deposit of fossils.

The Spanish reached the valley in their search for El Dorado. In 1538 the conquistador Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada called it the Valley of Sorrows, and the Spanish named the area Tatacoa after its rattlesnakes. On 18 August 1550 Captain Juan Alonso founded a settlement here as the second foundation of Neiva, today's departmental capital, but it was destroyed by Indigenous people on 14 November 1569. In 1612 Diego de Ospina y Medinilla moved the Villa de San Juan de Neiva to a new site, and the abandoned place became known as Villavieja, the old town.

The Jesuits later acquired large estates here and built a chapel, on whose ruins the present Santa Bárbara chapel was raised in the early 19th century. The town grew slowly as a farming community on the Magdalena. From the 1930s large numbers of fossils were found in the grey desert, and in 1984 the town opened its paleontology museum. Astronomers followed, drawn by the dark, dry skies, and today the town lives increasingly from visitors to the desert.

Villavieja calls itself the paleontological and astronomical capital of Huila and of Colombia, and the two passions shape its identity. Local people have long found fossils in the gullies, and the museum displays its collection with pride; its visitors' book records paleontologists, geologists and biologists from Germany, France, Britain, the United States, Chile and Argentina. A life-size model of a giant sloth stands on the main square.

Stargazing is the other draw. The municipal observatory, the first built in the desert, gives nightly talks, and a second observatory, Astrosur, offers its own evenings; the low light pollution and dry air make the Tatacoa one of the country's favourite places to watch the night sky.

Crafts draw on the desert. At the Casa del Totumo, near the main square, the hard fruit of the totumo tree is made into instruments, kitchen utensils, jewellery and sculptures of desert animals. The town shares the wider traditions of Huila — bambuco and sanjuanero music and Catholic feast days — while desert hosts have built a small culture of camping, cabins and evening meals under the stars.

The municipality had about 7,300 inhabitants according to a 2019 projection by DANE, Colombia's statistics agency, spread between the town and small rural settlements such as Hato Nuevo, La Victoria, Polonia, Potosí and San Alfonso. It covers about 578 square kilometres on the east bank of the Magdalena, bounded by the Cabrera river to the north and the Villavieja river to the south.

Farming and ecotourism are the main sources of work. Water is the constant concern: the flow of the streams that cross the municipality rises and falls with the scarce rains, and the plants of the desert survive with roots spreading up to 30 metres sideways and reaching 15 metres down. Tourism has brought campsites, posadas, guiding and mototaxi work to families in town and along the desert road.

Days start early to beat the heat, and the town slows down in the afternoon. Neiva, about an hour away, is the place for banks, larger shops and onward travel, and minibuses and jeeps link the two through the day.

Villavieja eats as the rest of Huila does. Asado huilense, the traditional roast of the department, is the regional dish, and achiras, small crunchy biscuits made from achira flour with a taste of cheese, are the classic Huila snack. Set lunches in town are simple and filling.

The desert has its own speciality: the nopal cactus. A shop in town sells more than 20 products made from the nopal, among them sweets, arequipe (a milk caramel) and even a cactus wine, and the Casa del Totumo sells a wine made from the totumo.

In the desert itself, the campsites and posadas cook breakfast, lunch and dinner for their guests and press fresh fruit juices, which are welcome in the heat. Cold drinks and water are sold along the desert road at slightly higher prices than in town, and the evening meal is usually eaten outdoors before the stars come out.