Cabo de la Vela (Spanish for "cape of sail") is a headland in the Guajira Peninsula in Colombia with an adjacent small fishing village. It is a popular ecotourism destination of the Caribbean region of Colombia.
Cabo de la Vela (Spanish for "cape of sail") is a headland in the Guajira Peninsula in Colombia with an adjacent small fishing village. It is a popular ecotourism destination of the Caribbean region of Colombia.
Spanish explorer Juan de la Cosa was among the first Europeans to see the cape in 1499, during his fourth travel as pilot for the expedition of Alonso de Ojeda, making this place, together with the Gulf of Paria, the first places ever visited by the Europeans on South American mainland. Its name derives from the first view of the cape from the sea, when the pale colors of the promontories and their curvilinear forms emerging from the flat desert, suggested vaguely to the Spanish the shape of a sailboat. The foundation of the first settlements in the area was made by Nikolaus Federmann who founded a village near the Cabo de la Vela with the name Nuestra Señora Santa María de los Remedios del Cabo de la Vela in 1535, the first settlement in La Guajira. Pearl deposits led to constant attacks from the indigenous Wayuu and other Spanish conquerors from the neighboring Government of Santa Marta and New Andalusia Province, and the village was moved to present-day Riohacha in 1544 and refounded by Nikolaus Federmann. [1] [2] The aboriginal inhabitants of the area were an ethnic group of Arawaks, who remained free, defeating the Spanish Conquest. Their descendants, the Wayuu people, still inhabit the area. Cabo de La Vela (Jepirra in Wayuunaiki) is a sacred place to them, since they believe it is the place where the souls of all the deceased travel to rest with the ancestors, as the gate to afterlife.
The cape is surrounded by the La Guajira Desert, part of the larger Guajira-Barranquilla xeric scrub. In the area there are several saline lagoons and mudflats visited by large populations of American flamingos. [3]
Cabo de la Vela has a hot arid climate (Köppen BWh) with little to no rainfall in all months except October and November.
| Climate data for Cabo de la Vela | |||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Month | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | Year |
| Mean daily maximum °C (°F) | 31.7 (89.1) | 32.0 (89.6) | 32.4 (90.3) | 33.0 (91.4) | 33.8 (92.8) | 34.3 (93.7) | 34.9 (94.8) | 34.5 (94.1) | 34.2 (93.6) | 33.2 (91.8) | 32.5 (90.5) | 32.2 (90.0) | 33.2 (91.8) |
| Daily mean °C (°F) | 27.5 (81.5) | 27.7 (81.9) | 28.1 (82.6) | 28.7 (83.7) | 29.5 (85.1) | 30.0 (86.0) | 30.2 (86.4) | 30.0 (86.0) | 29.8 (85.6) | 29.0 (84.2) | 28.5 (83.3) | 28.0 (82.4) | 28.9 (84.1) |
| Mean daily minimum °C (°F) | 23.3 (73.9) | 23.5 (74.3) | 23.8 (74.8) | 24.4 (75.9) | 25.2 (77.4) | 25.7 (78.3) | 25.5 (77.9) | 25.6 (78.1) | 25.4 (77.7) | 24.9 (76.8) | 24.5 (76.1) | 23.8 (74.8) | 24.6 (76.3) |
| Average rainfall mm (inches) | 2 (0.1) | 1 (0.0) | 0 (0) | 25 (1.0) | 24 (0.9) | 11 (0.4) | 2 (0.1) | 15 (0.6) | 46 (1.8) | 101 (4.0) | 82 (3.2) | 19 (0.7) | 328 (12.8) |
| Source: Climate-Data.org [4] | |||||||||||||
Alonso de Ojeda was a Spanish explorer, governor and conquistador. He travelled through modern-day Guyana, Venezuela, Trinidad, Tobago, Curaçao, Aruba and Colombia, at times with Amerigo Vespucci and Juan de la Cosa. He is famous for having named Venezuela, which he explored during his first two expeditions, for having been the first European to visit Guyana, Curaçao, Colombia, and Lake Maracaibo, and later for founding Santa Cruz.
Nikolaus Federmann was a German adventurer and conquistador in what is modern-day Venezuela and Colombia. He is a significant figure in the history of Klein-Venedig (1528–1546), the concession of Venezuela Province that Charles I of Spain granted to the Welser banking family and the foundation of Santafe de Bogotá.
Riohacha is a city in the Riohacha Municipality in the northern Caribbean Region of Colombia by the mouth of the Ranchería River and the Caribbean Sea. It is the capital city of the La Guajira Department. It has a sandy beach waterfront.
The Guajira Peninsula is a peninsula in northern Colombia and northwestern Venezuela in the Caribbean. It is the northernmost peninsula in South America and has an area of 25,000 km2 (9,700 sq mi) extending from the Manaure Bay (Colombia) to the Calabozo Ensenada in the Gulf of Venezuela (Venezuela), and from the Caribbean to the Serranía del Perijá mountains range.
Maicao is a city and municipality in the Department of La Guajira, northern Republic of Colombia. It is located 76 km from Riohacha, the capital of the department and is the second largest urban center near the border with Venezuela, after the city of Cúcuta.
The La Guajira Desert is a desert located in northern Colombia and Venezuela, approximately 1,100 km (680 mi) north of Bogotá, covering most of the La Guajira Peninsula at the northernmost tip of South America. It is the continent's largest desert north of the equator. Most of the region is within Colombia's La Guajira Department, though a small portion is in the Venezuelan state of Zulia. The area holds immense coal reserves which are exploited in a zone known as El Cerrejón. It is also home to the indigenous Wayuu people. The Wayuu are mostly herders but also master deep-sea divers, known for collecting pearls from the Caribbean Sea.
The Wayuu are an Amerindian ethnic group of the Guajira Peninsula in northernmost Colombia and northwest Venezuela. The Wayuu language is part of the Maipuran (Arawak) language family.
La Guajira is a department of Colombia. It occupies most of the Guajira Peninsula in the northeast region of the country, on the Caribbean Sea and bordering Venezuela, at the northernmost tip of South America. The capital city of the department is Riohacha.
Punta Gallinas is a headland in northern Colombia. It is the northernmost point on the mainland of South America, and one of the extreme points of South America.
Manaure or Salinas de Manaure is a town and municipality located in the Colombian Department of La Guajira. Manaure's main economic activity is the exploitation of the vast amounts of salt in the area.
The Ranchería River is a river located in northern La Guajira Department, Colombia. Born in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta southern steps flows south, abruptly turns northeast and then north where it finally flows into the Caribbean Sea. It is the main river of La Guajira Department and has great significance for the Wayuu people.
Fonseca is a municipality located in the Colombian Department of La Guajira. The town celebrates the Festival del Retorno in honor of St Augustine with religious celebrations, vallenato music events and others.
Uribia is a town and municipality of the La Guajira department of Colombia. It is the youngest municipality of this Department since the year 2000. Northern Zone of the Cerrejón coal mines are located in this municipality. The municipality also contains the Serranía de Macuira mountain range which is an isolated low altitude mountain range in the middle of La Guajira Desert. One third of this mountain range is also a National Natural Park of Colombia.
Albania is a town and municipality of the Colombian Department of La Guajira. Is the youngest municipality of this Department along with the town of Uribia and others, created on March 19, 2000. Albania neighbours and exclusive enclosed camp site for the Cerrejón coal mine workers and their families, named Mushaisa.
Dibulla is a town and municipality located in the Department of La Guajira, Colombia by the Caribbean sea and the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta mountains on the Guajira Peninsula. It was proclaimed municipality in 1995.
The contribution of travel and tourism to GDP was US$5,880.3bn in 2016. Tourism generated 556,135 jobs in 2016. Foreign tourist visits were predicted to have risen from 0.6 million in 2007 to 4 million in 2017. Responsible tourism became a peremptory need for Colombia because it minimizes negative social, economic and environmental impacts and makes positive contributions to the conservation of natural and cultural heritage.
Serranía de Macuira is a mountain range in northern Colombia located in the municipality of Uribia, La Guajira. The Serrania de Macuira stands in the middle of the La Guajira Desert at 864 m (2,835 ft) isolated from the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta and the Eastern Ranges of the Colombian Andes. The range is a protected area; National Natural Park Macuira.
Bahía Portete – Kaurrele National Natural Park is a national natural park in Uribia, La Guajira, Colombia. The northernmost national park of mainland South America is located at the Caribbean coast of the La Guajira peninsula in Bahía Portete, between Cabo de la Vela and Punta Gallinas. Established on December 20, 2014, it is the most recently designated national park of the country. As of 2017, 59 nationally defined protected areas are incorporated in Colombia. The park hosts a high number of marine and terrestrial species.
The Governorate of New Andalusia was a Spanish colonial entity in what today constitutes the Caribbean coastal territories from Central America, Colombia and Venezuela, and the islands of what today are Jamaica, Cuba, Haiti, Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico. The Government of Nueva Andalucia was set in Venezuela from 1501 to 1513.
Hernán Pérez de Quesada, sometimes spelled as Quezada, was a Spanish conquistador. Second in command of the army of his elder brother, Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada, Hernán was part of the first European expedition towards the inner highlands of the Colombian Andes. The harsh journey, taking almost a year and many deaths, led through the modern departments Magdalena, Cesar, Santander, Boyacá, Cundinamarca and Huila of present-day Colombia between 1536 and 1539 and, without him, Meta, Caquetá and Putumayo of Colombia and northern Peru and Ecuador between 1540 and 1542.
Treasures of Colombia | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Source: Wills, Fernando; et al. (2001). Nuestro patrimonio – 100 tesoros de Colombia[Our heritage – 100 treasures of Colombia] (in Spanish). El Tiempo. pp. 1–311. ISBN 958-8089-16-6. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
