A few tips for visiting La Guajira

The northernmost region of mainland Colombia is visited by more and more tourists every year. You can find a lot of useful information online, so there’s no need for me to mention the most popular places to go to. This blog post aims to provide some practical recommendations based on my trip to La Guajira that I took two months ago.

A few tips for visiting La Guajira

Spend some time in Riohacha
Most tourists start their trip to La Guajira in Santa Marta, Barranquilla, or even Cartagena. Riohacha is often seen just as a transit city, which I think is a bit unfair. The department’s capital has a pleasant vibe and I really enjoyed my time in it. I recommend spending a night there so you can see a beautiful sunset from the promenade. This is a nice opportunity to visit a coastal city that isn’t that popular with foreign tourists. There are direct flights to Riohacha from Bogotá, Medellín, and Cali, which makes it easy to reach.

It’s better to book a tour in person
A trip to La Guajira definitely isn’t cheap by Colombian standards, and if you search for tours on the internet, you will find some really expensive packages. There are plenty of agencies in big cities that can take you to Cabo de la Vela and beyond, and you will find lower prices when you go to the office in person. This is another advantage of going to Riohacha since you can find a better deal there compared to Santa Marta or Cartagena. I recommend that you shop around and visit more agencies, which will give you a chance to choose the operator that suits you best.

The coastal road provides a nice detour
Most visitors travel from Rioacha to Uribia using the main road and the Cuatro Vías intersection. However, that means missing out on some nice places to visit. The coastal road is less comfortable, but you can stop in Mayapo, which offers stunning sandy beaches. I also highly recommend visiting the saltworks of Manaure, where you can take an informative tour to find out more about the process of extracting salt from seawater. If you’re not in a rush, visiting these two places on the way to Uribia is a pretty good option.

A few tips for visiting La Guajira

Uribia can be a good starting point as well
The indigenous capital of Colombia doesn’t have any beautiful sights, but it’s the closest town to Cabo de la Vela with some amenities. Work Space Hostal is the only property in Uribia that can be found on booking.com at the moment, and I can confirm that it’s a good place to stay at. The main advantage of spending a night in the town is that you can leave for Cabo de la Vela early in the morning and beat the crowds, which is especially helpful when travelling during a popular vacation period.

It’s possible to explore La Guajira independently
If you don’t like using tour agencies, you can go to the most visited places on your own. Driving a car is an option, but that’s a bit risky since the farther you go, the worse the roads get. It’s also easy to get disoriented in the desert, so most people prefer to hire a local driver. Probably the cheapest option is to get a ride to Cabo de la Vela in a jeep from the intersection right outside Uribia, and then pay for a trip to places such as Pilón de Azúcar. It seems to be safe to do so, and adventurous travellers may choose to move around without being part of a guided tour. The main dangers to tourists come from the harsh environment, so don’t forget to pack appropriate clothes, a lot of water, and plenty of sunscreen!

A few tips for visiting La Guajira

Take a lot of cash with you
There are three Bancolombia ATMs in Uribia, but only one of them was working when I was there. I got lucky and managed to withdraw enough money for the trip to Cabo de la Vela because the following day all the ATMs were out of operation. It’s a good idea to get your cash in advance in one of the big cities.

Speaking of money, La Guajira isn’t the right place for negotiating and asking for discounts, which is common in some other parts of Colombia. Food in places like Cabo de la Vela and Punta Gallina is pricey by Colombian standards, but it’s important to look around and see how basic the infrastructure is. There are issues with water and electricity, and a lot of stuff has to be transported by land in difficult conditions, which explains why you need to pay more for some products and services.

Don’t expect a sanitised experience
La Guajira is quite clearly a beautiful place; seeing the desert meet the sea is something you won’t forget. However, you have to be ready for some less pleasant sights along the way. If you explore the region on Google Street View, you can easily find images like this one. Unfortunately, there is a huge problem with plastic waste in La Guajira due to an ineffective waste collection system and lack of education. It’s common to see the locals litter and pollute the area in which they live, which I think may turn into an environmental disaster in the near future.

You will also encounter children trying to stop cars and ask for money or food, which may be distressing for visitors. The locals I’ve talked to suggested that it’s one of those situations when doing what you think is a good deed may actually exacerbate the problem.

The overall feeling in La Guajira seems to be that the region receives very little attention from the government. In addition, the department is beset by rampant corruption and incompetence. For example, a new bus terminal was opened in Uribia in 2015. For some bizarre reasons, it has never been used by actual buses and the intersection just a couple of hundred metres up the road continues to serve as the main transport hub.

I’d say that La Guajira is a good example of challenges that developing countries often face. Having beautiful landscapes is obviously a great thing, but there are still plenty of issues affecting the local population that need to be resolved.

Main takeaways from my first year of freelancing

When I moved to Medellín a year ago, I decided to make a major change in my professional life and quit my stable job at a language institute. I became self-employed and started to offer my services to institutions, private students, and teachers. Now that I have some experience under my belt, I’d like to share a few thoughts on the pros and cons of working as an ELT freelancer in Colombia.

Medellín, Colombia

Freelancing has many benefits
Working as a teacher for Centro Colombo Americano was great in terms of gaining teaching experience, but I wasn’t happy with being underpaid and having few opportunities to develop professionally. Freelancing allows me to focus on work that pays better and helps me learn new stuff. In addition to working as an independent contractor for International House, I run my own online courses and offer consulting services. I’m now involved in a variety of activities, which is much more fun than repetitive work at a language academy, and I feel that I’ve learned a lot about a few areas of ELT that I hadn’t paid attention to before.

Being proactive is crucial
Since I have no guaranteed number of working hours, it’s all very simple. The onus is on me to find my own clients, which means that I have to keep in touch with a lot of people. Freelancers are recommended to have more sources of income, and there are some pretty good reasons for that. Companies may cancel their English programme, students get a job that prevents them from attending classes, etc. It’s important to be ready for that eventuality and know how to find a way to replace that lost contract.

Word-of-mouth recommendations are extremely helpful
So far, I haven’t had to use any third-party services to find my private students. When I started freelancing, I simply contacted a number of students I had worked with before and offered them advanced English courses delivered through Zoom. It seems that personal recommendations are very powerful because once I managed to get my first students, I started receiving messages from their family members, colleagues, and friends who would like to be taught by me. This makes me very happy since I can keep teaching classes completely independently without relying on a platform that charges a commission.

I like having a flexible schedule
Since I’m not an employee anymore, I can choose when and how much I’m going to work. When I’m too busy, I simply tell the institution or individual who is contacting me that I’m not available at that moment. I can also decide to take a day off anytime I want, which is great. Since I don’t have a fixed schedule, I’m flexible when it comes to rescheduling lessons in case something unexpected happens. Having more freedom is one of the main reasons I made the decision to go freelance. I was actually in talks to teach at two local universities, but both of them require their teachers to work on Saturdays, which would have clashed with my other projects, so I chose to become self-employed instead.

I can teach the way I want to
Working with private students is amazing! I don’t need to follow a syllabus written by someone else; I analyse the individual’s needs and create a course just for them completely from scratch. It’s great to be able to spend time on areas that tend to be neglected, such as teaching listening skills; I follow John Field’s advice to do that, and it works pretty well. I’ve also enjoyed running group courses based on TBLT and the Dogme approach. Being fully in charge of choosing and designing course materials is one of several advantages of working as a freelance teacher.

Teaching isn’t the only thing one needs to pay attention to
When I was an employee, I would just sign my contract and let the language institute deal with the rest. Since I work as an independent contractor on what is called contrato de prestación de servicios, I’m responsible for following local laws and regulations when it comes to taxes and social security. I needed to get a tax identification number (RUT) and sign up for health insurance and pension as an independent contributor. I highly recommend that you check out this Sponge Chat with Nicola Prentis in which she stresses the importance of thinking of your pension. TEFL is usually seen as a short-term career, so this topic isn’t that often talked about.

It can be done only with the right kind of visa
Freelancers tend to have various sources of income, which means that you need to hold a visa with an open work permit. There are two popular ways to achieve that here in Colombia: You can stay on an employee visa (type M) for five years and then get a resident visa, or there is a shortcut for those with a Colombian partner since that kind of visa allows the holder to work as a freelancer. I’ve also seen reports of people successfully obtaining the new digital nomad visa, but that one is more about being able to stay in the country for more than six months. Digital nomads can freelance as well; however, they can’t work with clients based in Colombia since their income has to come from abroad.

Being ghosted is very common
I’ve been involved in quite a few chat or email conversations in which the other party simply disappeared for no apparent reason, even after they had accepted to join my course or use one of my services. It seems that some people believe that ghosting me is a better option than being honest and telling me that they have changed their mind due to my hourly rate or something else. While it’s not that surprising in the case of institutions and strangers from the internet, it’s very disappointing when it’s done by someone I’ve known for years, and it inevitably sours the relationship. This has made me focus more on quality rather than quantity, so I prefer to work with a limited number of clients who are genuinely interested in attending my lessons or consultations.

It’s necessary to set clear rules
When you don’t use a middleman to assign classes to you, it’s up to you to arrange everything with your students. Being too nice is a disadvantage because the fact that someone says they will pay you doesn’t mean that they will actually do it. If you want to avoid chasing payments and having uncomfortable conversations, you need to make it clear to your students how things are going to work. You may have to set deadlines for payments and decide what to do in case of cancellations. It’s important to make sure that the process of getting paid goes as smoothly as possible.

► If you enjoyed this blog post, I recommend that you read More Than a Gap Year Adventure, a collaborative book aimed at those who wish to have a long-term career in our profession.