Punta Gallinas

I got up at 4:30 in the morning to have a shower with a bucket of water from a well in our hostel in Cabo de la Vela as we were supposed to be picked up at 5. of course it was after 5:30 when the Jeep showed up. I was still pretty tired. Maybe I could sleep in the car? The car was pretty fucked up. There were no seatbelts and the windshield had a big crack. 2 girls were already in the car when we got in. Maria from Spain and Anna from France. Once the driver started I knew I wouldn't be sleeping. He was speeding like crazy. And as there were no proper roads and the desert was quite bumpy we were jumping through the car nonstop. I was sitting in the middle backseat and as somehow the front seats were to far of I couldn't hold onto anything. In these moments I'm always happy I grew up with an father being an emergency doctor - this way I got used to fast driving and I don't get scared easily.
Along the way through the desert there were a lot of kids holding ropes across the road to stop us and ask for sweets and money. Our driver would barly stop and the kids would usually drop the rope in the last second. Just one time we actually stopped and paid - an older guy was holding a chain across the road.
After a while we made a break at a little tienda for breakfast. Here we met a few of the people from the other cars speeding the same way and it seemed this could become a nice group. After about 2 hours we got to a spot where we had to leave the cars and get into small boats to get to our hostel. Here we were all guided into the restaurant area where they tried to organize us. We all had to give our name, the name of our driver (apparently we were supposed to stick with the group from the car that brought us here), if we wanted to sleep in a hammock or chinchorro and what we wanted for lunch. It all seemed to be pretty organized but somehow was still pretty chaotic.
After the hammock assignment we jumped into some bigger cars to get to the actual most northern point of South America "Punta Gallinas". For this tour we were now put together with other people. One of them was Jake. An Australian guy who managed to loose and find again his flip flops, his hat, his lighter and probably even more things I forgot about during the 3h tour. But he was fun ;)
The landscape around here was even more impressive than in Cabo. After Punta Gallinas we went to another lookout point over a bay surrounded by desert. This combination of desert and water was so weirdly beautiful.
Last stop on the tour was a huge sanddune which went straight into the ocean. We basically ran down the dune right into the water. We spend a while here chilling at the beach, swimming and talking. The group was really nice and a good mix of people. Some guys even brought a kite and went kite surfing.
For lunch we were brought back to the hostel.
In the afternoon there was an additional tour that was supposed to show you flamingos nearby. Not a lot of people went as you had to pay extra but I joined anyway as there wasn't much else to do. This time Jake didn't loose his phone but his phone lost battery so I had to take photos for the two of us which turned out to be a pretty intense job.
The flamingos were waiting for us on an island (this tour went by boat). But we couldn't really get close. And when we did they flew of to the other end of the island. We followed them over there but the flamingos turned out to be the least exciting part of the tour.
We went to another island from here with lots of cacti and a nice view. Last stop was another beach where we stayed till sunset. The sunset was cloudy and absolutely amazing full of different colors.
While we were sitting here I started talking to Jake about my situation traveling with Harri (he hadn't joined for the flamingo tour). I think I had already made my decision but it was good talking about it to somebody else who reassured me that traveling with someone is not easy and if it doesn't work it's just better to go separate ways before a big fight. So when we got back to the hostel I talked to Harri and was happy to realize he had also already made plans by himself.
After a saltwater shower and another night in a hammock in the desert we left early the next morning to head back to civilization.Read more