The future of the Indigenous Wayuu in Colombia is hanging by a thread. Could tourism be a safety net?

“There was one year where it didn’t rain. All our animals died.”

Esperanza Pushaina’s stare is matter-of-fact, conveying the wisdom of 50-odd years inhabiting Colombia’s arid La Guajira peninsula. She pauses, gesturing towards the desert surrounding us and her community of Piruwaitamana. “And we died from hunger.”

In the past decade, a stream of tourists has descended onto the boiling-hot plains of this vast wilderness straddling the border between Colombia and Venezuela. It’s a landscape of two halves. Inland, the monotonous desert is dotted with dagger cacti, hardy, stunted trees and dreamlike salt flats.

On the coast, pristine sand dunes reign. Both are bewitching in their own right. But it’s also Colombia’s most underprivileged region and home to the Indigenous Wayuu people, who’ve spent centuries symbiotically coaxing life out of this inhospitable terrain.

Subsistence farming and bartering are a vital part of the culture of the 400,000 Wayuu people who live here in mostly isolated, rural settlements. However, rains vital for crops and livestock fall just a couple of times per year and, increasingly, not at all. Severe droughts have deepened food insecurity, with Human Rights Watch reporting that one in 10 children in La Guajira under the age of five dies from starvation. Over two-thirds of the peninsula’s inhabitants live below the poverty line.

Wayuu families live within the boundaries of a national park, but regulations prohibit them from moving beyond subsistence agriculture or opening guesthouses without costly environmental impact studies.

Climate change could be catastrophic for the region. Rainfall is predicted to drop a fifth by 2050, while temperatures are expected to rise by 4 degrees Celsius (7 degrees Fahrenheit)—three times the global increase. But it’s not just environmental changes that threaten the Wayuu. El Cerrejón, the world’s largest open-pit coal mine, drains Río Ranchería, La Guajira’s only river. Downstream, it spits the water back out, teeming with carcinogenic pollutants. 

A short distance west, El Cercado dam was ostensibly built in 2010 to provide clean water for nine La Guajira municipalities. But today, it still lacks the infrastructure to do so. Critics point fingers at governmental corruption for the failure of social projects across the region. For many Wayuu people, their drinking water arrives by tanker. Others walk for hours to reach natural aquifers.

Tourism has the potential to bring in funds to support initiatives that are now dire in the region. But of the hundred-or-so operators offering tours of La Guajira, just a handful are Wayuu owned. Macuira Tours is one. Founded 10 years ago by José Gerardo González, it’s a family-run business that introduces travelers drawn by the barren beauty of the peninsula to the Wayuu communities who live here. 

“Indigenous communities really don’t see what tourism is,” José tells me. High levels of illiteracy stymie employment prospects, while few can afford to move to the region’s capital, Riohacha, to study. But, tourism can create jobs: Macuira Tours’ itineraries visit Wayuu-run hotels and restaurants, employ Wayuu guides and offer opportunities to support traditional Wayuu businesses.

Heading northwest from Riohacha, scorched desert swallows the road, tire tracks etched into the sand taking its place. A rattling, four-hour drive and you reach beachside Cabo de la Vela, one of the peninsula’s largest communities. It has channeled the implacable trade winds that whip furiously across La Guajira to become a kitesurfing mecca—where you can stay in a simple Wayuu guesthouse, being rocked to sleep in a beachfront hammock.

But inland, tourism’s shortcomings are clear. Isolated cactus and adobe shacks are home to some of the peninsula’s most underserved families. As you pass, children stream out to checkpoints of rope and motorbike chains and demand snacks, water or money. 

“We were born in a desert. We’ve survived the sun and the thirst. One way or another, we will survive”

- Arnoldo García Polanco

It’s a rite of passage for tourists to buy sugary biscuits prior to leaving Riohacha. I ask my guide and driver, Euro González, what he thinks about these ‘tolls’. “Tourism passes through here but doesn’t directly improve their lives,” he says, blaming the government for the difficulties these families face. For some children, this might be all they eat that day. “Biscuits don’t help, though,” he adds. “They’re not lunch.”

Tourists’ complicity in this act fuels another of La Guajira’s problems. Almost every stunted tree and thorny cactus that battles its way out of the arid earth is littered with biscuit wrappers and plastic bags.

In the far northeast of the peninsula, the landscape changes. In tiny Parque Nacional Natural Macuira, the cloud forests of the Serranía de la Macuira are an oasis, concealing 17 endemic bird species and various mammals, including the pocket-sized margay, a petite version of the ocelot. It’s also regarded as the cradle of Wayuu mythology and culture.

Wayuu families live within the boundaries of the national park, but regulations prohibit them from moving beyond subsistence agriculture or opening guesthouses without costly environmental impact studies. José, whose clan Pausayu—there are 30 matrilineal Wayuu clans—hails from this region, refuses to let the financial barriers stop him from building a lodge that’ll bring income into his community. “One way or another, I have to achieve it,” he tells me, animatedly. “I know everything is possible.”

But tourism is—as the world learned during the pandemic—vulnerable to outside influences. I stay overnight at Punta Gallinas, the northernmost point of South America. It’s home to some of the starkest yet softest beauty you’ll find in La Guajira: The heavenly honey-colored sands of the Dunas de Taroa collapse into the gemstone waters of the Caribbean Sea. Between my toes, iridescent chips of shell stretch in a crescent moon around the bay. 

With space for 400 guests, Hospedaje Luzmila is the largest accommodation here. It’s owned by Tony Arends, whose grandparents were fishermen; now the family dedicates itself to tourism. Doing so has its risks, however. When I ask about the impact of COVID-19, he tells me a familiar story: “You survived on any savings you had.” 

This vulnerability is still being felt. Since taking power in 2022, Gustavo Petro’s leftist government has placed a 14 percent levy on flights into Colombia. It has hit Macuira Tours hard; visitor numbers have dropped 30 percent compared with last year. Colombia’s Asociación Internacional del Transporte Aéreo predicts the tax will see 1.9 million fewer international arrivals into Colombia in 2023.

Amid climate activists’ calls to reduce long-haul flights and lower global carbon emissions, the long-term impact of tourism on La Guajira remains uncertain. Before I leave, I eat freshly-caught lobster at a simple Wayuu restaurant with Arnoldo García Polanco, José’s cousin. From our table, the scooping curve of Bahía Honda on the peninsula’s west coast seems to continue indefinitely. 

Arnoldo is resilient and optimistic and, like José, believes the Wayuu can overcome these multifaceted challenges. “We’ve always survived,” he tells me resolutely. “We were born in a desert. We’ve survived the sun and the thirst. One way or another, we will survive.”

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