Mirador Valle de la Tatacoa

The meals by Lina are incredible!! Lina is so kind and welcoming. The cabin was simple but really nice, comfortable bed and always a good temperature. The animals around the farm are super cute. It’s far from villavieja, but definitely worth the trip as it’s super close to the grey desert and being remote gives you a great feeling of the desert

I felt right at home because of the hospitality of José, Lina and Juanjo. Could ask them all my questions and the Colombian food is delicious. Dinner, lunch and breakfast. It's a bit far towards the east of the Tatacoa Desert (30min by car from Villavieja) but it was fully worth the little trip. The area is peaceful. There are cute animals at the ranch, dogs, a pig, cows, a goat and you can see many birds flying in the sky. Across the road you can start a 1,5 hour walk through the Xilopalos Valley which is beautiful. Overall, its a very peaceful and hospital place inside the Tatacoa Desert. Thank you José, Lina and Juanjo!

The staff is very nice and the facilities were good enough and a decisive improvement if compared to camping in the desert.

You’ll have to use the electrical outlets in the morning to charge your phone at the kitchen counter. The water bought separately is overpriced.

The huts are in the grey desert and you can walk to the mineral pool a d other key sites here. But you will need a car or a taxi to get here, it's super remote. Food is quite cheap around 15,000cop per meal.

Huts are very small and basic, no WiFi and no electricity, just solar power so the fan works off a battery which doesn't last more than 2 hours at night. Room gets stuffy and unbearable. You need to eat the meals at the place as there is nothing else nearby. I wouldn't stay longer than 2-3 nights. 200,000cop to get a lift from Neiva to the accommodation which I think is too expensive when a local taxi offered 120,000.

The hosts were friendly, breakfast was very generous and yummy, very beautiful location with great views, good mosquito nets in the bedroom, solar power

The location is a little bit expensive to get to since it is near the end of the desert. There was no designated common space other than the one belonging to the house of the host family, which meant we spent tge evenings in the room

Our stay at Mirador Valle de la Tatacoa was excellent! The place is far from the noisy more touristic area which makes it the perfect place to disconnect and have a peaceful time. Although at the same time it's right in front of one of the landmarks, the "Valle de los xilopalos". The hotel will give you the contact of some locals who can guide you around in case you don't have your own car. They also offer some rental options of bikes (2 of them available) or even some guests got a motorcycle (not sure if it was a special case). I would recommend that for your stay you spend at least 2 full days (from early in the morning and including the 2 nights) to explore the area. One full day to do the typical touristic things (valle de los xilopalos, red and grey parts of the tropical dry forest, and astronomy workshop) and a second day to do a tour on the further side of the desert. In our case Jose (the owner) helped us coordinate a tour to a chocolate farm, which was really good. Then we had a ride through a long desert road where we could make spontaneous stops to see the landscape or to watch some birds. We also had time to got to two museums (natural history and a small palaeontological one). And we also had a relaxing break at a mud + natural pool venue. All in all the service was excellent and Jose (the owner) and his collaborators were super kind and helpful.

There were a couple of things that can be not too comfortable, but mostly they are like this due to the fact that you're in an area that is hard to access and far from the comfort of bigger cities. Mobile phone coverage was not so good, which made communication a bit tricky sometimes. The huts that the hotel has are powered by solar cells. This made it so that the light would get dimmer and dimmer during the night, having at most 30 minutes of normal light and then having barely usable light. Also about the electricity method, the fan would only store enough energy during the day to work around 5 to 10 minutes. So, we had to be very careful about the usage of both the fan and the lights. In the end the small discomfort added up to the authenticity of being in the middle of nowhere.