Rancheria Utta — Hotel in Uribia

Review for Rancheria Utta

Rancheria Utta (RU) is somewhat of a haven in this stark, beautiful land. There are a few places left on earth that feel forgotten not merely unknown. This part of Guajira is one of those places. Overall, Cabo de la Vela feels like a mix of Matamores-meets-Ensenada Mexico with a touch of Australian outback—with the requisite armadas of beastly FJZ-80 Toyota Land Cruisers that patrol this barren land. It’s definitely worth visiting if only to feel it’s otherness. But about RU specifically: it’s a 3/5 star kind of place. That it exists is wonderful. Yet sometimes it’s the small things that seem to get at you. This is somewhat the ‘luxury’ option around... and that’s probably a relatively accurate sentiment given the surroundings. But again, the small things. The door locks in our room weren’t functional, the windows didn’t lock either, and power here is shut off at what seems like whim. Some of the huts are open too—meaning the creatures of the night that buzz have no barrier. The shower has “fresh water”, but after many showers we concluded that we feel just as sticky after the shower. Maybe the water is very hard? The food is quite good, but you can expect them to say “we don’t have that” a few times. I️ recommend the Mojaddo. The water definitely isn’t potable—bring spring water. But such is life out here on la fronterra. The Wayuu women selling their wares are kind but you’ll have to say “no gracias” firmly at times. That being said, the cost of the same bags they are selling is 3x in the RU store. Just buy direct! It’s literally 4 meters away! Another top tip: bring a lot of water.

Also, one last amazing tip: at night you can stand at the water’s edge and if you look South-Southwest you can see the Catatumbo Lightning. This is a famous phenomenon that occurs in a very specific part of Venezuela in which there is near constant lightning—the most on earth by a significant margin. Wiki can fill you in on the scientific details, but the fact that you can view it far in the distance from Colombia is really, really cool!...

We booked a 3 days / 2 nights tour with Rancheria Utta during our holiday in Colombia with a family of friends. Although price was far above similar proposal from other operators, we were attracted by the nice location and were expecting, accordingly, a better service.|While the expectation about the hotel accommodation were overall met (Rancheria Utta is probably the most comfortable place to sleep in Cabo de La Vela and the restaurant is decent, too) the organization of the tour was a kind of disaster.|The first problems showed up already in the booking process: the hotel does not accept credit card (you will have to bring cash from Riohacha to pay your stay, as there are no ATM’s in Cabo de La Vela either) and there was no way to pay the 50% upfront payment required via wire transfer from Europe, being their bank account not enabled for international payments.|As a matter of fact, in spite of their confirmation and of constant exchange via WhatsApp until the night before, the pick-up was not arranged as planned: the drivers came late and unaware of the program, with extremely old cars (one broke the engine while still in Riohacha and had to be replaced, and I had to personally push the other to crank-up the engine on our way back), unsafe to drive in such a desert area and definitely not comparable with the 4x4 Toyota used by most of the operators which we met along our way.|Most regrettably, the management did not even try to fix the issues or at least to show their willingness to somehow settle our...

We stayed here with expotur expecting an enclosed cabin. This is even listed on their own website but we received a cabin that was open at the top. At night there were tons of mosquitoes. The room was poorly cleaned and we found old underwear on the door. The sheets had stains on them as well.

For breakfast and lunch be prepared to fight the flies for your meals. We walked through the neighboring small town and other places did not have the same amount of flies. This is an easy fix and staff told our tour operator that they were on the middle of fumigation. I think they are just being cheap.

The beach they have is rocky in comparison to the town. Our tour operator works with them because "they are away from noise." However through the night you can hear loud music playing and other conversation as the cabin was open the air without mosquito net.

There is a lot of staff employed but many hang around with their phones out. Our driver told us that we should pre order our dinner at 5:30 so we would get it at 7:30. We pre ordered our dinner to be ready at 6:30 and it was ready at 7:20. Furthermore we saw staff hanging outside of someone else's room while they were not they were not there.

Within the small town there are many accomodations and some with wifi. I am not entirely sure what benefits they provide. Do not trust the positive reviews because things have definitely changed after...