Cabo de la Vela

Cabo de la Vela (Spanish for "cape of sail") is a headland in the Guajira Peninsula in Colombia with an adjacent small fishing village.

Its name derives from the first view of the cape from the sea, when the pale colors of the promontories and their curvilinear forms emerging from the flat desert, suggested vaguely to the Spanish the shape of a sailboat.

Pearl deposits led to constant attacks from the indigenous Wayuu and other Spanish conquerors from the neighboring Government of Santa Marta and New Andalusia Province, and the village was moved to present-day Riohacha in 1544 and refounded by Nikolaus Federmann.

[1][2] The aboriginal inhabitants of the area were an ethnic group of Arawaks, who remained free, defeating the Spanish Conquest.

[3] Cabo de la Vela has a hot arid climate (Köppen BWh) with little to no rainfall in all months except October and November.