Manaure Overview

By Lorraine Caputo

Amidst a flat landscape with a tired carpet of small-leafed trees and cacti meeting the blue-green sea is the small Wayuu village of Manaure. Northeast of Riohacha, it is called La Novia Blanca de Colombia, the White Bride of Colombia, for the important salt flats, or salinas that have been exploited here since long before the Spaniards arrived to these shores. On the Plaza Principal is a sculpture commemorating the salt worker. Manaure’s Catholic church has an impressive mosaic of Wayuu cosmology on its façade.

(Altitude: 3 m / 10 ft, Population: 29,137, City Code: 5)