Palomino is a little town between Santa Marta and Riohacha (via La Guajira) that has gained a lot of popularity over the last decade or so.
To be honest, I don’t think I was aware it existed until, Katt, my girlfriend at the time, went there on vacation around 2015 and told me about this great place I had to visit. It was perfect for an affordable, relaxing holiday by the beach. She told me about this not-so-near spot where she saw flamingos, and some other adventures she had while there.
We planned our trip for April 2018, alongside other places, such as Costeño Beach and La Brisa Loca, in Santa Marta. We would decide where to stay depending on how things went. Unfortunately, the increasing number of tourists is transforming the once quiet, natural beachside community of Palomino into a much more touristic, commercial-establishment-filled town.
There are more and more places to stay, bars, restaurants and you will undoubtedly have fun, but it just not what it used to be, according to Katt. There are many well-reviewed hostels to stay at with different amenities and rates. We stayed at the Dreamer Hostel, which was really good, but to me, it didn’t feel like a place near the beach, more like a countryside hotel that you would find near Cundinamarca. Not to say it’s not great. I enjoyed the bar and the food quite a lot.
When we got there, she was sad, as it was not what she expected. We celebrated her birthday with some pizza and beer that evening, and she went to bed early, yearning that peace & calm she found just a couple of years before. That night, all you could hear was drunk people talking until late, but we were not in the mood.
The next day we decided to go back to another beach hostel we had enjoyed a couple of days ago, but just before that, we got to walk for an hour or so by the side of the beach, away from the now human-invaded Palomino.
We got to a beautiful place that intersected a small river and stumbled across a family that lived on that spot. They offered us something to drink and we could sit and enjoy the morning on that calm, privileged Colombian beach. I think that was the part we enjoyed the most. Palomino deserves another visit, with perhaps more time and a different mindset, as my first experience there was not what I thought it would be.