Palomino hides a paradise with beaches of fine white sand, warm blue waters and lush vegetation, which have become a refuge for the rest of foreigners and a promising destination for Colombian tourism.

This district of Dibulla, the westernmost of the municipalities of the department of La Guajira, emerged as a magnet for tourism less than 15 years ago and since then has not stopped receiving visitors, mostly foreigners. Basically, young travelers looking for virgin destinations, foreign to mass tourism.

You can reach it from Santa Marta (78 kilometers) or from Riohacha (73 kilometers), along the Caribbean mainland. The access is made by a narrow dirt road that starts from the aforementioned road and goes in about 500 meters, flanked by inns and hostels of all kinds that offer, in Spanish and English, lodging, food, mobile telephony, wireless internet And even laundry. In the place are obtained from hostels where you pay from 20,000 pesos per night per person to elegant cabins with access to the beach.

At the end of the narrow route, the visitor is faced with the vast blue Caribbean Sea and Las Marias beach, where you can rest under the trees or at the foot of the palm trees, while refreshing with a beer or a piña colada . Also, enjoy the warm Caribbean waters. However, there are times of the year when the waves are very strong and swimmers can not enter the sea. You have to be attentive.

If the desire is fresh water, there is the Palomino River, which in its crystalline waters allows to make trips on board floats when it approaches its mouth in the sea. It is a relaxed plan in which you can contemplate all the natural heritage that characterizes this Colombian region.

“In Palomino we have very close to the sea the Sierra Nevada of Santa Marta, which gives a very valuable biodiversity and a very pleasant microclimate,” said the Secretary of Tourism of La Guajira, Victoria Ariza Hinojosa.

The emergence of this natural paradise was possible when illegal armed groups, which for decades dominated the region – especially the paramilitaries – began to demobilize thanks to an agreement with the government, a process that ended in 2006.

“Palomino is experiencing a real post-conflict today. This was a very complicated land, a period that I hope will not return. Today we enjoy a lot of security and tranquility, “said the mayor of Dibulla, Bienvenido García.

“This is beautiful, the truth is that it is a paradise,” says the Argentine Victor Galarrada, who, with his friend Diego Cota, came to Palomino for a vacation.

“The water in Argentina is very cold, very brown; Here is another thing, it is warm, blue, “notes Cota.

The natural wonders of Palomino are, according to Ariza Hinojosa, only one of the many that this region has in the extreme north of Colombia.

“We have desert, we have five living ethnicities – the four of the Sierra Nevada (kogui, arhuaca, kankuamo and wiwa) and the Wayu – we have mountains, rivers, sea, Perijá mountains and a wonderful dwarf cloud forest in the middle of Desert, which is the mountain range of the Macuira, a natural park, “he added.

Visitors to Palomino can visit other attractions in La Guajira and Magdalena. At 33 kilometers, on the road to Santa Marta, you come to the National Natural Park Tayrona, owner of several of the best beaches in the country. And also worth visiting Santa Marta, a city whose historic center has been remodeled in recent years. The International Marina, the beaches of El Rodadero and the Aquarium are other attractions of the capital of Magdalena. In La Guajira you have to go to Cabo de la Vela, the dunes of Taroa and Punta Gallinas.