Colombia destination 3 – PALOMINO!

Where to begin? if you have been keeping up to date with this diary you will know that we hated Taganga and could not wait to leave. We had heard good things about Palomino so were justifiably excited to get ourselves another 2 hours up the coast to this hippy-vibe town. Spoiler alert…it is amazing and we love it!

As we are trying to save on $$ we opted for the public bus option to get there, so from checking out of our hostel in Taganga we hopped aboard the blue public bus to Santa Marta costing us each 1800COP (90c NZD). From there we walked about 1 block to the bus stop at the central market and to our surprise the second we got there, a man hopped out the bus grabbed our luggage loaded it on the bus and told us to hop on. Now being a public bus , it is packed but goes to Palomino and only costs 9000COP pp ($4.50NZD). If you get a taxi, expect to pay 160,000COP, and being on a budget, the bus was our only option.

It was actually fine, once I had stopped stressing and sweating as everything happened so quickly, I sat back tuned into a podcast and before we knew it we had arrived. We are staying in Due Amici Glamping village. It’s awesome. It is a luxury glamping tent costing us $50NZD per night and has a private Jacuzzi and full hang out area just for us. It’s hot – LIKE EVERYWHERE IN COLOMBIA, but worth it. 

Upon arrival, our host Gabriel welcomed us and gave us all the tips we needed for our stay, he is wonderful, full of advice and speaks perfect English so finally I was able to have a conversation. Our room wasn’t ready so we decided to take the walk into town, explore and then check out ‘ Playa Palomino’. Our first impression of this town was similar to Nimbin in Australia, full of hippies, weed and laid back.. so laid back it’s horizontal type of thing. It felt safe compared to Taganga and everyone was really friendly.
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The beach itself is long, sandy but the waves make it unsafe to swim, but you can still take a cheeky dip as long as you are strong and don’t get washed away – that would be instant death. After walking about 8km we stopped had some lunch and then back to the accomo to relax in the jacuzzi (which is cold btw) for the afternoon. We walked back for sunset at the beach and my god were not disappointed. The sunsets here are one of the main reasons to come. The sun is unobscured by anything so it’s truly beautiful and with heaps of chilled bars on the beach serving 2 4 1 cocktails , it’s the perfect place to spend the evening. There are also massive tyres (which we are not quite sure of their purpose) scattered along the beach, which make for some great photos.

​For dinner we opted for ‘Fogon de Lena’ , which apart from the cats and dogs scattered around the restaurant, the food was great and well-priced. Leo got the catch of the day which to our surprise was Red snapper for $7NZD and I have stuffed mushrooms with coconut rice for $10NZD – overall not bad for what we got and super delicious.