I’m writing this post from a Hammock outside a delightful wooden Cabana in a hostel just outside Tayrona National Park, a couple of days after we’ve left beautiful Palomino. However, I remember each exciting day with clarity, and so will recount them now with relish.
Palomino, Day 1
After a generally successful transfer to tiny Riohacha airport, we enlisted the nicest looking taxi driver to drive us through rural Northwest Colombia to our hostel in Palomino.
The drive itself was our first real view of Colombia. There were various clusters of buildings and structures spread down the sides of the only main road that runs down the coast. I was fairly surprised that there were so many people and so much activity on the hour and a half drive, and would have expected more emptiness. There were children running down the sides of the roads with energy aplenty in the searing heat and a surprising number of people were playing pool, which appears to be a popular pastime, and there is no shortage of tables to play on. The countryside is beautiful as hills and mountains teeming with jungle come into view. The taxi driver almost ran over a suicidal dog, which was horrifying, but the dog narrowly escaped.
Billie and I arrived at La Media Luna Hostel, our home for 3 nights. There were two dogs, Kooky and another whose name translated as Fleabitten, but seemed in relatively good nick! There were also chickens and a tortoise who would slowly walk at you with angry purpose if you went over to it.
We settled into our accommodation, which had no windows, but thankfully a mosquito net to keep the many, many, many insects out. We got our own toilet and a shower that looked out onto a nice field. The shower only ran cold which frankly is the only heat anyone sane would run it on anyway!
Palomino is a village that according to a friendly man who gave us a lift (more on that later) didn’t really exist 4 or 5 years ago. It consists of the main road (the same one that runs down the coast) as well as it’s high street that runs down to the beach, which has many hostels, small shops, restaurants and bars, two of which had a constant battle of who could play their music louder. They could both play it very loudly indeed. We got halfway to the beach before stopping at SUA restaurant which is as fancy as it gets in Palomino, which was incredibly delicious.
We then walked further to the beach and strolled down it for nearly an hour. Billie had a light dip while I paddled then we headed back to drink Piña Coladas in a beach bar on loungers till Sunset. Very chill. We finished the day by going out for pizza at a pretty brill pizza place in town. Halfway through the power shuts down in the entire town and everyone lights candles. We felt fortunate that our pizzas had already been cooked and there was wine aplenty. On the walk back to the hostel, everyone was manually starting up their generator engines and the party seemed to gradually resume; nobody was in particular panic. We got back to the hostel and our generator was fired up, which was great news because even at night and in darkness both Billie and I were sweating buckets, and without the fan in our room we knew we were toast.
Unfortunately, the generator went off again at about 1:30am and we were indeed toast. Sleep was sweaty and scarce and the cold morning shower was bliss before we started our next day.
Palomino, Day 2
After a delicious homemade hostel breakfast, we tell the hostel owner we want to float down the Palomino river in an inflated tube… which we heard was the done thing. About twenty minutes later a nice fellow and his two children (we believe) arrived at the hostel and took 6 of us on a hike through the local area and then through the jungle to the starting point of the ‘float’. Kooky the dog came with. Everyone loved Kooky, although we were concerned he might not find his way back home, as were going home via hour long river float.
The rings were connected via string, we all sat in one and our guide steered us down the slow moving river. The two kids had their own dual ring setup and they splashed and sang songs together the whole way down in a super cute way. To our horror, Kooky took the plunge and decided to swim the river while we floated. I wasn’t completely sure whether he did it lest he be abandoned, or whether he had done it before, but I’m assuming the latter because he was totally fine, apart from when he got trapped in the middle of our rings and aggressively tried to climb into Billie’s ring from behind her to escape, causing minor screaming and quite a lot of laughter. We passed lots of locals doing their washing in the river, either from their houses or at the bases of bridges. I had an embarrassing moment towards the end when I decided to hop out for a wee swim and my tube popped out behind me, flew into the air and landed directly on top of another passenger, who happened to be sleeping. He accepted my apology with as much aplomb as one can when one has just had a cold wet rubber ring land on your face while peacefully sleeping…
Palomino, Day 3
Today’s exciting adventure was to be a trip to a waterfall. Unfortunately (although I suppose fortunate that we found out before we went) the waterfall was dry and there was no point going. So we decided to go and see flamingos, which turned out to be the BEST thing we did in Palomino. We teamed up with our new friends from The Netherlands, Josh & Marloes who also had plans to see the flamingos. Our hostel called her flamingo guys, who were sent to meet us at Camarones, a village most of the way back to Riohacha. The plan was we meet them there and they’d take us to the flamingos. They were given a description of our clothes (I was “Gris, gris, sombrero”) and we were given a description of one of theirs and off we went for the bus. Miraculously we made it to Camarones which was essentially just a bus stop in a desert with a small minor road leading off it. We were very pleased indeed to see a young guy with a blue top and black trousers run over to us with some friends and shake our hands. He motioned us to 3 of his friends with mopeds and told us to get on the back, so we did! From there we had a SUPER fun bike ride through the most incredible scenery. We went through a small town and then out by a river (us biking on a foot wide stretch of ground next to it) that lead into an incredible beach landscape then through various different types of desert foliage and small villages, with all the rickety houses made of clay.
After about an hour of probably the best time of my life we arrived at a lagoon with hundreds of flamingos. They were fantastic and we took a ton of pics and generally admired them for a while before heading back to get the bus. Here are some of the best pics.
Disaster struck on Day 3 in Palomino. We got off the bus in a small town on the way back to Palomino, as it was the only cash points anywhere nearby, and it started pouring with rain. We took shelter under a kind mango salesman’s roof, but it didn’t appear to be relenting. The sky started to light up with lightning and the thunder was booming rather terrifyingly. We opted to dash to the bank and try and get the next bus back home, figuring there was no waiting this out… We successfully got our cash out and waited under another friendly person’s roof. Several buses went past and none were stoping and we weren’t really sure why. Eventually a friendly looking guy pulled over and offered us a lift to Palomino. We accepted at 3000 COP each (less than a pound) and jumped in the car. There were 4 of us and 1 of his after all. One of his windows was stuck down, his roof leaked and at first his engine didn’t start, but he got us to Palomino and told us his life story in the process, which was a sweet one. Palomino was fully flooded (pic at bottom of blog post… due to an error) and so we holed up with our new friends Josh and Marloes for some pizza, beer and wine in the aforementioned delicious pizza place. Again, the power went, this time before they had cooked the pizzas. Luckily they didn’t need it and we gorged ourselves silly. Again, we gave up on the rain stopping and waded (that’s an exaggeration) to the hostel, where cold showers awaited us.
It was a dramatic few days in Palomino, full of adventure and all the kinds of things my mum would disapprove of. I won’t forget it anytime soon! Next is Tayrona National Park.
