Municipality of Dibulla

Geographic Location

Southwest of La Guajira department, furrowed by creeks and torrents, Dibulla is located, one of the fifteen municipalities of the department. It divides into five corregimientos and an urban zone, located next to the Jerez river mouth. From east to west, the corregimientos are Las Flores, La Punta de Los Remedios, Río Ancho, Mingueo y Palomino. The whole municipality is ruled from the urban zone (known itself simply as Dibulla), where the town hall is located; among its sites of interest stands out the Maziruma Recreational Centre —which name in the wayuu language means between sky and earth— and La Chimenea (The Chimney), last vestige of what one day it used to be a sugar mill close to the Jerez riverside, during the late nineteenth century.

The Corregimientos

Regarding the corregimientos, Mingueo is the most populated and a great part of its territory is actually part of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta National Natural Park, hosting a significant number of inhabitants of the Kogi people. La Punta de Los Remedios is known for its carnival celebrations and ravine beaches, being a site that worth visiting. Las Flores, the only corregimiento without a seashore, held the Festival Cultural y Reinado del Mango y el Banano (Mango and Banana Cultural Festival and Beauty Pageant). Río Ancho, which was named after the river that crossed it from side to side (Wide River).

However, the most known corregimiento is Palomino. The river for which it was named forms the border between the departments of La Guajira and Magdalena. The river got its name after the Spanish colonialist Rodrigo Álvarez Palomino and its horse drowned in the torrent, trying to cross it back in the sixteenth century. White sand beaches and crystalline river waters are the main reasons why tourists from many places come to visit Palomino, from where it is possible to glimpse the Sierra Nevada, receiving many members of the ethnic groups that inhabit the mountains.

Inside of a department known for its desert landscapes as it is La Guajira, Dibulla stands out due to its river basins endowed with abundant flora.

Note: Corregimiento is a subdivision used in Colombia to refer to a place with a population core administrated by a municipality, itself a subdivision of a department. The word does not have a proper translation in English. Colombia has 32 departments and 1122 municipalities.