Palma Sola

Palma Sola is the main settlement on the coastal strip of Alto Lucero de Gutiérrez Barrios municipality, in central Veracruz. It sits barely above the Gulf, around 7 metres up, and Federal Highway 180, the coast road, runs straight through it as its main street. The 2010 census counted 3,144 people here; by 2020 the figure was about 3,227.

The village is best known for what lies next door. Some five kilometres to the south, at kilometre 42.5 of the Cardel–Nautla stretch, stands the Laguna Verde nuclear power station, the only one in Mexico, and Palma Sola is the community closest to its reactors. That proximity shaped local history: in June 1988, two years after Chernobyl, farmers from Palma Sola blocked the Gulf highway for three days in protest against the plant before federal forces cleared them.

Visitors mostly come for the sea. Palma Sola's own beach has a relaxed, family atmosphere, and Boca Andrea, close by, is an almost undeveloped stretch of sand. There is also a small airfield, the Boca de la Loma aerodrome, with an 800-metre strip restored in 2009. The village makes an easy lunch stop on a drive up the coast between Cardel and Nautla, and a starting point for the winding climb inland to the municipal seat of Alto Lucero, the hometown of the singer Paquita la del Barrio.