Minca - Colombia
Welcome to this beautiful tiny village - a piece of heaven in the mountains of Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta. If you didn´t know (I for sure didn´t) the Sierra Nevada is an isolated mountain range just 42 km from the Caribbean coast. It's the highest coastal range in the tropics and look at these altitudes: The highest peaks include Pico Cristóbal Colón (5.775 m) and Pico Simón Bolívar (5.560 m). It´s declared a National Park and UNESCO Biosphere Reserve, home to several indigenous tribes, incredible nature, waterfalls, natural pools, rivers and lots of spiders. If you´re not a big fan of spiders I suggest you do the same as me: try to ignore the fact that there could be some and enjoy yourself :-)
But first of all: How to get to Minca in the first place?
If you want to go to Minca you can either come by taxi, by mototaxi or you take the cheapest option - which is the public tiny bus, operating all day long from Santa Marta to Minca. In Santa Marta, go to the Mercado Público and look for the Cootrasminca office. Buy a ticket for 10.000COP (which is small money). But prepare to go on a very squeezy ride with no personal space and sometimes loud music. Colombia style :-) You will sweat and you will be closer to strangers than you would want to be with your best friend. But it´s worth it. Every drop of sweat!
What do do in Minca?
Well, this is not a place for Netflix n Chill, that´s for sure. The village itself is super tiny but with lots of cafés, shops, one mini church, lots of hostels and lots of mototaxis. For people who don´t fancy walking they can take the mototaxi to reach some hostels, waterfalls or mountain peaks but if you are capable of walking I suggest you do exactly that.
To see, to do, to eat:
- Pozo azul (natural pool & river) - ice cold water - if you´re more cold resistant than I am you can swim :-)
- Marinka waterfalls (same same but different)
- Do a hike, for example Marinka Waterfalls to Los Pinos to El Campano (or take the mototaxi to El Campano and walk down via Los Pinos / Marinka Waterfalls back to Minca
- Book a farm to table workshop at Plan B and get a tour of their permaculture farm, be blown away but tons of knowledge you´ll learn there and have an amazing lunch. It´s one of the best things I did there!
- Eat at Duni Café (everything is fresh, homemade and absolutely yummy)
- Buy goooooood bread or yumyum Focaccia or pastries at La Miga Panaderia
- Buy coffee (you basically can´t go wrong with coffee from the Sierra Nevada - for me the best coffee in Colombia (and I bought a loooot) - There´s a small tiny coffee shop on the way to Pozo Azul, it´s called El Caracol. Take a break, have a coffee, buy coffee beans ;-)
Special recommendation:
If you want to get away from civilisation, maybe you need some peace and quiet and want to have the most incredible views then I suggest you hike (or mototaxi) to Mundo Nuevo Eco Lodge. Very remote, very quiet, very beautiful. Still, you´ll have a nice pool, yoga in the morning, hammocks and full board vegetarian food (you certainly won´t starve). I recommend staying at least two nights so that you can fully immerse yourself in this stunning magical place on our planet (and of course - get eaten alive by mosquitos, because if the nature is beautiful the mosquitos are not far away ;-)
I did a very adventurous hike which the lodge recommended on their website but please don´t go without the Komoot app to guide you and preferably don´t go alone. The hike is called Nuevo Mundo Hostel loop from Minca and it´s roughly 10k walking through sometimes very dense forest and with absolutely no signs which you could follow. Sometimes steep slopes, and most certainly snakes and spiders - and no cellphone reception. I went with a girl I met at the hostel and I was glad we were together on that adventure.
Back at the lodge: Cocktail, pool, mosquitos and a sunset to die for!
