Minca, Colombia

Without further ado, Minca! <– That is what I wrote in my journal to begin this entry, so I thought it may work here too. Seems cute.

We got to the best hostel we have stayed in so far, Masayas Casa Viejas. Apparently this is a top hostel in Colombia, but we chose it completely at random only because we saw it had a lot of stars on Hostelworld.com. Everyone was asking how we booked it as if it were a difficult task so we took that as a sign we were on the right path. The path though, was a wild one. We got a taxi this time from Tayrona to Minca and it had AC! Thank the gods, but then things got interesting.

It took us about an hour to get to Minca. When we stopped I informed the driver we needed to go further to get to our hostel, but he said he couldn’t take us. Bewildered for about 5 seconds, the window rolled down and a man asked where we needed to go. After giving him the address he told us we had three options: 1. Walk with our bags for two and a half hours, 2. Take motorbikes, 3. A 4×4 could take us up for 100K COP. We chose options number 3 and it was a good call, even if the drive was nuts! Bumpy, muddy, scenic, funny, etc. S/o to our driver though, I never texted him that we didn’t need a ride down the last day because the hostel had one that went all the way to Santa Marta. I bet he’s okay, but wanted to thank him again.

Once we made it up and checked in we saw how high up we truly were. Not before signing up for a waterfall hike the next morning of course. We were in the jungle up in the treetops, living amongst the clouds. I believe Kate said it best when we were watching the first Minca sunset and she said, “This is my favorite place I think on Earth.” She’s not wrong.

Aside from the views, the food was so damn good. So many good breakfast and a la carte (what they called lunch) options. For dinner you just tell them before 5 if you want the meat or veg option. I have not been veg on this trip yet, so those dinners were a welcome surprise. We were there for cordon bleu night and BBQ night. Chefs were going off in the kitchen. Too much food to describe for yall you’ll just have to hold out for photos. This place was booked solid. All the beds were full.

In the morning at 9:30, our crew of around 20 started descending the mountain, so I knew the end of the hike would be a treat. We got to the first baby waterfall in about 20 minutes and we splashed around a bit before heading to the second one. That one was bigger but it had only been an hour so we found it odd that they said the whole excursion would be three hours. We made two friends, Justin and Miriam, both our age, which was new for this trip. Everyone else we had met seemed to be fresh out of Uni. These two are from Austria, they live in Vienna but will move back to the Vorarlberg region in a year or two. They said we should go there instead of Switzerland because it is the same views but half the price.

After the second waterfall our guide mentioned we were headed to the river. This man had been speed walking the entire time and it was tough to keep up. Turns out he does this hike almost every day, minus his off days. When we got to the river he jumped in immediately, so we started to put our stuff down on a rock and he had already gotten out and was going farther up and he pointed to our little group specifically and motioned for us to join. He could smell the adventure on us. We played follow the leader to get to the river slide. Walk, float over on your belly, climb up but never stand up, dive and swim around the current, climb up and get seated for the slide but never go left, always stay right. This part was so fun! Cold cold agua, but once you were in you were good. We stayed there for a good half hour before leaving.

We learned about bamboo and what the different colors / phase of life mean for their use. We tried berries, rhubarb, and some leaf. Little things to distract us from the hike back up that was looming overhead.

Tiring was an understatement, but we just kept saying we were training for Machu Picchu. The walk back up was a straight steep shot up the side of the mountain. We got back and immediately hit the pool This was the biggest and best pool we’d had at a hostel so far. The rest of the day was chilling and reading and hanging out. Around 17:00 we debated going to the sunset lookout spot but I was wary because of the dark clouds, but we decided to go. We were a tad early because it didn’t take as long as they said it would to get there. We got to see the view, which was incredible, but we also saw the storm clouds rolling in all too late. I had my umbrella but Mer and kate made a break for it.

Yes, we missed the sunset, but got a story for you guys in the process. We have been gifted many natural showers in Minca and they are happily received. That evening all the seats in the main dining area were taken so we sat in the bar with a handful of others and it worked out in our favor. Free shots and salsa lessons were to be had in the bar that evening. Kim had taught us about 2/3rds of the steps in Denver already, so it wasn’t hard to pickup the rest. Twas a fun night.

The next morning we did yoga and Mer and KB said it was a rather slow flow, but we didn’t mind. We checked out at 11:00 but stuck around until 14:00 because we wanted to eat lunch there. We read and let our clothes dry for a bit. I was halfway through the third book in my series at that point.

We then took that wild ride down the mountain in a 4×4 and switched to a regular car at the bottom to get to Santa Marta.

That is all I’ve got for our lovely stay in Minca. Talk to y’all soon!