Minca

Why would you want to go to Minca? 'Everybody's told me its amazing' no it just rains there, stay and do more diving. I decided I'd take a break from scuba diving and visit Minca, a small town up in the Sierra Nevada mountains. When I get back from Minca I'll do my advanced and maybe even divemaster. Anyway I left for Minca early Tuesday, I got the local bus into Santa Marta and thought I knew where to find the 'buses' to Minca. I didn't and it seemed everyone I asked was sending me a different way, eventually after about 40 minutes of walking around in the scorching heat I found the corner where you actually get cars to drive you up to Minca. It's basically a shared taxi between four people with everyone paying 7,000 pesos. As we were heading up the mountain, the famous rain hit, quite nice actually something different. There was a little girl on the back of a bike with her mom, so just as it started raining the driver offered to bring her up, her mom was delighted but she was devastated being in a car full of strangers. She came around and didn't stop telling us stories and commenting on the bump band slides along the way, obviously I understood very little of what she said so I just smiled. The road to Minca was a mud track so the rain made everything worse, we did eventually get to Minca as the rain seemed to be stopping. So I wasted no time and jumped on a mototaxi to Casa Elemento. 15,000 pesos,  45 minutes, 3 slides and countless near misses I got there safe. But I was after missing lunch, so I had a beer, a brownie and cookies and held out for dinner. I spent the afternoon chilling in the giant hammock talking to everyone else.

Dinner was lovely, again it was a choice of meat or veg, I had the chicken curry with homemade nan bread. All of the food, was either grown in the hostel garden or locally sourced. There was an option to stay and volunteer, where you would work in the bar, kitchen, reception and help with expanding the hostel by making new paths or jungle adventure trails. I was very tempted to stay and do this for a few weeks. After dinner it was back to the hammock for a few more beers and I started chatting to a very hungover Aussie, Stephen who hadn't enjoyed the trip up as much as I had. I was in bed for 11 (first time this trip- I think) had a great night sleep in another top bunk. After the 'Rambo'  breakfast myself and Stephen headed for jungle town, to the bigger hammock. Whilst chilling in the hammock we decided we'd get ourselves packed lunches and head out on a trek around Minca, see some waterfalls and coffee plantations. We hiked 45 minutes up to Los Pinos, and saw a sign for a coffee shop on a coffee plantation.  Stephen spoke Spanish so we headed in, we walked past one house and down a lovely flowery path to this house. Two guys on their lunch break looked a bit surprised to see us, but we thought nothing of it. Steve asked for two coffees, I don't really drink coffee but this stuff was amazing no milk just a bit of sugar. We were given a flask of coffee to top our cups up too. While we were there the rain kicked off, it was another torrential downpour. We stayed dry and drank 4 cups of coffee while playing dominoes and chatting to the guy about his coffee and land. Eventually the rain stopped, so we decided it'd be a good idea to continue our hike. Steve asked for the bill, the man was confused and said there wasn't one this was just his house. Oops, we gave him some money and thanked him. He suggested we went a different route, so following his advice we headed towards Campano, we were meant to pass a nice waterfall but we never found it. We got to Campano to find a shop a few houses and two pool tables, so we had a game. There was a solider, who spoke some English in the pool room. We got chatting to him and he thought us how to play Colombian pool.

 From there we were headed to Pacca Tucan brewery. When we got to the road into the brewery a lady who'd just finished work told us, she worked at the brewery and it was closed since 4, it was 5.30 so we'd missed it by a long way. This lady told us Pozo Azul was only 20 mins down the road and it was really beautiful, we'd planned to go here anyway, but were worried it'd be dark by the time we got there, 'no it doesn't get dark till 7' she said. The 20 minute walk was actually an hour and it was pretty much dark when we got to the entrance, a shop owner told us it was 15 mins to walk in but we wouldn't see much as it was dark. We decided we'd run in and try get the last bit, after 15 minutes of running we still weren't there, we walked another 10 mins and finally got there. It was pretty dark but we could still see and it didn't seem that great. I'll have to google pics to see if we did miss out. From Pozo Azul we walked another half hour to a restaurant we'd both heard had amazing meat. The meat was slow cooked on a bbq and smelt amazing, it was a bit tough but I liked it. From the restaurant we had to walk 20 more minutes to Minca centre and pay 25,000 pesos each to get up as it was 'more dangerous'  reluctantly we agreed. The drive up was intense, more slipping and sliding, harsh breaking, skidding and felines tone running. It took just over an hour and was a great adrenaline rush. We were back at the Hostel just before 9 and we walked in and around 10k. A few beers, some card games and I was in bed for 2.30. Safe to say I had a great sleep. We didn't want to leave but the hostel was fully booked so we had to go. It was such a nice, peaceful hostel with lots to do. Even the toilet had an amazing view. We decided we'd get a 4x4 back as it would take us the whole way to Santa Marta. On the way down we were delayed for about an hour due to a truck getting stuck and blocking the road both sides. It took a big digger to come and drag it out. I've decided not to do my divemaster, as I want to travel more and see more of South America, if I've money and time at the end I'll do it. Cartagena tomorrow (Friday) then onto Medellin where I'll see Steve again.