Minca

Minca was also one of these stops I had heard a lot about last year but couldn't go as my time was limited so I definitely wanted to go now. Minca is inland into the mountains and because of this not really warm. Everybody recommend Casa Elemento which was even higher up in the mountains. To get there you had to take a motorcycle taxi for about 45 minutes so I figured I should leave my big backpack in Santa Marta and again just take my small one. Also like this I could also probably walk down from Casa Elemento on the way back to make a stop at the waterfall along the way.
When I got to Minca it started raining pretty bad. I had just started talking to one of the motorcycle drivers and told him I wanted to wait till the rain was over. But he told me it usually starts raining around this time of the day and doesn't stop till later at night. So I decided to put on my rain jacket and just go for it. That ride up there was crazy! I was happy I had been on a few motorcycles in the last days as I'm usually not to relaxed on the back of a bike. At least I was a little used to it by now. But the bumpy roads in Palomino and Costeño were nothing compared to this. Uphill all the way. Mostly unpaved. And due to the rain it was super muddy. Luckily my driver was really good. In between he had to put both feed to the sides to make sure we weren't falling over in the mud. And we were sliding to the sides quite a lot. But I told myself it was his job to bring people up there so he should know what he was doing. But I was still pretty happy when he pointed towards the hostel and told me we were almost there. We had to go a bit downhill now and this was actually even more scary so I kind of decided I would definitely walk down on the way back. But I still wrote down his license number in case I would have to take a bike - he had done a really good job. Later I learnt it wasn't to uncommon that people actually did fall on the way up here. I met 2 guys who got burned on the exhaustion pipe when they fell on the way up.
Besides for the adventurous way up Casa Elemento was famous for amazing views and huge hammocks. As it was still raining I couldn't make use of them right away. So I found a spot on one of the big tables and started talking to the other guests. As there is not much to do when it rains the volunteers of the hostel promote happy hour from 4-6pm quite a lot and other people already started playing drinking games. We left out the drinks but also played some fun games. Unfortunately all the people except me and one other guy were English so when we played charades we were sometimes kind of lost.
We had all signed up for dinner and the food here was really amazing.
It did get colder when the sun was down and I was a little afraid to go to sleep as I was again sleeping in a hammock and these were outside with just a roof over them. But they came with 2 big blankets and when I went to bed later that night I really enjoyed my spot. I had the view over the mountains and could even see the lights of Santa Marta in the far.
When the sun came out the next morning the rain was gone and I could chill in one of the big hammocks for a while. I thought about going to one of the tours but as it didn't completely clear of and there were still a lot of clouds I decided not to take my chances. It turned out to be the right decision as it already started raining today around midday. It always stopped in between but everything would be wet so we again spend most of the time on our big table. The boys from our group all left that day so from now on we were only girls which changed the topics of the conversations a little ;)
It's really a downside of the hostel that there are almost no nice hangout areas which are dry during the rain. So we actually all went to bed (in my case hammock) in the afternoon to read for a while. Luckily I had my hammock with the nice view.
The 3 other girls were also leaving the next day and we decided to walk down together after breakfast. It was a nice hike and fortunately it did not rain today. I walked with Kyria talking about her complicated boy-stories which were really funny. It felt like we had walked forever but when we waited up for Kaarina and Juliet to check how far we had made it we realized we only made it half way down. We had a quick stop at the waterfall and took a swim before going further.
Back in town Kaarina and Juliet got motortaxis to go back to Santa Marta. They wouldn't drive into town though but drop you close to the outskirts which didn't make sense for Kyria and me so we took the bus which turned out to be a pickup truck this time. For some reason we got to sit in the back with all the luggage - the driver specifically asked us to sit there and put the 2 couples that were also waiting inside the car. No idea why we were choosen to sit there but it was fun and probably the guy just knew that we wouldn't complain.Read more