Dear readers, I know the question on the tips of all your tongues: where has the latest installment of the Medellin & Tonic blog been? Well… I’m afraid to say disaster struck, and struck hard. On a pleasant boat trip from our island stay in Islas San Bernado (see future blog post), we were struck by a storm. We all took cover from the lashing hail behind spare lifejackets, with some passengers even hitting the deck (literally) to cower behind the seats in front. Unfortunately, my phone didn’t make; in part because of my burning desire to document the event for you all by taking pictures mid storm. Luckily, I’ve managed to recover the images from my phone. The one below is the last picture taken. Onwards to Minca!
Minca, Day 6
The next installment of our journey takes us to Minca. We bade farewell to lovely Lucilia (who has since creepily Whatsapp’d Billie to say things like “Goodnight”, but we think she’s just after a good review) and set forth bravely on our journey, which would take us to Santa Marta, the main city in that area of Colombia, and then on a separate leg to Minca, which is situated high up in the mountainous jungle. We told the bus driver we wanted to go to Minca from Santa Marta and he said he would drop us in a good spot to transfer over. At this stage I should really clarify that when we say things to people and they respond, what I really mean is Billie says it in Spanish and they respond in Spanish and then Billie tells me what they said; this trip would have been pretty much impossible without Billie, the linguistic genius that she is. Back to the action: we arrived in Santa Marta, our first real city experience – it was incredibly hot, lots of people were shouting and there were huge amounts of hustle and no shortage of bustle. No sooner had we trotted aimlessly towards a cashpoint (which are fairly scarce, and desperately needed) did we hear calls for Minca. We reserved a spot and Billie guarded the bags while I dashed to the cashpoint and back and off we went in a ‘collectivo’.
After twisting and turning through the verdant jungle for 45 minutes, we arrived in beautiful Minca, which turned out to be a very small town with a couple of main streets. We were dropped off in one of said streets and found out that our hostel, El Mundo Nuevo (The New World) was at the top of a very steep hour long hike (not including 20kg suitcases), so we enlisted the help of three moto drivers (motos are motorbike taxis, and very enjoyable). One moto driver took both our suitcases, with one strapped on the back and the other precariously balanced between his arms. Billie and I hopped on the back of the other two and so began one of the more terrifying experiences of my life; a half hour trip up an almost vertical path with rubble and dangerous obstacles at every turn. Sitting on the back I constantly felt as if I were to fall backwards off the bike and really was quite surprised I didn’t. I’m pretty sure I had the same terrified, fixed smile that I saw later on every other person we saw doing the same trip upwards when we passed them. Somehow, we made it, and arrived at the beautiful Mundo Nuevo. The view was spectacular. Our double room was really nice. For the first time, we didn’t have a fan or AC, which was worrying, but it turned out to be cooler up there and we had some of our best sleeps in Minca. The shower was as gloriously cold and refreshing as usual.
We’d done a bit of research and decided that we wanted to visit Pozo Azul (The Blue Water Well… believe it or not) which was a waterfall with a pool you can swim in, so we thought that with our remaining half day we could go down to Minca for lunch and then to the pool for a bathe. We walked back down the incredibly steep path that we had just been driven up and this time had the chance to admire some wonderful views off the other side of the mountain; with Santa Marta and the sea showing in the distance. We had an unbelievably scrumptious lunch at the recommended Lazy Cat restaurant and then got a slightly more calm moto to the entrance of the path to Pozo Azul. A thirty min trek later and we arrived at the pool which had a fairly decent number of people enjoying it. The water was very cold, which was perfect because jungle = sweaty, and we swam and floated on our backs looking at the jungle canopy.
Tragically, it began to rain and quickly got quite heavy. We’d heard that there was another path directly from Pozo Azul, which we had planned to take, and there was only one other path to take, that lead up past the waterfall and into the jungle. With nobody there to confirm that it would lead to our hostel, and with the rain falling and darkness still a way off, but a long walk ahead, I elected that we head back the longer way we had come. Billie wanted to take the path, and later it was proved to be the right call. Alas, safety won and we got back to Minca and stopped to take a breath at the bottom of the dreaded path up to the hostel. It was a grueling hike and as we got close to the top, night started to fall and Santa Marta started to light up in the distance. It really was very, very beautiful. We reached the top about an hour from the top (I timed it) and vowed to Billie that I would never walk up that hill again. Ever.
We ate a scrumptious veggie meal at the hostel and met some other Londoners (from Balham!). We played pool, cards and drank merrily into the night.
Minca, Day 7
We awoke to find the hostel dog wearing Billie’s shawl.
We had breakfast and then decided to do the cacao tour at La Candeleria, the local cacao farm. We took a 30 minute hike cross mountain that was thankfully fairly flat and then, along with some other travellers, we were given the tour by the very enthusiastic guide Lucho, who liked to make many incomprehensible jokes and then laugh outrageously at them. It was very endearing. He showed where the cacao fruit grow and how they pollinate (wind) and how they protect themselves from birds and insects (they’re hard). We then went back to the farm building where Lucho showed us every step of the chocolate making process from the fruit all the way through to hot chocolate. We were each given the fresh fruit to taste, which was surprisingly similar to mangoes but kinda slimy and not quite as nice. They are then fermented (start smelling like chocolate), then roasted (really smells good) and then ground, which I was proudly picked out of the group to do. We added boiling water, milk and sugar to the ground cacao and drank it. It was really, really good. They had also made up a mixture of chocolate & rosewater and the couples painted it on each others’ face as a face mask. He then did it to the non couples. One guy flat-out refused to have it painted on him and Lucho took the piss out of him liberally, to the great amusement of the group.
We rejoined the ridiculously steep path back down to the town for Lazy Cat lunch round 2 and had a wander around town picking up some Minca merch. It was then I made a terrible mistake: I broke my vow. Billie and I decided that it was preferable to walk up the Mountain of Death than undertake the Moto of Death up. Needless to say I regretted it, and after a fair bit of hiking found it the walk MUCH harder than the previous day. Several times I just slumped on the ground telling Billie I had given up and that she should go on without me. Luckily, she stayed and gave me words of comfort and support and basically had to drag me up the mountain. We did make it up, against all odds, and we ended the day with the best veggie pasta we’ve ever had with homemade bread (yum) and then collapsed in bed in an exhausted heap. No energy for merry drinking that night!!
The next day we would travel to Cartagena, a colonial city to the South-West of Minca – a jewel of the Caribbean coast! Many adventures and delicious meals are to be had there, but more on that next time.
