Minca's Countryside - An Experience Above, Below, and in the Clouds

After taking a rest for a day or two at the Drug Baron Finca, our wanderlust had kicked in again and we embarked on our next adventure. The first stop was Minca, a small town about 45 minutes away from Santa Marta, which we reached squeezed in the trunk of a jeep. From there, we had to change vehicles and ride up to Casa Elemento on motocross motorcycles. Casa Elemento, we were told, is a hostel high above the clouds, with giant hammocks and terraces to relax on, delicious food cooked by properly trained chefs, and delicious beer brewed by a German/Bavarian expat in the region (Note from Marius: It tasted so good, it could have easily been from Bamberg). All of this amazed us and we decided that would be our next stop. So far, so good. Now we had to conquer the muddy and gravel roads on the backseat of motocross machines. The ride started bumpy and, as expected, got even bumpier. We went uphill, passing hikers full of motivation who were walking the journey, surrounded on both sides by densely overgrown, jungle-like forests, over the increasingly muddy and slippery "road" aka path made up of landslides, towards Casa Elemento. Unfortunately, I had a driver who was still quite testosterone-driven and as we were passing a young, very attractive European girl, he lost control of the motorcycle. It happened so fast, we couldn't hold onto the machine and we fell in slow motion. That was the second accident in 2 months. A good statistic actually. But fortunately, no one got hurt, and after a few initial difficulties, the machine started again and we could continue our journey (Note from Marius: It looked very funny ;)). After about 45 minutes and some adrenaline moments, we finally reached the property. After a quick check-in, we could finally explore the property. And to our amazement, we were not lied to. The property met all expectations. The view was unique, the hammocks were huge and comfortable, and at the bar, there was "German beer," chilled and freshly tapped from the barrel into 0.5 liter glasses! Heaven 2.0! While enjoying our drinks, we also got to know wonderful people. Marieke from Denmark, Erika from Colorado, both teachers at a private school in Bogota, Glenn from beautiful Holland, and Juliett from Colombia, who always explores her home country during her vacations, and Oliver from Zimbabwe, who doesn't look at all like a person from Zimbabwe (but we already knew him from Cartagena). Together, we formed a fun group and promptly set off on our first little excursion to a viewpoint 45 minutes away from the hostel. The path there was adventurous and slippery, as it had rained again shortly before (like every day around 12 noon). Rain here is different from rain in Germany. Here it rains shorter, but more intensely. It often feels like it's raining buckets of bricks. Fortunately, usually after 1-2 hours, the rain clouds disperse and you can catch a clear and wide view of the valley and the clouds trapped within. Unfortunately, this phenomenon only occurred sporadically at our viewpoint, and we sometimes sat in thick fog, in the clouds, and then again in clear weather, and between the clouds, we could even see all the way to the sea and Santa Marta. Still, it was a unique experience. One hour before sunset, we started making our way back to the hostel and looked forward to a delicious and abundant dinner. We had turkey and celebrated Canadian Thanksgiving. The rest of the evening was spent with great conversations, lots of funny moments, plenty of beer (it tasted so good!), and as the highlight, an authentic Canadian Thanksgiving dinner with turkey and everything that goes with it. That's how the evening ended in a cozy round, and we all looked forward to the next day. We woke up at 8 o'clock, we can't seem to sleep any longer at the moment, went outside where the beautiful view of the valley sweetened our morning. Freshening up, signing up for breakfast, relaxing in one of the huge hammocks, and waiting for breakfast. Breakfast was phenomenal, super rich and delicious. Strengthened by breakfast, we finally started our day trip to a waterfall that was about 3-4 hours away. We went back up to the viewpoint, then to a village where we had to ask for directions to continue our journey to the waterfall. On our way, we saw several landslides that are triggered here daily by the heavy rain. The path was up and down, but never really exhausting. A beautiful hiking trail. Right at noon, it started raining again, and we decided to seek shelter in a nearby coffee farm, which also had some rooms. We stayed there for one to two hours with a cup of freshly brewed coffee and homemade passion fruit juice, to escape the wetness of the heavy rain. Here we also saw the toucan in the wild! But when there was no end in sight to the rain and we slowly started feeling time pressure, we decided to continue the tour despite the heavy rain. Our next destination was the brewery, which was situated 700 meters downhill. We heard they also had delicious sandwiches. Fueled by hunger and ambition, we entered the cool wetness and hurried down the steps to the brewery as fast as possible. However, due to the continuous heavy rain, the steps turned into a small, not entirely safe stream that ultimately forced us to stand in the water up to our boots at times, despite the steep slope (up to 30 cm), allowing water to enter our boots from the top. Some of us even slid down a few meters on our rear-ends. Soaking wet and captivated by the tremendous atmosphere, the rain couldn't harm us anymore (most of us put their t-shirt in a waterproof backpack, so we also got a free but very cold shower) and we felt invincible. After about 15 minutes, we finally reached the brewery, where we treated ourselves to the world's best sandwich and a cold beer. After the refreshment, we finally continued towards the waterfall, which we reached after another 1.5 hours. Once there, we relaxed on the rocks by the waterfall and enjoyed the sound of the river. Marius and Ericka wanted a bit more adventure and climbed a slippery and more dangerous path to get an even better view of the waterfall (It was so much fun ;)). When Marieke noticed the low position of the sun, she asked for the time, and to our horror, it was already 5 o'clock at that time. We had exactly one more hour before darkness set in, which worried us a bit because our Casa Elemento was about a 3-4 hour walk away and the path and weather conditions were difficult accordingly. After Marius and Erika still hadn't shown up, we unanimously decided that I should go and get them. I scrambled up the path and found the two adventurers after about 15 minutes. Together, we made our way back to the others and started our journey back to the "main road". Fortunately, we encountered motorcycle taxis on the way, and the drivers organized more drivers who would take us back to the hostel. We then said goodbye to Glenn at this point, as he was going back to Santa Marta from Minca. The ride in the dark and without much visibility over the extremely muddy path turned out to be the adventurous highlight of the day. Marieke's motorcycle chain broke, we got stuck in the mud once, and Oliver had the worst luck. He had to dismount from the motorcycle a total of five times, or rather jump off just before it fell, because it got stuck, and he even fell once because the driver accidentally did a wheelie (lifting the front wheel) when starting. Pure adventure!!! Overjoyed and pumped with adrenaline, we all finally reached the hostel unscathed. After a delicious dinner of lasagna and some after-work beers, we all went to bed pretty early, exhausted from the day. The next morning, we had a relaxed breakfast, relaxed in the hammocks, and around noon, we headed back to Santa Marta. In Santa Marta, we said goodbye to Olli at the bus station, and Ericka and Marieke accompanied us to our Drug Baron hostel, as they were still looking for accommodation for the next few nights. When we arrived at the hostel, we rearranged our luggage (as always, we had to keep it under 20kg) and said goodbye to the girls. At the airport, everything went smoothly, and we boarded the plane to Medellin. Our luggage weighed 18.5 and 19.85 kilograms.

With these words, we release you back into the freedom of your lives, and you can look forward to what we will experience in Medellin (Pablo Escobar's city). Stay tuned!

Best regards,

Marius and Max

Small note from Marius:

It was an incredible adventure, a fantastic hostel where we could see the power of no internet: Everyone sat together at the bar in the evening, chatting, drinking lots of extremely good beer, and no one was sitting alone in a corner. A true break from the sometimes zombie-like conditions in the hostels. The roads could barely be called roads, it was really sliding uphill on motocross motorcycles, mostly driven by 14-16-year-old drivers, through dense foggy forest. Helmets or safety precautions don't exist here. But this trip was definitely worth every sacrifice!