Day 470 – Santa Marta to Minca

Getting from Santa Marta to Minca

We left our nice dorm room at Hostel El Espanolete, after packing our backpacks. The staff member was unsure if we could take our large backpacks on the colectivo to Minca, so we left the them in storage and went for a walk around town. 

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After having breakfast and buying some supplies, we went to the colectivo station. The company is called Cootransminca, which is located near the terminal to Tayrona National Park. We confirmed that the colectivos depart every 20 minutes with the last one leaving at 6pm. Also we could bring our large backpacks.

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Since my wife missed out on the Santa Marta Malecon (pier) yesterday, we went there. We decided to have drinks at a restaurant called Radio Bemba. My wife had coffee but everything I asked for was sold out. 

We picked up our backpacks from the hostel before going back to the colectivo terminal just before 2pm. The colectivo filled quickly and then we left. I think there is a combination between leaving every twenty minutes and waiting until it’s full.

Minca

Minca is located inland in the mountains. The trip took around 1 hour. The town is super small. We walked to our hostel, Finca Hostel Bolivar and were surprised to see that four other people from our colectivo were also staying there.

The owner of the hostel is Swedish, and a really friendly guy. We were staying in the dorm room (Casa Mango) and the others were all staying at the boutique hotel (Casa Maracuya), which is on the same site. The hostel is simple, but has everything.

There is an outdoor chill area, a kitchen, bathrooms. The best thing is that the dormitory only has room for 4 people, so we would only have to share all of this with 2 other people. Even cooler was the old school wind up telephone, that I used to call the owner once we reached the unattended reception building. I don’t think I’ve ever used one of these in my entire life. Also there is private access to the Minca River from the property, which is probably the coolest thing. If you can’t tell, we both instantly fell in love with the hostel.

Instead of admiring the hostel, we decided to go find some food because we were hungry. We went to a restaurant called Tienda Cafe Minca. We had a small misunderstanding about the price but it was still tasty and cheap. There was a sign advertising Spanish Lessons that caught our eye.

After our meal, we found a nice small grocery store to get some fresh vegetables. We wanted to utalise the nice kitchen and make a salad for dinner. As we were preparing the food, our room mates arrived. They were a German couple who were travelling from Mexico downwards through North America towards Ecuador. They were really friendly so we invited them to have dinner with us. 

Oh, and the town of Minca doesn’t have an ATM but of course, most of the town runs on cash. There is an ATM like service where you can use your card to buy cash but after months of transaction free withdrawals, we were hesitant to waste money on fees. We still love ING Australia! The hostel did mention the lack of ATMs in the welcome message on booking.com, but we never read it since we only booked the place as we were leaving Santa Marta.

Travelled December 2019

Expenses and Transport

• Colectivo – Santa Marta Terminal to Minca – 8,000 COP (~$3 AUD) per person departing every 20 minutes until 6pm with Cootransminca