Day 480 – 484 Minca

Second week of Spanish lessons

Our second week of Spanish lessons at CREA went very well. We started learning more advanced albeit still actually basic Spanish. We had reduced the class down to 2 hours a day to give us more time for self study.

Most of the grammar was simple once we learnt it, but one of the hindering factors is our limited knowledge of verbs. Most verbs follow a simple pattern but then the irregular verbs are very annoying. The additional 20 hours of lessons turned out to be cheaper than the original 15 hours.

We also had another student join the class from Brazil. She kept saying that she only knew basic Spanish, but then would proceed to have a complete conversation with the teacher and get 1 word slightly wrong. In Brazil they speak Portuguese, so from this experience and how easy it was for her to speak, I would say that Spanish and Portuguese must be very similar. Depending on who you ask, people say it’s very similar or completely different.

Rest of the Day

Over the week we didn’t get up to much. The highlight was when some friends who we originally met in Arequipa, Peru arrived to stay with us for a few days. We managed to work around our lessons to chill with them.

Pozo Azul

We visited Pozo Azul, which is a popular waterfall a short hike away from town. Other guests had complained that Pozo Azul was too crowded. For us, only the first section was very busy. Once we crossed the river and walked another 100 metres, there was hardly anyone. In fact, we were able to enjoy a section of the waterfall with just the four of us for some time. However, the water is freezing. Once we got into the water, our bodies adjusted, but as soon as we stopped moving it got unbearably cold. Despite the coldness it was a nice place to visit.

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Another BBQ

We also had another BBQ with our friends. They are loose vegetarians as in they will occasionally eat meat to be social, but only prepare vegetarian food at home. We decided to have a 100% vegetarian BBQ.

We set up the fireplace during the day to prevent searching for kindling with torch light. It turned out to be the quickest fire that we started. The base was leaves, followed by wood and husks of bamboo trees, which turned out to be awesome at catching alight. There had been no rain over the last few days, which probably helped too.

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The food was tasty and filling. I honestly didn’t even miss any meat.

Siembra Boutique Hostel

My wife started planning for New Years in Minca and we decided to stay somewhere more luxurious. The boutique hotel at Finca Hostel Bolivar was fully booked, so we found a recently opened hotel.

One afternoon we went to check it out. Siembra Boutique Hostel is not a hostel in my opinion. There are dorm rooms, but we were eyeing the hotel styled private rooms. The facilities and views were really nice.

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The staff were a little frustrating and preoccupied. We were having some difficulty with the receptionist, who spoke limited English. He thought we had a booking, but we were only there to inspect the hotel before booking it. We were obviously the first people who wanted to do this.

Another thing that confused everyone, was the price. Booking directly cost significantly more than through booking.com. The owners who all spoke perfect English were just standing around and not helping the poor receptionist out until the conversation dragged on. One of them finally came to assist us and everything was eventually explained.

We had lunch here, which was delicious but the servings were on the small side. The experience with the staff put me off, but the place seemed very nice. We needed to get more cash to avoid the card surcharge, which gave us time to think about it. 

IMEI registration

A different guest gave us advise about our mobile phone. There is an initiative by the government to prevent phone theft. Once a phone is activated on the Colombian phone network, a 30 day grace period is provided. After this period the IMEI is blocked. The IMEI is an unique identification number that every phone has. Once the phone is blocked, changing SIM cards will not work.

However, we were able to follow steps online with Claro to register my wife’s phone. It was simple, but we later found out that the staff member had not registered our SIM with our names back in Cartagena. It was registered using a local’s ID, which made the process simple for us. If the SIM was registered under our name, we would have to find a store. If you plan to be in Colombia for more than 30 days, I recommend getting the phone’s IMEI registered in store when the SIM is purchased.

Travelled December 2019

Expenses and Transport

• Spanish Language School 20 hours – 400,000 COP (~$159 AUD) per person at CREA/Mission Gaia