The Mountains of Minca

Minca, Colombia

Minca is a pretty little tourist town in the mountains outside of Santa Marta, Colombia. I spent a couple days there hiking my ass off and learning a little bit about the region.

The first day I did a 20km hike up to Los Pinos, a lookout with three out-of-place pine trees at the top of a mountain.

About halfway into the hike I stopped in at a popular hostel called Casa Elemento. It's built into the side of the mountain and offers giant hammocks hanging over cliffs and gorgeous views of the surrounding area.

From the owner of my hostel I learned some of the dirt on Casa Elemento. But maybe I should back up a bit first and explain some of the history of Minca.

Modern Colombian history has been dominated by El Conflicto - the conflict between guerrillas, paramilitaries, cartels, and the government. In the 80s Minca was the site a large battle between paramilitary forces and guerrillas.

The paramilitaries won, and for the next quarter century the lands surrounding Minca were full of para-controlled marijuana and coca fields. Apparently "Santa Marta" bud was internationally popular in the 80s and 90s. But in order for angsty first world teenagers to get their good weed, the people of Minca had to live in fear of right-wingers armed with drug money and automatic rifles.

Between 2003 and 2006 right-wing Colombian President Juan Uribe negotiated the disarmament that officially disbanded the major paramilitary groups. So officially they no longer exist. But in reality they still do.

In 2018, paras are no longer growing marijuana all over Minca. It's safe for backpackers and Colombians on vacation to hike the mountains, and there are many small fincas (farms) catering to eco-tourists.

But the paras still control the drug trade in Santa Marta, and apparently they have seized control of Casa Elemento and use it to sell drugs to first world tourists. There they host wild coke-fueled parties where they blast electronic music over the mountainside all night long. Which makes them quite unpopular.

After hiking half a day and seeing only Colombians along the way, Casa Elemento was somewhat shocking. Everywhere I looked I saw white people in bathing suits lounging in hammocks, in treehouses, next to a large pool, etc. I drank a free coffee and listened to an Israeli guy amuse two Dutch girls with bad jokes.

Back on the trail I met a Colombian woman named Maria Paula and a Belgian woman named Catherine as they passed me heading up the mountain. At the top we met again and hit it off pretty well. We spent an hour talking and made plans to hang out again.

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Maria Paula had to fly back to Bogotá the day I met her, but Catherine and I met up early the next morning to go on another long hike.

First we went out to Mundo Nuevo, an organic farm and lodge. Mundo Nuevo was an environmental sustainability project created by Europeans but working closely with the local Wiwa indigenous community. They sorted their recycling into 10 different bins and were really pumped about recycling water.

Eco-farms and hostels aren't really my bag. To me they are offering micro solutions to macro problems. Even on the scale of one city, I don't think starting an eco-farm changes a whole lot.

For example, after the European founders of Casa Elemento were muscled out by paras, they decided it would be a good idea to open another hostel. The city shut them down for diverting river water into their pool and dumping the chlorinated water back into the river. But they soon reopened, probably because they bribed officials.

So if another hostel opens up that doesn't pollute the local drinking water, how does that stop anyone else from doing it? And besides, shitty hostel owners are a drop in the bucket compared to major industry when it comes to consuming and polluting drinking water.

Still, I suppose sustainability projects like Mundo Nuevo do serve a role in disseminating positive ideas about sustainability. And it's not like they're hurting anybody.

From the folks at Mundo Nuevo, Catherine and I learned of a nearby hike up to a lookout in the mountains. The trail started in the backyard of an abandoned hostel and was quite overgrown. A few kilometers in we had to climb over a barbed-wire fence, and that took us up to the top of a mountain.

Catherine was super cool and hilarious, but unfortunately she had a Dutch boyfriend somewhere in the world and was about to return to Belgium. I had a great time hiking with her though. Afterwards we got lunch and checked out a Coca museum. She gave me a wink when we said our farewells. Such spunk and style!