These photographs were taken during my visit to Colombia, from June 24 to July 23, 2025. for an overview of the trip, click here!
Minca
Minca is just a few kilometres uphill from the large coast town of Santa Marta, but it’s a different world. It is a little mountain oasis, covered in green forests with wide views and relaxing places to hang around.
We stayed at a small and quite excentric place just south of town, and only had one full day there, so not much time to relax.
Day 1
The first day we came by a quite long and hard bus-ride from San Gil, which took us around 16 hours in total. After that we just rested at the Sol de Minca Eco Lodge, a little place at a mountain ridge serving great food and excellent views with lots of plants, forests and birds.
Day 2
The second day was very long. We decided to make a walk, where we first went to the beautiful Marinka waterfalls, two stunning falls nestled in the lush foothills of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, just outside the mountain village of Minca. Surrounded by dense tropical forest,they offer a peaceful retreat with cool freshwater pools perfect for swimming and relaxing. There was a nice restaurant there too, a good place to have a lunch.
Thereafter we continued a long, warm and sweaty walk uphill through dense forest. With the altitude it cooled down as we got higher up, and there we got a good rain shower and finally returned home at late afternoon. What an incredible day.
Transport to and from Barichara
See the chapter about transport to and from San Gil.
These photographs were taken during my visit to Colombia, from June 24 to July 23, 2025. for an overview of the trip, click here!