Minca

Eco hotel La Jorara

The antimalarials were onboard, the eau de DEET sprayed on liberally and we were ready to take on the Colombia's Caribbean coast. Unfortunately the day did not turn out as we planned. This was the first time during our stay in Colombia where we had a subpar experience. 

Breakfast...the bad juju that was Casa Mia continued. After forcing us to choose our breakfast of choice and nominating our dining time, we had to give our orders again and then wait an additional 15 minutes. The breakfast itself though was decent.

Our guide for our time in Santa Marta and Minca was Carolina. She was no Pablo who we missed terribly. We later found out that she was still a university student and this was her second year as a guide. I won't harp on the negatives because I could do it for a long time!!! So in summary, the flow of the day really was poor. We were walking at the wrong time of day, such that some waterfalls were already packed. The place where she took us to for lunch had menu items that we could all read...poke bowl, ramen, burgers. Alarm bells were ringing. 

Other things were not entirely her fault. We were taken to another coffee processing "farm". Unlike the one we went to which was authentic and a working farm, this one was driven mostly by tourism. When we had to do a tour with 6 other tourist, we bailed. The tour was in an ugly warehouse looking building in an ugly town...

Marinka Falls was an hour trek one way. We expected to see a natural swimming area, instead it was paid entry with restaurants and concreting around the falls. The water did not look hygienic. It was rather disappointing. The walk to the falls itself was not particularly scenic. It was along a road more or less and motorcycles, cars and even small trucks drove by frequently enough to be annoying.

The only photo I took at Casa Mia

Our walk to the coffee house. The highlight was seeing howler monkeys, toucans, orpendola, large blue butterfly as large as Elliot's hand

Monkey up in the tree

Angels trumpet used by the indigenous tribes to make a drink that was hallucinogenic

Ginger shampoo

At least we got our coffee, then we bailed!

The walk to Marinka Falls

The top tier

The swimming tier

I didn't want to come to a waterfall to see pasty Europeans sunbathing on nets. Oh wait...those are my children

Iguana

Pokebowl. Don't think of is as pokebowl then it is tasty!

Minca. Yeah not a fan

By this time, we were hot and cranky. When we saw that Minca was more or less a backpacker hangout, we bailed and decided to continue to our base for the next 3 nights, Eco Hotel La Jorara. This decision was probably made against my better judgement...I hate heat, I hate mosquitos and there was no A/C. It was purely to see and experience the nature of the surrounding area. The hotel building and grounds itself was reasonably nice. The staff were sweet and helpful. The food was decent. Would have been perfect with air-conditioning!

The property had 3 Rhodesian ridgebacks much to the children's delight

The building where our rooms were

Area outside our room

Caribbean sea about 100m walk from our hotel

Relaxing?!?

Don't remember what it was called but it was nice

Coconut rice was a sweet one