First Day in the Tiny Town of Minca, Colombia

A couple of weeks/months ago, I decided to explore my country and experience something I have not done much before, traveling solo. I choose to go to the north, close to the Caribbean, to a city called Minca, a small village nestled in the foothills of the mountains in Santa Marta, Colombia.

The Beginning of an Amazing Experience in Minca

People who have met me before know that I talk up a storm (or “hasta por los codos“, an expression we usually say in my country Colombia for someone that speaks all day long). That’s the reason why is not so hard for me to break the ice and start a conversation with (almost) any person.

When I got on the bus to go to Minca, I sat down next to an elderly couple who had many grocery bags. I started a conversation with them, while the driver was initiating the ride in zig-zag up to the mountain. I spoke first with the man as the woman looked at me with a little distrust but, after a while, as most of the woman usually do, she began to correct the things that her partner was telling me and ended up being herself the storyteller.

They both are artists and had lived more than 20 years in this beautiful place. “When we were not more than 40 inhabitants, it was a quiet place, and we understood each other in Spanish” as ​​she told me.

When we arrived in Minca, they invited me to come by their house later to have a coffee (a famous crop in that area) and continue our talk.

Going to Strangers’ Home

Clearly, I was not going to miss the opportunity to listen to wonderful stories from people in the area, so at 6 o’clock, I was there, in front of the door of these curious couple’s home, anxious as a little girl, for listening to more stories.

With coffee in hand and repellent on the side for the mosquitos around, they told me about the guerrilla and paramilitary raids that they had to experience by living there, and about the bad reputation and the number of problems that this has brought to them and the city.

They were two guerrilla raids that lasted only one night (luckily, according to them). They took the town for a night to rest there and continue on the road the following morning.

On one of those occasions, they set fire to a house to scare the townspeople.

The biggest problem was not the raid itself, what it came after they left when people from nearby places started calling them “Guerrilleros” arguing that the people of Minca were part of these groups for letting them sleep in the town. However, they had no other choice; they had to save their lives.

So, under those circumstances, they were not allowed to leave Minca and go to any other place, when the custom in the town is to go down to Santa Marta to do grocery shopping because “Up there” (as they say) there is not much variety and prices are very high.

Difficult Times are Over

With mixed feelings between anger and tranquility, they told me that those were very difficult times to live there, times of scarce food and basic living elements due to the confinement that the neighbor’s towns gave them, but difficult times are over, and now they are happy to have recovered ‘moderately’ their tranquility . And they say ‘moderately’ since, according to them, Minca is now living its fourth booms (“bonanza”).

But I’ll leave that for the next time, an upcoming story about the magical and enigmatic Minca and its fourth booms.

For now, if you’re planning to visit Santa Marta, Colombia, I invite you to give a try to the tiny town of Minca, you will not regret it.