A slice of paradise in Minca

Minca is a small, quiet village high up in the Sierra Nevada, overlooking Taganga. The main reason I wanted to go there was to stay at “Oscar’s Place”, which I’d discovered on my friend Alex's travel blog (she recently spent nine months travelling through South America and has been a great source of inspiration for this trip!). When I read her description and saw the photos I thought “I need to go there”.

Oscar doesn’t advertise and gets all of his guests through word of mouth, which makes it feel like a very special secret. It also means it's almost impossible to find any information about the place online so I had no idea of the address, but figured that someone in Minca would be able to point me in the right direction!

I got out of my taxi and sure enough, an Irish guy doing building work on a nearby house called out to me to see where I was headed. He was able to direct me to Oscar's (via his wife’s restaurant of course) so, after a nice lunch, I set off up this muddy track heading out of the village. After about 5 minutes of trudging uphill the path came to a dead end at someone’s house. Assuming I’d missed a turn-off somewhere I turned back the way I’d come, and soon ran into an American couple, Emily and Justin, who had stayed at Oscar’s the night before and were on their way back there. Thank goodness I bumped into them, or I never would have found this place! We went back to the “dead end” house and cut THROUGH their garden down to this tiny hidden path which wound up and down through the rainforest for about 15 more minutes, including going straight through a stream. Finally we emerged at Oscar’s Place, which is perched right on the edge of the mountain with acres of forest canopy stretched out below, until it reaches the Caribbean Sea. Wow.

Oscar's land

Oscar himself is a real character. He owns acres and acres of land hidden away on this mountain and has been there for 18 years: even when Minca was under the control of guerrillas and he could hear people being shot in the village. Apparently he just grew his hair long and kept himself to himself and they let him be. He smokes weed from morning to night so is a pretty laid back and possibly slightly crazy old dude. When I met him he was wearing surgical scrubs and a woven shoulder bag. 

Oscar may be eccentric, but he’s certainly not stupid. He built the house himself and it's absolutely stunning: all open plan and open air and everything runs on hydro- and solar-power. He is constantly working on expanding the property and I’m pretty sure he’ll have a little empire up there before long. Apparently some travellers turn up for a few days and end up staying a few months, which I could totally understand.

Oscar's Place

I must admit I did nothing but chill out for the next 24 hours and saw nothing at all of Minca itself. It was just such a calm, relaxing environment. There are a couple of German guys who live in Taganga but come up to help Oscar with his building work and other projects, in return for accommodation and food. They cooked up a delicious curry and rice and salad and we had a lovely evening sitting outside on the patio, eating, drinking and chatting. Towards the end of the night we built a bonfire and sat around that for the last few hours before bed. 

Oscar's patio: the perfect place to chill out

Bed, by the way, was another hammock, which Oscar has strung up on the edge of the property, overlooking the beautiful view. Again, not the best night’s sleep but I do love sleeping out in the open air under the stars.

My Bedroom

The next morning I had to leave to head back to Cartagena as I had a flight to Medellin the next day. Again, I really wished I could have stayed for more than one night and was kicking myself that I’d created such a tight schedule. Big learning from the trip so far: must stop planning so much and learn to take things as they come! 

Oscar and the gang!

An aside: On the drive back down to Taganga that morning I was sharing a car with a couple of other backpackers from Oscars. Half way down the mountain our way was blocked by a big sack lying in the middle of the road, next to a motorbike, with 2 guys standing over it. The sack had clearly just fallen off of the bike and the guys signalled to our driver to pull over and give them a hand lifting it back on. It took all 3 of them to lift it off the ground and as they did so, the sack started contorting violently, and we realised there was a very large, live pig inside it! It took a lot of effort but finally both guys and pig were back on the bike. As we drove away I turned back and saw them attempting to drive off, with the pig wriggling desperately and the guy struggling to keep hold of it. I’m sure they had an eventful journey!