Up in the rainforest….  Sunday, 26/06/2022

Spent a couple of days wandering around Santa Marta in the company of my American neighbour Craig. This included going to a seaside resort called Rodadero, four miles south of Santa Marta, a loud, busy, brash place. On the beach you rent a small area covered by tarpaulin with a few plastic chairs under it – very much the local style. There are vendors trying to sell you things every minute – from drinks to massages, jewellery to drugs – it doesn’t stop. But very interesting to experience, especially because we were accompanied by a local woman Craig has been seeing, and she was able to explain quite a few things. (It must be said that his relationship has not lasted: he broke up with her later that afternoon because he got tired of her demands for money… in other words, much as you would expect. Maybe I’m just a cynic, but tell me, why is a woman of 35 chasing a man who’s over 60?).

Mid-week I decided that I would go up to Minca, a village up in the mountains which looks down over Santa Marta. Only 14 miles (22 km) away, so an easy trip by minibus taxi. Takes about an hour to get there, first negotiating the heavy traffic of the city and then up a very winding road. 

What a stunning place. As soon as I arrived, I walked up to a pair of waterfalls about 45 minutes away. Swam in both of them, cold mountain water. Then walked back to Minca and climbed a steep 500-metre path up to the place I was staying. I had a little native hut, containing a bed with mosquito net and little else. Built on a wooden platform on the side of the mountain, with the forest all around. A central sitting/eating area, all built of wood, incredibly picturesque. 

Very friendly atmosphere. I was by some margin the oldest person there – most guests are 20-something backpackers. But I had several long conversations with young French and German people – I think they were interested to know what I was doing there! Most were travelling for 3 or 4 months, going back to university in the autumn or starting work. Great to discuss where they’d been and what they thought was really worth seeing. One place in Colombia keeps coming up: Medellin – almost everybody talks about it!

On Friday I went to a local coffee plantation. I figured that it would be a tough 7 kilometre walk uphill through the forest, so I took a moto – a motorbike taxi. Naturally, the guy drove like a maniac, so there was me hanging on and hoping it was just around the next corner! Which it wasn’t – we finally got there after a one kilometre drive on a dirt road, which given the frequent rain is a mud road with half-metre deep ruts. Somehow the guy successfully negotiated this on his 150cc bike and I was dropped right at the entrance. 

What a brilliant place! It is called La Victoria, after Queen Victoria, because it was set up by two Englishmen in 1892. What’s incredible is that they continue to use all the original equipment, machinery built in London and Manchester and shipped out at the time. So quite rightly they’re proud that their production process has not changed in 130 years, right from bringing in the beans from the terraces (transported through water pipes into the factory), and then all the way through to getting the beans ready for roasting, at which point they are bagged up and sold (coffee typically being roasted somewhere close to the point of final sale). 

I had real luck, because I was greeted by a young American woman, who with her husband is volunteering there in exchange for accommodation and food. When she discovered that I was in Colombia on a boat, she said Oh, please can I pick your brain, We’re considering going as crew on a yacht. So, drinking coffee, I talked with her and then her husband about sailing… And then she gave me a 40 minute, one-on-one tour of all the production facilities. I then would up drinking another coffee and talking to a young American guy who is brewmaster at the microbrewery next door. Then we were joined by the woman in her 70s who owns the finca… All-in-all, I had a great time! Had a genuine rainforest experience walking back – it absolutely poured with rain, so I was soaked (and nothing dries up there: the humidity is 95%, so everything is damp. Horrible on Saturday morning putting soaking wet walking boots on!). 

The only way you can really see the rainforest is from a road, or a path that’s been cut through it – the undergrowth is so dense that you would have to fight your way with a machete to get five metres in. Trees, bushes, vines and creepers of all types. Impenetrable! And it must be crawling with snakes and leeches and all sorts of spiders and insects! Clouds frequently cover the mountainside – when it rains you are in the clouds, mist swirling around you. No wonder  everything is damp! 

I left at midday on Saturday, taking a minibus back to the city and the heat – from 24 degrees up there to 31 down below. A worthwhile trip, excellent to see something very different!