Month 1 Recap

This first month has both flown by and dragged on. It’s hard to believe that it has been a month since we first landed on Colombian soil, but we spent a good bit of time killing time on the coast so that our schedule would align with our friends and allow us to meet up in Cartagena. It feels great to be back on the road again after nearly a full year of hard-work!

 Where We’ve Been     

• 5 days in Cartagena

• 7 days in Taganga

• 3 days in Tayrona National Park 

• 4 days in Palomino

• 4 days in Santa Marta

• 4 days in Minca

• 4 days in Medellin

Highlights

• Picking coffee fruit from the plant and seeing the entire process from start to finish at La Candelaria in Minca

• Experiencing the daily life of a family on a coffee farm; enjoying the company, food and coffee away from modern conveniences

• Tubing down the Palomino River

• Seeing the snowcapped Sierra Nevada from Palomino Beach

• Seeing Cartagena’s colonial architecture and charm for the first time

• Revisiting Cartagena to meet up with friends from Brasil and Australia

• Soaking up the sun early in the morning at Tayrona

• The Dreamer Hostel in Santa Marta---a hostel with a real hostel feel…and a pool!

• Friendliness of Colombians

• Cable car over Medellin… seeing the city from a different perspective

• All kinds and variations of arepas…the staple of our Colombian diet!

  

Not So HIGHlights…

• The hike up to La Candelaria in Minca with all of our gear in tow in 100+ degree temps

• The cost of the bus from Cartagena to Medellin

• Mama Waldy Hostel in Cartagena---we had planned to store our bags here while we spent a couple of days on Playa Blanca and Islas del Rosario, but they didn’t store bags! Also staff was either not there or extremely unhelpful!

• First stomach bug of the trip (post to come)

• Colombia beaches---reality didn’t live up to expectations

Those dolla dolla bills y'all(The Budget)

We were slated to be $200 under budget for month one, but $70 per person bus tickets from Cartagena to Medellin killed that. We still ended up slightly under budget for the month, but we will definitely have to save on accommodation and do some volunteering to stay under budget so we can afford the big ticket items like Machu Picchu and Salar de Uyuni….oh yeah, and that small event known as The World Cup. 

Coming Up...

We are planning on spending the next couple of weeks in central and southern Colombia before heading into Ecuador. We will meet up with friends in Bogota, and hopefully Cali as well.

Pic of the Week 3 Winner

The winner of pic of the week 3 is picture #3, Sunset Over the Mountains, Minca. This pic happened to be our favorite picture from the last week as well! We spent several nights enjoying that beautiful sunset, and this one captured what we saw perfectly! Thank you to everyone who voted! Feel free to share your favorite photos that your captured over the last week with us on Instagram, #theunamericandreamers. 

Pic of the Week 3

We'd like to apologize for this post coming a few days late, but between being out of Internet range, overnight bus trips and our first stomach bug of the trip, we didn't quite get to it! This past week found us picking and drinking coffee, enjoying beautiful sunsets and a quick trip back to Cartagena to meet up with friends! Hope all of you in Chicago(and the rest of the bitterly cold US) enjoy some coffee and these photos from the warmth and comfort of your couch! Just vote for your favorite and we will announce the winner on Wednesday. 

#1: Freshly Roasted Coffee, Minca

#2:  It's a Bug's Life, Minca

#3: Sunset Over Mountains, Minca

#4: Street Art, Cartagena

#5: Sierra Nevada, Palomino

 

Minca: The Trip that Nearly Ended Before it Started

“Why would they do this to us?!?” I yelled back to Gabe. “SERIOUSLY! I can’t do this anymore!” I whined.

We were about an hour in to what we were told would be a 45 minute hike, after the mule that was supposed to meet us never arrived,  to reach La Finca Candelaria, a working coffee farm and our accommodation for the next couple of nights. We were supposed to be heading up to the mountain side town of Minca to decompress and chill for a couple of days. Some chilling this is!! 

We were both dripping sweat and covered in dirt as we attempted to reach La Candelaria, a steep 400 meter continual ascencion  into the Sierra Nevada Mountains in 100 degree heat with ALL of our possessions strapped to our backs and fronts.   

Finally at the top

After another 45 minutes, we finally reached the sign reading La Candelaria. After  another 15 minutes uphill on the property, we finally decided to leave our large backpacks on the ground and come back for them later. Not since my college preseason 2-3-a-days have I been that exhausted!!  FINALLY, we reached the top of our climb and arrived!

After a refreshing limonada(lime, water and sugar drink), we went back and retrieved our bags. That is when the nightmare ended and our vision of Minca started. We watched a beautiful sunset and ate a delicious, home-cooked dinner by Ana, one of the owners.  

Being that this is a working coffee farm, we awake early to a crowing rooster. After another delicious home-cooked meal and some fresh, organic coffee, we set out with Eugenio(the other owner) and Soleil and Fernando(a lovely Aussie couple volunteering there) to learn about the entire coffee making process.

Coffee Picking

We picked coffee cherries off the trees growing in the mountains, gathered them in our buckets and headed back to the farm. From there we put the cherries into a machine which separates the skin from the bean. From there, the beans were washed, sorted according to quality, dried, sifted and finally we removed any “bad” beans. Then the boys took turns roasting the coffee beans. Since we like our coffee strong(like our drinks) we opted for a dark roast. After the coffee beans cooled, they were ready to be ground.

Eugenio Sifting the Coffee Beans

Dark Roast Coffee

Grinding the Beans

The really ironic thing about the coffee farmers that we met in Minca is that they are super passionate about growing the coffee, but they don’t really know how to prepare it for consumption! Imagine that! So we used a coffee grinder which looked to have been produced during the industrial revolution to grind our beans. Fernando, who has extensive experience as a barista, hand-filtered our coffee. Finally,  it was time to enjoy the fruits of our labor. The coffee was among the best we have ever had.

Sunset from the Finca La Candelaria

The next couple of days were spent getting back to basics. We enjoyed our home-cooked meals, freshly prepared coffees, good books, great company and AMAZING mountain sunsets. Our stay as the first guests, not volunteers, was perfect. It was the authentic Colombia experience we have been craving. 

Thanks Eugenio, Ana and Luna

 After all of the relaxing, it was time to head back to Santa Marta for the New Year…but not before hiking back down that mountain that nearly killed us the first time! Going down was much easier, and only took us an hour from start to finish. Our resolution for this New Year, get rid of some of our 

**Travel tip: to get to Minca, you need to go to the market on Calle 11/Cra. 12, to catch a rideshare in an old car or jeep. It will cost 7,000CP per person and will not leave until there are 4 people. Since we were staying closer to Minca, we thought we could catch a collective to Minca and avoid backtracking. No such collective exists. We ended up having to hail a taxi halfway to Minca for $30,000CP.**

Pic of the Week 2 Winner

And the winner is... picture #2, Cabo San Juan del Guia, Tayrona National Park. 

Tayrona National Park is a protected area nestled into the foothills of the Sierra Nevada along the north Caribbean region in Colombia. It covers approximately 150 square kilometers (58 sq mi) of land, and features an amazing range of biodiversity including howler monkeys, iguanas, sea turtles, wild pigs and jaguars. 

#2: Cabo San Juan del Guia, Tayrona National Park