Minca: Waterfalls, Coffee, Beer, Tourism & A Dark Past [Colombia] [Subtitles]

so under the advice of maranella who I met in puritaka the Venezuelan lady I've just arrived in a town called Minka she's 45 minutes from the main city Santa Marta on the northern Caribbean coast it's a coffee town where most of the coffee in Colombia is produced and it is the oldest also however after doing some research here I find there is a slightly darker past than what most people will talk about so I'm hoping now to find out exactly what's happened in the past how it is now and yes it is a beautiful Town it seems very touristy very touristic now a lot of Backpackers around there are some hostels here too in the main part I am now a lot of small restaurants small shops I guess this is the Hub which is obviously the main method of travel here however my aim here is to get one of the motos travel around Minka see some of the sites here but also learn some of the actual the true history the true history see how it is now and we'll see what we can learn just need to find someone who will take me around and also tell me about the past yeah wow okay there we go just stopped at another place I'm not sure how much he says that he has a helmet and I don't but you know we'll see yeah wow foreign okay so here in the beautiful place where they grow the sugar cane just gonna try and find out some more from my tour guys so here with Victor he's just going to tell us a bit more about the history of Minka so I reckon Elementary so roughly 150 years ago and then ano foreign [Music] foreign coffee here you know 150 years ago but then roughly eight years ago they had problems with the gorillas who came in who saw the opportunity to grow marijuana which was very lucrative here um droga yes [Music] North America is English is foreign Para parallels Indiana afternoon foreign okay so despite the problems they had in the past so from 2006 uh there were projects to actually improve the area and make it attractive to tourists so previously the main source of income here and why there was so much fighting was the potential to grow marijuana uh cocaine but now the main source of income is tourism and since 2006 more and more tourists have come started from South America but now Europeans from all over the world come and enjoy and we can see why and now thousands of people come every week to this place and Victor is going to show me more of the places and more of the reasons why people come to this beautiful place called Minka wow oh my god wow oh my God so it's a god of staying despite the dark history a lot of the money now for me it comes from tourism and he's dropped me off at one of the tourist side so I say he dropped me off I still had a what feels like a five mile Trek up into the jungle but so one of the waterfalls here which is one of the main attractions I'm just coming around to win now to show you so you see lovely walk with lots of tourists around here which is good obviously like she says it's now safe for us to come here which has only been the case for roughly 15 20 years but it's beautiful I'm gonna go down have a little closer look at the waterfall and we'll see the next basically comes just another hostel he's taking me to right up in the mountain um 100 I may feel roughly 10 years ago we have this hostel right up in the mountain I guess part of the part of the projects to increase the tourism and you can see why right up in the mountains you just go down down to see the property I have this one incredible okay that's another benefit of being out here you've just made a little pit stop because we've seen some llama Silvestre small fruit similar to a raspberry which is grown out here uh the Victor's just picking me some now and here we go yeah um [Music] Victor's just caught himself hopefully hopefully this is worth it anyway we'll see just to prove I am really eating this wild fruit that may or may not be poisonous delicious it's just another one of our stops in ninja the coffee plant plantations how they process the coffee La Victoria Peters just showing me right now uh that's all Nelson okay you see Coffee espresso um foreign La Victoria Cincinnati um muchas this is foreign wow yes oh yeah so we're in the coffee plantation uh where they process the coffee see supposedly built 130 years ago he told me and the process 40 tons of coffee per year which is sold to Santa Marta and then which is the nearby city which is then exported all over the world and you can see in here other coffee beans are grown and then processed here in this place very interesting and he gave me a coffee to try so we can try them out I see wow can you try something in the cafe coffee here not too bad I guess but so in the same place as the coffee the coffee blonde they have a server yeah and which they make beer internal ah it's a lucky one so I can stand on the Edge Bar see he comes here when I saw the restaurant nearby I see myself foreign I'm almost thank you so he's just shown us the Southwest area uh where they create the beer I suppose uh and there is a kiosk nearby where we can actually try to be so let's go have a look walking on this all right oh just going the wrong way every time all right here we go see they have a small kiosk here let me see the best idea elimida I say s [Music] [Music] again we have six different types of beer which all produced down in the service area so we'll try them now and we'll see yeah yeah see you foreign very good I've also just seen some T-shirts oh hopefully they're big enough hey I've just seen some T-shirts hopefully they're big enough obviously sometimes have a few problems with buying clothes here because everything is designed for people four foot and under but we'll see I'll try on and then try and buy one a small souvenir so try on athletic athletic bit yeah I mean when uh okay so I bought it it does actually fit surprisingly so there we go A Small Miracle in Columbia okay in our final destination so we're in the final place you can have a quick look maybe swim and then go back yeah so it's another waterfall similar to the other one less busy at this time and not many people here Peter said at this time it would be empty so quick look all over everywhere you see I'm not sure you can see in the distance the waterfall very pretty again try the water hopefully it's cold because it's so very hot despite it being in the evening but we'll see hopefully get some videos in the middle soon and won't you be lucky thank you um Instagram so there we go back in back in Minka the central absolutely so much from Victor seeing so much and it was very interesting to probably recap in English from what I Gavin looking back onto the content I'm saying uh started 150 years ago I believe thrivingstown City just from producing coffee but then after maybe 80 years ago gorillas took over basically to sell marijuana in the area extorting the people that lived here causing many problems however than the paramilitados came in helped out somewhat but then they ultimately took over the trade so the same problem happened after they got the power themselves but now and then eventually skip to the late 90s the Caribbean cartels took over growing cocaine in the areas maybe 10 years or so and there was a lot of murders theft extortion many of the local people just left and now however eventually the government did sort out the area and now producing coffee cocoa beans but the main the main source of income now it's always you see a lot of the places I'm not surprised um you know the waterfalls the views the hostels in the mountains just beautiful everywhere very beautiful so I'm very grateful to Victor he was a great guide saw a lot of things super tired now six hours on a bike a bumping up and down these roads thankfully I didn't fall off because I had no helmet on the whole time although Victor did what does that say um but yeah super interesting I'm very glad I came here and I'm glad I'm grateful to myelin for recommending this place in puritaka wow so that's it until the next one

2023-03-12 12:14

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