Oscar's Place Made Minca Magical!

My taxi guy, Javier, dropped me off by the police station in the town of Minca where I would spend the next 3 nights, unplugged. Minca became a destination on this trip when I decided not to do the Ciudad Perdida trek and the recommendation came from my post on trip advisor. I would say that it was a fine decision on my part! 

After being dropped off, I took out my scribble scratch and found my way to Oscar's Place; my hostel home for my time here. Minca on the surface is kind of a hole in the wall type of town, well, a poor shit hole of a town but if you peel off the layers a bit, it transforms into this magical type of place where you find butterflies landing on you, hundreds of types of birds and monkeys living in the lush and throngs of friendly motor taxi drivers (they seem intimidating at first). Additionally, for me, it was also a place where I would see friendly familiar faces again and leave with many new ones. 

After about 15 minutes of trekking through muddy roads, jungle tracks and crossing streams, I find Oscar's Place. I heard about Oscar's Place from a tip on the forum boards on tripadvisor. Oscar doesn't advertise his place, he doesn't have a website and he is not listed on any reservation site. Travelers, like myself, find his place via word of mouth and google around for his phone number to make sure he has a spot for you. I arrived at a property sitting on a bluff overlooking the town of Santa Marta in the middle of the lush mountains of the Sierra Nevada. If you can't find peace at a place like this, you won't find it anywhere. 

My days here were spent lying on hammocks, reading, just being, in conversations about sports, motor taxi'ing to waterfalls and in one case walking to one with Alec and his two friends (Gautier and Guilluam) from France. It's always fun to see familiar faces again when traveling like this. I bumped into them in town while sesrching for a lunch spot with Sandrine (who met at Cabo de la Vela). They decided to come to Minca for a day before their journey to Punta Gallinas. While how Alec ended up on crutches (refer to previous blog post) was not impressive, watching him hop on one foot over barely a bamboo bridge was when we visited a small waterfall. 

Up until this point, I had not met many Americans, a lot of Canadians and Australians but Jim and Alec had been the only Americans I had met. Here in Minca, at Oscar's Place is where I feel like we all decided to gather. There was Grace and Spencer from Philly, Chris from Austin and Oscar's niece, Vivian from LA. Eric from Spain but now lives in Paris, Cornelia from Swiss and Mikey & Phoebe from England and Oz were also warm additions. Mike and Phoebe will be traveling "the south"of the US visiting the likes of Tennessee, Louisiana, Florida, etc. They say that all they've been meeting are the open minded Americans and they want to know what the "real" America was like. Vivian and I pleaded with them to stick to the coast but they were not convinced. 

I will miss the vibrant dinner and post dinner conversations. Here at Oscar's we have a family style dinner nightly at 7:30PM cooked by either Oscar or Jesus. Jesus is a helper of Oscar's though many women have offered to take him back home to with them. He cooks, cleans, has a warm soul that transcends through his smile and eyes. Jesus' home was actually broken into while I was in Minca and stole his savings of $600. He was saving that to pay back a loan his father had in hopes of taking out another loan to build a room at his mother's house. I know Oscar will help make it right for him but I felt so awful about what has happened to him that I left him a tip as I said my goodbyes..the equivalent of my three night stay..it's not much but a small gesture.

Oscar's is a special place and it's truly been home for me the past few days. It's been Oscar's home for the last 15 years, he is originally from LA and is a mean chess and backgammon player. There isn't much advertising for this place because Oscar wants to keep it word of mouth and limited only to those who really want to find it. He provides meals, makes a comforting cup of chai from scratch and an awesome outdoor shower. Seriously, the best outdoor shower with a view of the Sierra Nevadas! By day 2, I learned that warm water is powered by the solar panel he has set up so ...sunshine means shower now! There is no internet available at Oscar's or much of anywhere in Minca. During my 15 minute trek, there were only two signs that directed you, you definitely had to have faith that you were going the right way! He is continuing to build the place out and in a few years, this place may even have a zip line, in which case Oscar said he will let me know so I can come back and check it out. I highly recommend that for anyone making the trip to Colombia to consider Minca and if you're in Minca, there isn't a better place to stay than Oscar's.