Los Pinos - an overnight hiking adventure in Minca, Colombia
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Welcome to Minca!
Minca is a small town just outside of Santa Marta, which is easily reachable by bus or taxi. The bus leaves from the ‘Mercardo publico’, costs 10,000 COP per person and takes about an hour.
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The hike
This hike was a great loop starting and finished in the town centre, with a total distance of 25km, including some optional deviations from the main track to visit a few spots.
Although this is definitely doable in one day if you’re short of time, I would strongly recommend extending the trip to allow you to take everything more slowly, and most importantly allow you a night at the incredible viewpoint hotel!
We left at about 10 am on day one from the town centre, arriving at the top at about 3:30. The following day we set off at a similar time and reached town at about 3. This included lots of relaxed time at the spots detailed below! Our total walking time according to Strava was 2h15 on day 1, and 3h25 on day 2.
The route
We always use the maps.me app to look at the different routes available in our hiking areas, but would advise to remain aware that any path (no matter how scrambling/small/private) is shown as an option, so often it’s best to cross-reference! However, in this case we found the route given by maps.me to be perfectly accurate and very helpful!
Here is a visual of our route, which you can easily replicate in the app by adding the stops.
For some reason it wouldn’t let me put the finishing stop as Minca, so I just picked a random spot on the map in the town centre.
IMPORTANT: when leaving Marinka waterfalls, take the uphill path to the left, don’t follow the same path back to the main road you just left.
Stopping points: day 1
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Overnight stay
We stumbled across this hostel kind of by accident, and we are SO THRILLED that we did. I can’t recommend it enough!
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Stopping points: day 2
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From here, just follow the route back into Minca!
Other recommendations
This hike covers just a few of the many things you can do in Minca - if you have time spare after your hike, here are a few other things I would recommend!
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Thank you!
Thanks so much for reading, I hope it’s been helpful and that you enjoy your visit to Minca! If you’re wanting more advice about some great spots to visit in Colombia, or many other destinations, check out my paid services!
Travel insurance
Going on a trip? Don’t forget to buy your travel insurance; I use SafetyWing which is the best option out there. It’s super flexible as it’s a rolling monthly subscription, so you can cancel or extend whenever! It also covers all manner of activities, so whatever you’re up to, you’re covered! And the best part is that with this link it’s $10 off your first month!!
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