Coffee farms
Bean to cup.
MirfakVelez_12 — CC BY-SA 3.0 · MirfakVelez_12 — CC BY-SA 3.0 · MirfakVelez_12 — CC BY-SA 3.0 · MirfakVelez_12 — CC BY-SA 3.0
A small mountain village on the slopes of the Sierra Nevada above Santa Marta, about 650 metres up, where travellers escape the coastal heat for cooler air, green forest and streams. It has become one of northern Colombia's favourite stops for nature and quiet. Around the village are coffee and cocoa farms you can visit to see coffee made from bean to cup, some of them historic farms over a century old. In the surrounding forest are waterfalls and natural pools reached on trails among the trees. Minca is one of Colombia's best birdwatching spots, its forests holding hundreds of species, including colourful hummingbirds, toucans and birds found only in these mountains. From its high lookouts you see Santa Marta and the sea on the horizon at sunset. The road up is paved, but trails around it are dirt and muddy after rain. You can visit in a day, but a night or two in its forest lodges lets you enjoy it.
Bean to cup.
Forest pools.
Forest colour.
Foothills of the Sierra Nevada, about 45 minutes by car from Santa Marta
You can visit in a day from Santa Marta, but a night lets you birdwatch at dawn and see a coffee farm and a waterfall without rushing.