The river is only the beginning.

Pozo Azul is one of Minca’s classic stops: a stretch of river where small waterfalls spill into natural pools stacked one above the other, shaded by the forest. The water comes down cold from the Sierra Nevada, which is exactly what a hot afternoon calls for. Travellers and locals both love it, so weekends and the middle of the day tend to be busier. The upper pool, reached by wading across the first and scrambling up the rocks, is usually the quieter one. Simple food and drink stalls are often set up nearby.

The Marinka Falls are two tiered waterfalls, each with its own pool, deep in the forest just outside Minca. Plenty of travellers rate them the prettiest in the area, and they’re often quieter than Pozo Azul. They sit on private land: the owning family has added trails, stairs, hammocks facing the falls and a small restaurant, and charges an entry fee that changes over time. Getting from the lower pool to the upper one means a short, steep climb. The water is cold, so the move is a swim followed by drying off in a hammock with the falls in view.

Finca La Candelaria is a small family farm on the slopes above Minca, growing coffee, cacao and fruit trees with organic practices. Its tours follow each crop the whole way through: the plant, the harvest and the preparation of the beans, and for cacao, the journey from pod to the handmade chocolate the family makes on site. The climb up rewards you with wide views over the valley, and visits usually end with a tasting. Beyond coffee and cacao, the farm runs its own birdwatching walk and sells its produce to visitors.

Finca La Victoria is one of the oldest coffee estates in the Sierra Nevada. It was founded in 1892, when the English couple Charles and Alice Bowden joined other investors in the Victoria Coffee Company, and it takes its name from Queen Victoria. It still grows organic high-altitude coffee and keeps its traditional processing mill, with historic machinery driven by mountain water. The visit follows the bean from nursery to cup, and the estate has a shop, a bistro and a café. It also runs birdwatching walks through its coffee groves.

Los Pinos is a viewpoint high in the hills above Minca, and one of the widest views in the area: the Minca valley, the green slopes of the Sierra Nevada and, on clear days, Santa Marta and the Caribbean coast. There are two classic ways up: along the main road, or on smaller paths that cut through coffee farms, with stops such as Oído del Mundo and the Marinka Falls along the way. It’s a long climb, so some people split it over two days with a night in the hills, or ride part of the way. It all depends on the clouds: when they part, the view is worth every step.

Cerro Kennedy, also known locally as the Cuchilla de San Lorenzo, is a high ridge of the Sierra Nevada reached from Minca through coffee farms, cloud forest and small homesteads. On clear mornings you can see the snow-capped peaks of Cristóbal Colón and Simón Bolívar on one side and the Caribbean on the other. It’s a land of springs and of birds found nowhere else on Earth, within the ancestral territory of the Sierra’s indigenous peoples. It’s a demanding outing: the climb from Minca is huge, it’s cold at the top, the weather turns quickly, and there’s a military post on the summit that you shouldn’t go past.

The Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta is an isolated massif rising from the sea to the snowline, which is why it holds one of the highest concentrations of range-restricted birds on the continent, including the Santa Marta parakeet and several endemic hummingbirds. Minca has become a popular base for going out to find them. There’s good birdwatching around Costeño River without leaving the garden; the high-altitude endemics, on the other hand, are best looked for with specialist guides, at places such as the ProAves El Dorado Reserve on the slopes of Cerro Kennedy, or on local farms that run their own guided walks.