Medellin

The city of eternal spring. 1500 meters above the sea level and situated in a narrow valley, Medellin (once the most dangerous city in the world) gave our bodies and minds a nice slowdown from the hot Cartagena. An average of 23 to 25°C throughout the whole year makes this city a popular destination for visitors from all over the world.

The first impression that you get coming from ‘José María Córdova Airport’ (a 45 minutes’ drive away with a panoramic view on the city) is being in a miniature world: You see the whole valley with its miniature buildings and houses, the slope hillside and the juicy green pasture grassland while driving on a curvy road on top of the valley.

The beauty of the city itself is hidden on the first sight but after staying a few days here, we enjoyed it in its full extent. The first night we went astray in the gringo neighbourhood ‘El Poblado’: A whole area full of (mostly young) tourists that just want to get wasted. We stayed only one night in an overbooked hostel, packed our backs in the morning and fled to ‘Laureles’, a district that has higher standards and at the moment only a limited number of tourists. Nevertheless, we had to search the whole morning before finding a nice hostel with free beds because locals enjoy this neighbourhood too, to make some holidays.

After settling down, we profited from the weekend and we went partying with the locals. We ended up in a traditional bar/club where they played ‘crossover’ music, a mix of different styles with a lot of ‘fast salsa techno’ (as we would call it). We were invited by some nice colombian ladies to share with them the local schnapps, Aguardiente (with anis flavour) and danced till our shoes started to burn.

The next day we took a metro cable (Medellin is the only city in Colombia with a metro/a metro cable) and enjoyed the top view of the roofs and court yards. This metro cables were built to connect the often poor neighbourhoods of Medellin (that are situated on the steep hillsides) with the inner city, in order to make them easier accessible for their inhabitants. Furthermore, this enables the children to not have to cross the ‘dangerous hoods’ on their way to school. 

Then we visited the ‘Jardin Botanica’ and explored the interactive science museum ‘Parque Explora’ with its exhibitions and its big aquarium. In the evening we decided to do something authentic: Watching a soccer game in the ‘Estadio Atanasio Girardot’ (capacity of 40.000 people). The teams that played this Saturday (28/5/2016) were ‘Independiente Medellin DIM’ against ‘Millonarios Futbol Club’ from Bogota (1 - 0). The atmosphere was amazing. People were singing, screaming, hooting and cheering throughout the whole game.

During the afternoon of the following day, we had lunch with the Director of the distance learning University ‘Universidad nacional abierta y a distancia UNAD’ in Medellin (we got the contact from a friend of Estelle). Juan and his wife Nancy welcomed us very warmly in their home on top of a hill, cooked delicious food, shared with us many stories about Colombia and showed us different municipalities of the Metropolitan Area of the Aburrá Valley (La Estrella and Sabaneta, a place of pilgrimage where every Tuesday people from all over Antioquia come to honour ‘María Auxiliadora’). It was a very peaceful an informative afternoon with this warm-hearted couple. We enjoyed it a lot.

Today (31/5/2016) we did again a Free Walking Tour and could get some insights in the tumultuous past of the city. As Medellin (as well as Colombia) had a very notorious reputation during the end of the 20^th Century and the beginning of the 21^st century (because of the narcotics, the guerrilla, the wars, the kidnapping, the unnecessary bloodshed, the prostitution etc.) people are quite allergic towards their probably most famous inhabitant: Pablo Escobar (who was killed in 1993). Locals try to avoid attracting tourists to their city with this rather negative publicity. Still, they don’t deny the past and accept that during the ‘70s and ‘80s a lot of drug money entered the local economy. 

However, since the ‘90s, the community of Medellin is trying to reduce criminality by transforming its urban landscape with a democratic and positive architecture, for example by building shelters for homeless people to get them away from the mostly dangerous market squares, positioning policemen throughout the whole city, securing open spaces by installing lights, planting trees, renovating old squat buildings into libraries, etc. The city goes through a positive change and in a few years it could be one of Colombia’s hotspot.

View from the Metro on a sale street in the inner city.

Riding the metrocable from 'San Javier' to 'La Aurora' and back. The metrocable is included in the metro ticket price (2150 Colombian Pesos which is approx. 0,65 €)

You get a nice view of the City and the surrounding area with its 3 million inhabitants.

One of many artistic wall paintings.

Parque Explora: A woman would look like this if her body parts would  have the proportional size according to the degree of stimulus they send to the brain.

'Tribuna Sur': People sitting and standing in the south curve of the stadium...

...and two tourists were among them :)

 Goal for Medellin: The 'Estadio' cheers its local heroes.

One of the many big Iguanas in the Jardin Botanico...

The Iguana enjoyed a lot the head fondling.

Juan and Nancy with their dogs in their lovely garden with the great view on Medellin.

Visiting La Estrella with the lovely Stella.

The History of Medellin written in stone. La Raza - Monument to Race by Rodrigo Arenas Betancourt. A 38m high monument in the 'La Alpujarra' Administrative Center in Medellín. Underneath this monument in a little green box are apparently the ashes of the artist.

Manners are very important in Colombia and are most of the times recompensed.

The Palace of Culture, designed by the Belgian Architect Augustin Goovaerts. It couldn't be finished by him because the original plans were contested. Therefore some Colombian engineers tried to finish it by themselves. You can see the result in this picture. Left the initial building and right the finished work by the Colombians.

Fernando Botero's sculptures can't be considered as fat, they are rather disproportionated.

In 1995, terrorists threw a bomb during a concert on this public square, killing many innocent people and destroying this sculpture of Botero. Instead of eliminating the destroyed sculpture, the mayor (after the request of the artist) put the names of all the victims on a commemorative plaque under the monument to not forget this act of violence. Next to it, Botero installed a new sculpture to give the people hope and strength to fight the criminal core that streamed through the city at that time.

The next train leaves at 4 o'clock. 'A la orden' (To your service).

During the next two weeks, we will try to work on another farm in El Penol (next to Guatape) without Internet. Hopefully it will work out better than the last time. Hear from you in mid June.