Medellin

Medellin was great.  After being in Bogota for two months, being in hot, dry weather was a dream come true.  I stayed with Esmaralda’s friend’s daughter, Juliana.  Juliana, her husband, and her one year-old son Geronimo (love his name!) live in a really nice neighborhood of Medellin called El Poblado.  Across the street from the apartment was one of the largest, most modern shopping malls I have ever seen in my life (check out the pic.).  My first day there, I spent the afternoon walking around the El Poblado neighborhood, and went to lunch with Juliana and her family in the Parque Lleras neighborhood.  Parque lleras is really nice.  Its full of open air restaurants and bars, and its apparently where all the nightlife happens (I didn’t get to partake as I was there at the beginning of the week).

The next two days I spent exploring the city by foot and by metro.  The metro in medellin is great, its super efficient, clean, and almost every touristy detination has a metro stop nearby.  I went to the Plaza de Botero, the Museo de Antioquia, Plaza Bolivar, an open air market, and to the Jardin Botanico, all in one day.  The Museo de Antioquia was really cool.  It showcases almost all of Fernando Botero’s work, as well as other modern artists.  The next day I went to the Museo de Arte Moderno de Medellin, Pueblito Paisa, El Parque de Los Pies Descalzos, and I took the metro cable all the way to Parque Arvi.  I actually didn’t know exactly where the metro cable would take me.  I thought it would just go to the top of the mountains that surround Medellin and then turn around and come back.  Instead it just kept going and going, and going, till eventually it was carrying us over a thick forrest.  After about 45 minutes in the metro cable I ended up at Parque Arvi, a natural park outside of the city.  Unfortunately, I didn’t get to go in or hike in it, as I took the metro cable around 4:45 pm and the sun was going down soon. I ended up making it back down to the metro with about 30 minutes left of sunlight….just enough to make it back to the apartment and call it a day.  Had to get ready to go to Cartegena the next morning.

Aerial view of Bogota on the plane to Medellin

The glamourous Santa Fe mall

The metro

Plaza Bolivar with Botero statues

I wonder whats on his mind?

Street salsa dancing, called "Salsa Libre" in plaza bolivar

Orchids at the botanical gardens

The modern art museum

Pueblito Paisa-a minuature version of a colonial town from this region of Colombia - purely for tourists. 

View of Medellin from Pueblito Paisa

Parque de los pies descalzos - literally means barefoot park: there are parts of the park in which you are not allowed to wear shoes.  I found that out the hard way, when I got chastised to walking on the sand in my shoes.

View of the metro-cable I was about to get on

The metro-cable takes you over some of the poorest parts of the city.  And yes, people repair their roofs by adding another piece of sheet metal and securing it with a brick.

Journey into the woods as the metrocable got further and further away from Medellin

On the way back - aerial view of Medellin