Medellin

After a long but beautiful bus journey through some amazingly picturesque countryside including a stop at a restaurant with a balcony from which we saw humming birds, woodpeckers and a whole lot of condors, we arrived in Medellin.

I had an aquaintance and good friend that I had met online called Marina on a language learning website (sad I know but its useful for meeting new people to visit when travelling in their country) who had said that if I come to Colombia, to come to Medellin and she'd meet me so I let her know that we would soon be arriving and when I called she said she'd meet us at the bus terminal and sure enough there she was on arrival with a friend called Carolina. Kindly Marina had brought her car and offered to take us with all our bags to a hostel. It was a tight squeeze in her little Renault Clio with 5 people, 3 huge rucksacks, 3 day bags
and a guitar but eventually we managed to squeeze everything in and made our way to Poblado where we found hostel casakiwi a very nice clean, new looking hostel with a large decked balcony, a fantastically clean and modern looking kitchen, a very nice, full sized pool table, a bar and even a tv room that resembled a cinema with a huge tv and 5 tiered rows of sofas. This was most certainly the place we would stay, it looked fantastic and all this for just over a fiver a night! The only thing that let it down was the room which was rather small and cramped with no windows or fan but we werent too bothered as we wouldnt be spending too much time in there anyway apart from when we had to sleep. Once we had checked in and dropped our bags in the room, Marina offered to take us on a city tour and so we accepted, and after quite an extensive drive round the city seeing lots of nice looking places in the dark, we headed to get some food and went back to the hostel. It really was a cool looking city and Fabain summed the roads up as being like something out of being in need for speed. on the drive round I could see even in the dark of nght just how modern and affluent this city was certainly in comparison with Cali! What with it being thursday evening, the bars and clubs in the local area of Poblado were getting busier and noisier and the 3 of us were keen to see some of the famous Medellin beauties (Medellin is famous for fake boobs and beautiful women) but by this time it was about 2am and everything was shutting or not open for too much longer so we decided to have one beer at the bar and call it a night. The next day we woke and decided to do something constructive and get out to see the city so we headed to the aquarium. We walked down to the metro station and took the train down to Universidad.

Again on the train, I could see that this was indeed a well planned, affluent and modern city with a nice mixture of old architecture such as cathedrals and churches as well as new shopping malls and modern looking new buildings such as that at the Universiad. It is hard to say this in a good way but it could be that all the money that came in from the famous drug lord Pablo Escobar (born and died in Medellin), has done alot of good for the local economy! On arrival there, we saw a big modern block of 3 red buildngs alongside each other where there were expositions and scientific games to be played. After messing about on the activities for a little while, we headed to the impressive acquarium, seeing some nice Amazonian fish including the biggest freshwater fish in the world, and seeing some nice brightly coloured salt water fish. Next we headed into the reptile and amphibian house which was also cool with many species of snake, frogs and spiders mainly all from Colombia!

Heading back, we agreed to meet Marina and Caro again and after studying the tourist map, we decided to head to Pueblito Paisas, a tiny little square of old colonial buidlings high up on a hill overlooking the city. This was quite a sight at night with all the lights in the valley and dotted all over the surrounding mountains with some pleasant looking eateries with balconies overlooking the city and a pleasant courtyard with a fountain in the middle. There was also a nice little church and some interesting little rooms that you could look into which were very old with old fashioned bedrooms and kitchens!

After a few photos we decided to hit the bars. After a few drinks including shots of the famous national anis based drink (Aguardientes) and some food (I had arepas, a corn based tortilla full of cheese with dip), and then some more shots, we headed to a nearby club which on entry was rather strange looking with a big four poster bed near the entrance and strange things hanging from the ceiling. After attempting a little salsa and having a few more drinks, it was time to go home as we were all tired from a rather eventful day!

The next day was a rather lazy and hungover day involving a trip to the supermarket and a walk around the local area. I was fast falling in love with this city, it was so modern and beautiful with a real young and vibrant feel to it and far from the dirty, smelly and polluted city of Cali! I guess it also helped knowing people from the city who could take us to all the best places! That evening we met the girls again and went for a drink although they didn't stay out long and so I got a fairly early night. The next day we met a nice French guy at the hostel called Rafael who told us of a weed march in the centre of town. Since I hadn't yet been to Medellin central (apart from the visit to the acquarium),
myself, Fabian and a group of other guys decided we'd all go along. In our group we had English, French, Australian, Swiss and Colombian guys which was a great mixture of nationalities and cultures and so off we went to find the march. I wasn't intending on smoking anything but as soon as you get near the march you are passively smoking due to the sheer volume of people smoking all around! It was a crazy experience and certainly a strange way to get to know the centre of a city with the police marching in front, stoppping traffic and everyone getting high behind them!

I'd never done anything like it and it was certainly an experience and a nice way to see a big city and take photos without the risk of getting run over! After a while of walking, we arrived at Parque de la luz (park of lights), a very strange but cool square with many metal white poles sticking out of the ground, very modern looking and for me cool because it was different to anything I'd seen before. We had previously seen this

place on the city tour we did with the girls which on passing, the girls laughed as it is called Park of Lights but there are no lights. Nevertheless, I still found it a cool place and got some quite quirky photos of the place.

After evertone had settled here, myself, Sergio (a nice Colombian guy I had met from our hostel) and Fabian headed to find something to drink and I got some more nice shots of the city just as the sun was setting. After sitting around the square for a while, we decided to head back to the hostel. The city was fast becoming my favourite city I'd been to in South America and the hostel was fast becoming my favourite hostel I'd stayed in despite the room! On return, we discovered another great feature of the hostel was that it had a roof terrace and small pool which was great for taking the sun during the day and great for chilling out on at night not to mention the nice views of the city!

The only downside was the amount of stairs you needed to climb to get up there and also it could do with having a bar up there so you didnt have to keep going up and down to get drinks. As well as this terrace, on the floor below was an area with hammocks for simply chilling out and with a power supply and wifi, you could play your tunes and sleep there if you wanted as it was under shelter in case it rained and was always warm enough at night to sleep out. That evening was the hostel managers 30th birthday (an american guy) so all the staff put up balloons and were in a partying mood with a band playing too. After a while partying at the hostel, Marina turned up and Jay, myself and a nice guy called Dom who was half Welsh and half French but spoke with an English accent decided to head out to a bar where Marina's colleagues were drinking. This turned out to be a good night with plenty of salsa dancing, popcorn and aguardiente and after dancing a little with Marina she paid me a nice compliment when she told me I danced just like a Colombian which I was chuffed about.

The next day, Marina called to see if I wanted to go to parque arves (an ecological park in the mountains above Medellin) on the cable car so naturally I accepted as it sounded fun, I love ecology and there wasn't much else going on it being a sunday and all so she picked me up and off we went. We dropped the car, got a train to the end of the line almost and then took the cable car.

It was a beautiful ascent up the mountain, albeit going over some very temporary housing, it was still revealing a fantastic view with every few metres we gained in altitude. It was indeed a fantastic journey with a great view of Medellin central as one approached the top of the mountain and then a super view over the dense forest below us at the top of the mountain. Unfortunately on arrival at the end of the cable car,

 it was already around 3.30 and so we only had a couple of hours until the last one left so we quickly began to make our way towards the ecological park. Surprisingly Marina told me that she had never been there even though she'd lived in the city most of her life and it was one of the main attractions of the city so she was unaware of where to go or how to get there. We began walking through some beautiful forest and continued to follow the signs up and up and further and further up the road for around an hour and a half until we eventually got to what looked like a park but we were only at the back.

Marina suggested we climbed through a gap in the barbed wire which at first I thought she was joking about but then she took off her necklace and thrust that and her bag into my hands and began getting on her hands and knees and clambering through which I found hilarious! So through I climbed and into the park we were! Little did I know we needed to pay for the park, until she told me inside so I felt like a real rebel! Since it was already by this time nearly 5, we had a quick 10 minute walk around a tiny part of the park and had to quickly leave again! We began walking back knowing for a fact we weren't
going to make it back. This was a clear problem as we had no way of getting back down othr than calling a taxi which would have cost a lot and there seemed to be no other buses going bus so perhaps they had all finished! After about 5 minutes of walking and arguing about who was to blame for all this, a guy on a small moped pulled up behind us and stopped to try and sell us some chicken or cheese from his box of food. Marina just waved him away but I said my friend we don't want your food, we just need a lift down to the cable car before it closes in 20 minutes so he said jump on and the 2 of us just about manged to get on behind him and we got down in time to find a huge queue of people waiting but we certainly wouldn't have made it without my smart thinking! This was enough fun for me, we had done alot of walking and getting back I went straight to bed after chilling out in the hammock for a while with some of the guys from the hostel.

One guy who I got on well with and liked alot was a guy called Reuben who was a special effects technician for films and had worked on films such as Harry Potter and Wallace and Gromit and showed me some interesting things with his software which was pretty fascinating. He has the ambition of setting up a special effects school in Colombia as there is nothing of the sort as yet and needed contacts so I said I'd look for some for him but it did prove hard to find any! Lucky guy was off to New York to work in a couple of days but he said he'd rather be chilling in Ecuador which is what he had planned to do. He was certainly talented and a nice chap to get to know!

The next day, our good old friend Will turned up at the hostel having been slightly behind us on our route up so it was good to see him again. Fabian had chatted up a girl he met outside the mini supermarket and so he brought her to our hostel and then we went for lunch with Reuben, Jay, Fabian, Will this girl (Alixon) and a friend of hers went for lunch at a bar called Orleans where they sold interesting coloured beers, between us we had green and red which just tasted like normal beer but just looked different! Very strange! Will and I then decided to do a proper tour of the central as I hadnt seen it properly and obviously Will hadnt seen it at all having just arrived so we took the train to centro and got the nice photos I wanted. Especially I wanted one of the nice checkered buidling which I was always passing in the train but never stopping there.

After a while of walking around and snapping we headed back and got ready for a night out at a karaoke bar which was also Reuben's last night.

This ended up being a good night although at some point I lost everybody and ended up having to go home on my home finding the hostel with surprising ease!

The following morning we woke a little later than usual and made the decision to go to the park. Although I had already been I decided to join them as I had never managed to actually get in and appreciate the place. I'm extremely glad I went, we had great fun on zip lines, in a butterfly house,

 in an insect museum and rowing on a lake not to mention enjoying the beautiful weather and flora and fauna all around us.

For some reason Jay didn't come along claiming it was too hot (an Aussie complaining about the heat??) but when we got back we decided to get on it as it was his last night too!

This was rather sad for me as he'd been my travelling buddy on off for the last couple of months all the way from La Paz up to here in Colombia! After a good fun night out in a club called Babylon getting suitably wasted, we headed back.
The next day I went for lunch with Marina and by the time I had returned, Jay had left! I didnt even get to say goodbye to him and it turned out he hadnt paid a cent! Oh well! Shame to see the aussie c££t go but I'm sure we'll meet again one day!

That evening we met a nice guy from South Korea, the first I'd ever met called Kim and he, Will, Marina and Carolina all went out for drinks. Fabian had disappeared earlier in the day and was nowehre to be seen so the 5 of us went out and had rather a tame but yet still enjoyable evening involving cocktails.

The next day Marina came over and she took us to a mirador (eventually after directions from many people) which was rather a beautiful view over the city and we got there just before sunset so witnessed a rather impressive sunset with some amazing cloud formations and thunder storms in the distance. On return to the hostel, Will told us that there was a good techno DJ playing at the Forum club called Ambivalent so Marina, myself Will and Fabian headed there. On arrival we found out it was 40,000 pesos to get in (about £14) which was too expensive for the girls so they decided not to go in. Perhaps in hindsight we should have stayed with them but I'm glad we went in as it was a great night with great music and the first time I'd been properly clubbing for a long time, definitely since being in South America.

We did stay til quite early in the morning so unfortunately the next day was a bit of a write off as we were sleeping for a lot of it. Will and I decided we were going to leave to Cartagena the next day so we got up early to go and book our bus tickets which we booked for 5.30pm but after speaking to Marina, she suggested we went to El Penol, the biggest rock in the world according to them although Jay insisted it was Ayers Rock in Australia when she had told us about it previously. It was already 3pm so I told her there was no way we'd have time as it was an hour and a half drive away so she called up the bus company who told her it was fine to just change the bus ticket to the later departure of 10.30pm which gave us plenty of time so we agreed to go along. So off we went, Marina, myself, Will, Fabian and Carolina on a fun little road trip to the rock. After about an hour and a half of some suicidal and dangerous driving giving us all some heart in the mouth moments, we finally arrived at the rock and it was certainly a sight that I was glad to see.

It was an immense lith sticking high out of the ground and on entry to the back of the rock, a brick staircase came into view like stitches up it's back.

We began climbing and after about 20 minutes taking pictures of the lovely views all around we reached the top of the rock. As we climbed we were able to see that it wasn't all just about the rock but the amazing views one could see all around of beautiful lakes, islands and green hills and we were all glad we had come.

Even when we reached the top, there was a castle like building at the top which one could climb to get even higher and have an even better view and from the we watched the sun begin to set and got some fantastic pictures. This was a very enjoyable day and well worth the trip out from Medellin, despite the distance and hairy moments on the road. Returning to the hostel at around 9.30 we had an hour til our bus in which time we grabbed some dinner and then off we went on the long 14 hour journey to Cartagena.