Medellin, the second largest city in Colombia is known as “the city of eternal spring” due its mild year round climate. Set in a narrow valley within the Colombian Andes the city skyline reaches for the heavens while the poorest neighbourhoods cling to the mountain sides. However, this forward thinking city has an undeniable past. Once the home of Pablo Escobar and the Medellin cartel towards the end of the 1980s this was the most violent city in the world. Today this forward thinking city is moving on and looking towards a brighter future.
For our stay, like most travellers we opted to stay in El Poblado, this is the wealthiest district in the city and also the safest. It’s also close to the fantastically new modern metro system which gives access to the rest of the city. If you like to party there’s is great night life here, surprisingly there’s few salsa clubs with many opting for electronic dance music. The only problem is that our room appeared to be next door to a club playing techno music until three in the morning making it very difficult to sleep especially when it feels like your bed is in the middle of a club. The issue was short lived “if you can’t beat them join them”.
Starting the next day later than usual we took the metro to the centre of the city disembarking at Botero Plaza. Before the day began the name Fernando Botero meant little to me but that was all to change. Medellin’s famous artist and sculptor is something of a local legend as well as an internationally famous artist. Botero plaza is a public sculpture park in the centre of the city which contains 23 of the artist’s sculptures all of which appear to be somewhat overweight. Many of his sculptures and artworks have been displayed in cities worldwide such Paris and New York.
We dive deeper into the Botero mania by visiting the adjacent Museum of Antioquia, more of an art gallery than museum this houses more of his works including many of his famous paintings. It turns out the characters that make up his art or not actually fat they are “volumous”.
The rest of the museum contains modern art, gradually becoming a little too modern for us so we make a dash out of the building. Passing through the crowded city we head to Bolivar Park to check out the local craft market where hunger kicks in and we head to a local restaurant for something to eat.
We always like to try the local dishes after trying ants in the Santander region it couldn’t really be any worse. The most famous dish in the Antioquia region is called Bandeja Paisa. The origins of this dish are said to have begun with the poor farmers of the area who ate it as a single high calorie meal that would last them all day while they worked. What came out was monstrous in size and consisted of Rice, Beans, Fried Egg, Steak, Pork Rind, Salad, Chorizo, Avocado and Arepas (corn cake). It was hardly a problem for my big appetite but however delicious it may be I won’t be eating this highly calorific food every day.
As we were so close to Parque Lleras, the main spot for nightlife, it made sense that we went out to see what was on offer in this vibrant city. Experiencing the “La Fiesta Paisa” is the main reason many people visit this city and we weren’t going to miss out on the fun. The huge selection of bars, clubs and night clubs rivalled any modern city.
The following morning feeling hungover we took the metro and changed on to the world class Metro Cable. This is more ski lift than a metro and was designed to connect some of the poorest districts to the city. Previously residents would have to walk 2 and half hours to get to work, many words of thank you are painted on the roofs of the houses.
The cable car silently takes you over the undeveloped and sprawling houses giving an interesting perspective on this part of the city.
Continuing on the second cable car for 20 minutes takes you out of the valley and over forest to a national park with a small farmers market full of delicious food to help cure our hangover.
Medellin was a real surprise for us, it’s modern, vibrant and forward thinking but tomorrow we are going to look into the darker side of this city but we will leave that for the next post.
