Medellín and Bogotá

Medellín Photos (18)
El Peñol Photos (17)
Bogotá Photos (23)

So I forgot to mention on the last post that I had another "small world" experience in Manizales. Let's pose a question. Where would you likely expect me to run into someone from Connecticut, who also has lived in California, who also has guided down the American River, and who did so the same summer one of my best friends from highschool did it? Not in Manizales, Colombia? Mmmm, me neither. Small world, eh?

Becoming a repetitive statement, but all the more testimony to Colombia's wonderfully beautiful countryside, the drive from Manizales to Medellín was very pretty. Medellín has a character all its own and a very interesting, if not stained, history. I was visiting a friend from Santiago (Chile) who ran a hostel with one of his mates, and to call the place a mansion would be modest. I don't know the history of it, but I would not doubt some drug money went into building the place, complete with three seperate structures, a swimming pool, and sauna's in the bathrooms. It definitely was not originally designed to be a hostel, but it made a great one at that.

Set in a river vally, Medellín spreads up and down the river and climbs the surrounding hills. The neighborhoods become poorer as you climb, a latin america phenomenon contrary to our increased property value associated with a better view. With the demise of Escobar and a clamping down on the drug trade, the city has become much safer in recent days. A new, creative metro line links much of the city together, including a unique feature that reaches even the poorer neigborhoods elevated high on the hills. The main metro line is the traditional electric train model popularly used in cities all over the world, which remains at or above ground level. The creative part comes in when once considers how to reach the hillside communities. Obviously a train is impracticle. So what was done was to build a gondola system that connects to a couple stations on the primary train line, which then carries people up into and down from the hills, with unloading points along the way. It takes very little space on the ground and allows for inhabitants, otherwise cut off from moving around the city cheaply, to do so with great ease. For the traveler, it also connects you to the poorer neighborhoods you normally wouldn't be able to venture into easily, and it was such an amazing, unique experience to be able to visit these areas. I also walked around Medellín's botanical gardern and downtown area, but attractions are minimal in the city. Outside, however, is the impressive rock monolith of El Peñol.

Shots from the Botanical Garden:

Famous sculptor who made everything obese:

El Peñol resembles the Sugar Loaf in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil), and after climbing the numerous steps to the top, you enjoy 360 degree views of the green landscape and artificially created lake with its many arms.

Next up was the capital, Bogotá, which did not impress me except for its size (there are over 10 million people living in the metropolitan area). I was there two days and was ready to leave. There were some pleasant historic areas, but nothing that really pressed me into wanting to stay. The Police Museum there did have some interesting things to display, like the bloodied jacket Pablo Escobar was killed in and other gruesome displays. I hung out in the hostel with some cool people, and that was my highlight of the visit. Onto bigger and better things as the saying goes, but in my case it would be the smaller things that ended up being better, which I found in a quaint colonial town called Villa de Leyva.

Shots of downtown, Pablo Escobar's jacket bottom right: