Medellin

We arrived in Medellin at 2am after a 12 hour bus ride on back streets from Bogota. The city sits in a narrow valley, between stretches of green mountains and driving into it was beautiful.

We knew that we wanted to stay in El Poblado, the upscale area of the city where all the hotels and hostels are located, but we had failed to make any reservations – not ideal when arriving at a place at 2am - and it was absolutely pouring. But, after 1.5 hours of confused taxi drivers, aggressive snapping at each other and confused wanderings down dark, wet streets, we finally found a place to stay – Arcadia Hostel. Our room was noticeably damp, but the owner was Greek and we were sold when he said that he would be cooking a Greek BBQ on Sunday afternoon.

After a moderate-quality sleep (the bed was covered in crunchy plastic sheets on account of the dampness) we woke up to our first day in the city:

• we visited the central market, which had lot of avocados but was a little too dodgy to take the camera out;
• we went to the Botero Park, full of sculptures by the artist;

Fat lady on a cow

• we ate the worst salad on earth – Colombia is bad at making salad; and
• we visited Cerro Nautica, a grassy hill/knoll/lookout point in the middle of the city with souvenir stalls, restaurants, and a good view of the city.

Chocolate-dipped strawberry on Cerro Nautica

View over the city

That night (Saturday) we went for dinner and drinks around Parque Lleras in El Poblado. 

2 interesting things about the night:

• We saw a dancing chiuaua busking at traffic lights (video);

• The girls looked absolutely AMAZING! I repeatedly (times 1000) saw the most beautiful girl I have ever seen in my life (unfortunately no photos). Now I understood why our hostel was full of only guys and every single foreign male I had spoken to in the country was there because of a ‘girlfriend’ or ‘wife’.

The next day:

• we moved to another hostel because all of our clothes and books had absorbed the dampness of the room and were wet, heavy and damp-smelling;
• we also caught the metro/cable car up to the city library, a huge modern building right in the middle of what used to be the most dangerous slum area in the city.

The library (left) and the slum area (right)

Our impromptu tour guides of the area

Looking down at the neighbourhood from the Cable Car

Public art in the area tries to teach kids lessons 

Pet therapy

We loved the time we spent in Medellin, which has evidently changed a great deal since it was one of the most violent cities in the world.