Medellin

After Cali we decided to get a night bus to Medellin, the night bus was meant to be around 10 hours and get us in around 6 am in the morning. The night bus itself was quite the experience with it stopping to pick up new travelers for the first couple hours, which meant we couldn’t get to sleep right away. Adding to that unlike most Colombian transport the bus arrived early getting into the bus depot around 4:30 am. Not what we had expected. With a terrible nights sleep under our belts we waited until the light came up before getting an Uber to our hostel. Here we showered and slept in the common room before checking into our room.

The area that our hostel was based in was called Poblado, an incredibly gentrified area with lots of brunch spots and English speaking people everywhere. It was the first time we had spent in Colombia where we felt like there were more English speakers than not. The area itself felt like Los Angeles or parts of west London rather than Colombia. The disparity between those that have money and those that don’t appeared quite wide and prevalent in Medellin.

On the night of arrival we had a free welcome drink before heading to the bar on the rooftop of our hostel where we spent the evening. The next day with a bit of a hangover we headed out on the metro train system to an area of Medellin called comuna 13. This is an area of the city that 15 years ago would have been a no go zone, mainly due to the ongoing conflict between differing political milita groups.

Today the neighbourhood has been reclaimed by the people that live there due to the regeneration that has taken place.The addition of escalators and cable cars in the early 2010s helped connect this part of the city to the rest of Medellin improving social mobility massively.

As part of our visit to comuna 13 we partook in a walking tour hosted by someone who grew up there. The tour was incredibly informative showing us how the makeshift houses had originally been built illegally in the hillside as those from the countryside fled the war to Medellin and setup houses for their safety.

The area had lots of cool graffiti by local artists. As well as this the view from the top was incredible to see , whilst also quite surreal seeing how many houses were built into one small area. Roughly around 200k people live in this cramped area of Medellin with no hospitals or schools, with the locals having to travel to the centre to get many essential services.

The next day we spent the morning at a museum on the conflict of Colombia before spending the afternoon back at the hostel, as Niamh was suffering with some of the effects of food poisoning from some dodgy street food.

After our recovery from food poisoning we spent the next day travelling up and down the cable car system that connects part of the poorer area of the city to the centre, which was lots of fun and allowed us to have a different view of the city from above.

As well as this we also spent some time at Botero square , where the artist and sculpturist had donated a number of his sculptures to the city to show for all to see.

Overall we enjoyed Medellin but felt we didn’t experience everything we could have due to the food poisoning. We had wanted to go to a football game and visit a nearby town called Guatape which has a big rock in the middle of a lake which is meant to be an impressive day trip. Because of this we’ve decided we’re going to return on our way out of Colombia after visiting the north coast. Hopefully this time we will get to fully explore what the city has to offer before flying out to Peru.