After 16 hours on a night bus, we finally arrived in Medellin around noon. The city is in the Paisa region of Colombia which is in the mountains and not 30 degrees and sunny like the north coast. The people of this region are called Paisas amd are known for being very proud. Everyone was so welcoming and helpful. People would stop us while we were walking by just to say welcome to their city!
I was pleasantly surprised to find out that Medellin has a metro very similar to the skytrain. It was very easy to use and only cost about 80 cents per ride. The first hostel we stayed at was just off Calle 70 which is one of the older tourist areas of the city. There wasn’t much around Calle 70, so we moved to a hostel in El Poblado, which is a more modern tourist area with tons of cafes, restaurants, shops and bars. We met a lot of people at the hostel and went out on Saturday night. There were hundreds of people in the streets! Every bar was packed plus there were people in front of the bars and on the sidewalk. It’s incredible to see. There were so many different kinds of restaurants around El Poblado, it was really nice to eat a meal that wasn’t chicken, rice and beans..
Everyone recommended a tour by a company called Real City Tours. The tour was absolutely free and was a four hour walking tour of downtown Medellin. It was incredible! Our guide, Pablo, was born and raised in Medellin and LOVES his city. That’s almost an understatement. He was so passionate about his city and its history, even though it involved a lot of death and destruction caused by drug cartels. According to Pablo, Colombians either love or hate Pablo Escobar. Some people love him because he sponsored the national soccer team and gave money to build housing for poor people. Others say he gave nothing to Medellin except death, destruction and the title of the world’s most dangerous city. We started off with a simple history lesson and saw the main government buildings. The rest of the tour showed how Medellin has rebuilt and added architecture to make downtown a place you could actually go to. Pablo said when he was young he would never come to these areas because it was so dangerous. Now, these areas have libraries, art, statues and lights. Medellin has turned areas of danger and darkness into areas of hope and light. The metro is Medellin is the only metro in the country and the people are proud of it. Pablo asked us if we noticed how clean the metro was, which I actually did. It’s spotless. That’s because every person in Medellin is so grateful and proud of the metro that they don’t write graffiti on the walls or drop garbage. Now, a person living in any part of this huge city can get a job anywhere and pay very little to travel to work.
For $10 per person we spent an afternoon at Parque Explora which is ScienceWorld and the Vancouver Aquarium combined! It was such a neat facility with tons of information, both in Spanish & English, and games that entertained all age groups.
The aquarium was three floors with fresh water & salt water fish I've never seen before. We saw the largest catfish ever and some creepy fish I hope to never run into. The top floor had a terrarium room with massive snakes, frogs and turtles. They had an anaconda, boa constrictor, poisonous, colourful frogs and the weirdest turtles that looked like pieces of wood.
The very top floor of the building had three separate smaller buildings. One building for physics, one for the brain and the other was about a Colombian artist. Each building had games and activities that were actually very fun and informative. I could have spent all day there! It was well worth the $10 entrance fee.
Matamata turtle. So odd looking!
You can't be in Medellin, once the worlds most dangerous city because of the cocaine trade, and not go on a Pablo Escobar tour. There are many tours available, but we chose the tour run by Pablo's brother, Roberto. We were picked up by a small van with a driver, tour guide and seven other people. The tour guide explained how the cocaine trade started and how Pablo Escobar became the leader of the Medellin cartel.
Our first stop was at a dilapidated office building that was one of Pablo's many offices around the city. This building was partially blown up by a car bomb. It wasn't much of a site and they are currently working on remodeling the building into a fancy hotel. The next stop was the cemetery where Pablo, his family and other members of his cartel are buried. The car ride was decently long, so we watched the movie "The Two Escobar's" which explains the relationship between Pablo Escobar and Escobar who was the captain of Medellin Nationals soccer team. It also explained Pablo Escobar's involvement in professional soccer and his contributions to the slums around Medellin.
After about forty minutes we reached the cemetery. I was expecting a huge monument and separate building dedicated specifically to Pablo and his family, but there was just a small piece of land outlined with stones where him, a few family members and his personal body guard were buried. We also saw the grave of Griselda Black, known as the Black Widow, who got Pablo started in the cocaine business in the first place. Everyone in Colombia hated her.
Our final stop was at Roberto's house! Considering he was once one of the worlds most wanted criminals, there was not a lot of security to get to his house. Roberto did not look like the mobster I was expecting. He just looked like someone's grandpa. Roberto served 14 years in prison and during that time a package made it through every security check and blew up in his face. Now, he is partially blind and deaf. There were many pictures around the house of Pablo in his earlier years as well as cars, motorcycles and a seadoo that Pablo used personally. All those things were taken by the government as evidence when Pablo was finally shot and killed in 1993, but Roberto managed to buy them back. Apparently, Pablo had so much money in cash that he had to burry it around Medellin because he has no where else to put it. Only Pablo and his personal bodyguard knew where the money is buried, but some people think Roberto also knows where the money is buried. Three years ago, men broke into Ricardo's house and shot up the place while trying to kidnap him and take them to the hidden money. Ricardo managed to escape, but the bullet holes were still all over the house. It was crazy to actually see them! The tour ended with coffee and a picture with Ricardo.
Many people are against Ricardo profiting from telling Pablo's story, but he does the tour to get the true story out there and gives the money to charity. Apparently, the people of Colombia are split 50/50 on either loving or hating Pablo Escobar and his cartel. It was interesting hearing both sides with the positivity of the Pablo Escobar tour and negativity from our guide of the free city walking tour.
with Roberto at his home
where Pablo Escobar and his family are burried
Medellin was one of my favourite cities so far! The metro, warm weather, great facilities and happy people made it a city that I could see myself living in. Even though the Paisa are so proud and considered arrogant, I think they're wonderful and their passion for life is contagious.
