Medellín

So after my initial couple hours in Medellín, I got a more balanced perspective on the city. As it turns out, the part of the city I'm staying in, El Poblado, is one of the nicest neighborhoods and isn't particularly representative of the city. You've got a pretty wide range from the upscale neighborhoods the likes of which I was staying in, to more middle-class areas, to grittier parts and some of the slums up in the hills surrounding the city. Overall, I really loved it there, though. It's a stunning place, there's lots of great nightlife, everybody is friendly, and the climate is fantastic. It was definitely a nice change from the sticky, steamy heat of Cali and Cartagena.

I hit most of the tourist highlights on the first day. It was raining on and off, so I didn't make real good progress. In general, the weather wasn't too great when I was there and it was often rainy or overcast. This was a big problem as I really wanted to go paragliding while I was there. With all the mountains surrounding the city and great thermal air currents, Medellín is a major center for this, and you can do it pretty cheap.

On day two I hit the botanical garden in the late morning/early afternoon. After that was the highlight of the city, riding the city’s metro system. Sounds a little boring, but it was an amazing experience. They've got a regular light rail system like larger European cities which is very modern, new, and efficient. There are just two lines, one that runs the length of the valley and a short one that runs perpendicular to it. There’s nothing special about that. The cool part is the two new lines that connect to the rail lines. This is the city’s new MetroCable system which is really just a gondola-style ski lift system which is used to connect the rail system to the neighborhoods way up in the hills. One of these two lines gets up high enough so that my ears popped. I spent the better part of the afternoon riding both lines and up taking photos. I got some fantastic pictures of the city. These probably provide you the best idea of the scope of the city and how it's built into the mountainsides surrounding the river.

At the top of each line I got out and walked around a bit. The top of one of the lines seems to be a new development area where they are constructing a bunch of new condos. However, the other line leads directly to a relatively poor neighborhood, where most of the houses have corrugated metal roofs with bricks laid down on them, apparently to weigh them down and keep them from blowing away. This is pretty typical in Medellín. The nicer neighborhoods are generally down in the valley and the poorest areas are located up in the hills where the accessibility (at least prior to MetroCable) was very poor. Needless to say it isn't the safest place for a lone gringo to go walking around, and as such I kept within a couple blocks of the MetroCable station and was trying to be as inconspicuous as possible with my camera and hence didn't get too many photos. The ones I did get turned out really great, though.

On day three the conditions were finally good enough for paragliding. I say good enough, as they were hardly ideal. On a sunny day the upward thermal drafts allow you to take off from one of the surrounding mountains, at which point in time the currents will catch you and carry you even higher, allowing you to actually land at the same point at which you originally took off. As it was, though, the currents weren't strong enough and as a result we did a slow downward spiral into the city, landing in a field in the valley. This actually worked out better for me, as it meant I didn't have to take a taxi or bus both ways on the long trip up the mountain, and got dropped off within about a mile of the metro system. Aside from the cab driver that hustled me a little on the trip up the mountain, my only complaint would be the landing site. There were horses grazing in the field, and thus we landed in big piles of horse shit. Luckily the only thing that was in contact with the ground was my shoes and the paragliding seat. Because the pilot had to fold up and put away his equipment that landed in the grass, I was a little hesitant to shake his hand when I was done. I did it anyways, but let's just say that I washed my hands very thoroughly before lunch.

In the afternoon I went to a large forest preserve which is connected to the city by another extension to the MetroCable system. The place is largely under construction, so there wasn't too much to see. The cable ride there was probably about the most interesting part. The view when you go over the ridge of the mountain and first see the city beneath you is really breathtaking.

On Saturday I took a day trip to Santa Fe de Antioquia. It's a quaint little colonial town about 1.5 hours from Medellín. It was a cute little place, although it was hotter than Hades there (apparently people from the city go there on the weekend to soak up the heat and sun and go swimming). It was definitely worth going, though, if for no other reason than because it had per capita the highest concentration of Colombian hotties I had yet to see on the trip. There was also some amazing mountain scenery I was able to take in from the bus on the way there. In addition, I met a new friend on the bus. We ended up grabbing dinner that night, and went out for drinks and hit a night club afterward. The two of us polished off an entire bottle of Don Julio at the first bar, and we made pretty good headway into a half bottle of Scotch at the night club, so it ended up being a pretty fun evening. Pretty expensive, but definitely fun.