From mid-October to mid-November 2023, Sajal and I lived in Colombia. We spent 3 weeks in Medellin (pronounced Medegin). Medellin is an absolutely beautiful city. The city is surrounded by Mountains and the weather was always beautiful. The city is known for being in "eternal spring" and the weather was always in the 70s-80s. We came during the rainy season and it wasn't even that rainy. One thing I highly recommend in all of Latin America are the malls. The malls are all so huge and so unique. Most of them are open-air in one way or the other. We've seen multiple that have roller coasters inside of the mall! We saw one with the largest ball pit I've ever seen. We went to 3 really good malls in Medellin and loved them.
Poblado
Medellin is a big city and some parts can be pretty unsafe. We stayed in Poblado which is a very safe and nice neighborhood. Poblado is also very walkable, we never even rented a car here for 1 day. The grocery store, restaurants, and entertainment are all right around the corner. There are a ton of coffee shops and cute little stores as well. If you need to go a bit further, uber is very affordable. In Medellin most people only speak Spanish, so definitely have Google Translate on your phone and take a lesson or two on DuoLingo. Something really fun that Sajal and I did was a Bachata and Salsa dance class. The class was so much fun and we learned so much in a quick hour.
Close to us was El Parque de Poblado, a pretty cute park in Poblado. In the park there is a flea market, where you can find really cute purses, jewelry, and clothes. I definitely recommend checking it out. This is also where we found MaxiTours. I highly highly recommend them, their prices are very affordable. I wish we used them sooner, but we only used them for our Guataupe tour.
Another very famous park that was close to us was El Parque de Lleras (pronounced Yeres). If you've ever heard about a park in Poblado this is probably it! All around the park are a bunch of restaurants and at night a bunch of clubs! There are also some merchants selling items there. If I had to pick a "center" of Poblado this Park would definitely be it.
Comuna 13 and Metro Cable Cars
Comuna 13 used to be an area in Medellin that used to be very dangerous - there were a lot of gangs and drug trade activity. Pablo Escobar is from Medellin actually and you can visit his home and see his safari as well. We didn't decide to do that though. Comuna 13 is now a very safe and very touristy area. There are a series of multiple escalators that will take you really high up where you can get an amazing view. Throughout the entire journey up you can see many beautiful graffiti art masterpieces. Along the ride, there's a bunch of street food that you can enjoy - we had some corn, a sour popsicle, and chorizo. Comuna 13 is a must see and was one of my favorite places in Medellin.
Medellin is a very mountainous city with great public transportation. So how do you transport people over such mountains? With cable cars! I've been on cable cars before, but never as a part of a metro station. Nearby Comuna 13 was a station with cable cars, so we just hopped on one of them. It was so beautiful and so interesting that people take these cable cars daily. Highly recommend going.
Downtown and Pueblito Paisa
We also did a tour where we went downtown. This is definitely a more dangerous part of town - we saw many people on the street doing drugs and it just wasn't the safest environment. Downtown we spent the most time at Plaza Botero. This is a huge Plaza where there are a bunch of statues from the artist Fernando Botero. These statues are a huge part of Medellin culture.
After Botero Plaza we went to Pueblito Paisa. This is a little town that's styled in an original Colombian style. It's very small with only 1-2 houses and a couple of stores. It reminded me exactly of the Disney movie Encanto and I loved it. It's pretty small and if you're going to do the Guatape tour, I don't think it's fully necessary, but we loved it.
Guatape
If you do one thing in Medellin I highly recommend that you take a day trip to Guatape. Guatape is a town about 3 hours from Medellin. Guatape is the proper town version of Pueblito Paisa. It's super colorful and beautifully decorated. There are these panels lining the bottom of each building. There are a bunch of stores, coffee shops, and a beautiful old church. There are a bunch of little streets that you can wonder through. The town is also right by the water. There's a really famous umbrella street. All of the colors in this town really brought me back to life. We sat in a coffee shop and just enjoyed the town.
The water that Guatape is by is a large reservoir. This reservoir actually used to be a town, they destroyed the town and filled the space with later. Since this area is so hilly, there are many pockets of land that stick out of the water. This is most easily seen from the El Penon. This is a huge rock that's as tall as an 88-story skyscraper. I was feeling really tired so I sat this one out, but Sajal took the stairs all the way to the top. If you don't want to go all the way to the top, the view from the restaurants near the El Penon gives you a great view as well.
We also took a boat ride in this reservoir. We got to see some beautiful houses, including a house that Pablo Escobar had built. The boat ride was fun and peaceful.
Sajal and I then stayed for a week in Bogata! We met Sajal's colleagues who live there. They were all very kind. We went to Crepes & Waffles which Colombia's Olive Garden. It has savory foods and not just Crepes & Waffles. They employ only single mothers to help support them which I thought was very sweet.
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