Medellin, Colombia — Lisa's (& Steve's) Travels

Yes, that Medellin. If you’ve followed this blog for awhile, you’ll know that I like to head south for the winter. I had read that Colombia was beautiful, and now relatively safe, so we decided to explore it.

However, we had a very inauspicious start to our travels. The last time I used the phrase “inauspicious start”, it was describing our South Pacific tour in 2018 where I left my Kindle on the domestic flight, Steve fried my computer keyboard while sharing wine with it, and our power strip sparked and smoked in the middle of the night. This trip nearly ended before it began. As we were checking in at the American Airlines ticket counter at 0400, the agent said, you don’t have a ticket for this flight. Uh, excuse me? We had gotten several emails from American in the last few days about the flight, and we were even upgraded on our seats the day before our flight, and we didn’t have tickets??

I had made a change to our itinerary through the Chase Travel Portal about a month before we were to leave, and they sent me an email with the flight change confirmation. Well, according to AA, “your travel agent only ticketed the return flight. You need to contact them to fix this.” Okay…getting Chase on the phone - “our records show that you do have tickets, and you need to work with the airline.” Catch-22, anyone? So, long story a little shorter…we go back to the ticket counter, and book last minute one way tickets to Medellin with no checked bags. Suspicious? Nahhhh… (We’re currently trying to get Chase to talk to AA and get us reimbursed for the last minute booking. Thank goodness for a big credit line!)

We got settled into our rental apartment, and had a nice welcome as the lights came on through the city:

The next day, we took a 4 hour tour through downtown and into Communa 13 (I’ll explain its significance later). In the next picture you can see the cool looking Palacio de la Cultura (built in the 1920s) on the left, the elevated Metro track and all the greenery on the right -

Medellin is justly proud of its Metro system. It was built after the reign of terror of Pablo Escobar in the 1990s, and has accomplished its goal of uniting many of the far flung communities in the hills with the vital downtown, for their economic improvement. All of the stations and trains are very clean and safe (and cheap! A ride costs about $0.70).

The Plaza Botero features the statues of the native artist, Fernando Botero, who donated 23 of his works to his hometown of Medellin:

That was one end of the plaza and here’s the other -

You probably can see the corpulent common thread…

… and according to our tour guide, many people are “superstitious” and believe that touching the Maternity statute will bring them fertility -

This was one of my favorites (and I especially liked the matching chapeaus of the father and son at the base) -

We walked through an outdoor market area of over 8 blocks…

… to catch a Metro on our way to Communa 13, via gondola -

The gondola lines are part of the Metro system, and are the key way the residents of the poorer communities high in the hills can reach downtown for jobs, shopping and education. Putting up the towers caused much less disruption to existing communities than putting in the 2 train lines in the heart of the city.

Here are some views along our gondola ride…

… where you can get a glimpse of some of the construction -

(I took this picture on purpose to show the capacity of a gondola)

Our guide said that the newest shacks are built in the only open area, between the highway and the river that frequently floods, by refugees from Venezuela -

Communa 13 was once the most violent neighborhood in Medellin, but with access improved to transportation, basic services and security, it has turned around and become a vibrant community that is becoming more prosperous, due in large part to tourism dollars coming from those wishing to see the street art/graffiti…