We were told that because the airport in Armenia was so small, it was sufficient to show up 1 hour in advance. What we didnt know was that we should have check in beforehand and would just come in time to drop off the bags. We were not let on the plane and started thinking what to do next. Our options were a plane the next day, a plane from the city Filandia which was 1,5 hours away or a bus. We decided to go for the bus as there were multiple leaving during the day and it was the safest option to make sure we would get to Medellín by the end of day. We had asked our driver Junior from the previous day to drive us to the airport and I quickly called him to ask if he could pick us up and drive to the bus terminal instead. Luckily, he was not too far away yet, came back for us and dropped us at the bus stop where we bought tickets for the next available bus which on good days was meant to take 6 hours. Unfortunately, it was a bad day and the journey lasted around 10 hours instead, but at least the scenery was nice since we drove through the Zona Cafetera all the way to Medellín.
When I booked the hotel in Medellín, I received a message advising it could get loud at night offering to change to a sister hotel, but for whatever reason Madeleine and I thought it couldn’t be too bad. And boy were we wrong. We were in the middle of “El Poblado“, the tourist party centre of the city. When I say in the middle, I mean literally in the middle of a block of streets with bars/clubs that were open air with each one blasting a different type of music until 3am. I highly recommend staying in this area as it is safe, but opt for something away from the bars..
The staff in the hotel was again incredibly polite and the receptionist offered to write us a list of the best retaurants in the area. As we were hungry after our long bus ride, we decided to just go out and stop by whatever looked good and we ended up at a place called Mondongo’s, a place serving Colombian food and avocado slices as big as bananas.
As Madeleine started feeling unwell and I was tired, we went back to the hotel and tried to sleep while other tourists were partying. The next day, we had booked a free walking tour through the Comuna 13. The area is famous, as back in the 90s it was considered the most dangerous neighbourhood in the world with a murder rate topping the following places combined. While Escobar never stepped foot in the comuna himself, his sicarios recruited many new hitmen from the area, as the young men of the area had little opportunities and keen to make fast money. Further, the guerilla groups had caused havoc by murdering many innocent people and traumatising the whole neighbourhood. I will not write the details here, but recommend choosing a guide to walk you through the neighbourhood who can explain the history and development.
In our case, our guide was Sergio from Aic Tour, a 25-year old man who was born and raised in the comuna. He was very knowledgable and shared his personal experiences during the military offensive called Operation Orion. What to be was most fascinating during the tour was how the young people who grew up around so much violence were looking for creative ways to express themselves and show their pride for the place they came from. During our tour, we would stop for little shows and first watched a breakdance ensemble of whose some members even made it into music videos of famous reggeaton singers and later stopped to listen to two rappers who came up with a freestyle rap based on the words our group gave them. Along the way were many galleries full of colourful street art inspired pieces.
After the tour ended, we took an Uber to the “Casa de la Memoria” and were driven by a middle aged woman who also offered to drive us around any other time we needed, so I took her private number and to drive us to the airport two days later. She said we would have to pay whatever Uber would offer on the day. The museum we visited was tough, it remembers the people who lost their lives in all the years of violence the city endured. The most remarkable part for me was a big black room full of screens on which pictures of everyday family events were shown, just like the ones any of us would have. People at birthday parties, weddings, just doing everyday activity. The picture would show all people in the photo in colour at first, then change to grey out all but one person and lastly a message would appear with the name of the person, a year and what happened to them. “Murdered”, “Disappeared”, “Shot” the words read and it made the fact that many innocent people lost their lives a lot more real. Leaving the museum, I felt sick to my stomach, because all I could think was that it could have been me and my family had we be born in a different place.
After this visit, we were close to the centre, so we decided to stop by although we were advised not to go there after sunset. It was 3pm, so we had 2 hours until sunset and we decided to stop for a moment to go for a walk. It was one of the only times where I did not feel fully comfortable in Colombia. As my friend and I are both blonde, we could feel everyone staring at us and there were loads of police men around that were meant to make you feel safer but made you wonder why so many are needed in one place. Quickly we jumped into another Uber back to El Poblado, as we were supposed to meet a German woman who mad moved to Medellín and she was going to show us around.
She picked us up from our hotel in her car and drove us to a restaurant up the hills, so we could eat with a view over the city. We spoke about Colombia, her life there and what she noticed as the biggest differences. She had come to Colombia as a traveller, fallen in love and stayed. Maybe the same would happen to us? We spent a nice evening and she dropped us off at the party area again where we decided to check out a rooftop bar. Here, once again the staff was incredibly nice and continously made sure we were ok. It started raining a bit and although most of the bar was covered, a bit of rain was coming in. They kept asking if we wanted to change tables and we kept reassuring them we were fine, which was really sweet. After a couple of drinks, we called it a night, as (you guessed it), the next day we had to get up early for our next excursion.
weltenbummlerinjoanna 