Written by Ozioma Odocha (Wellesley College), CET Colombia Student, Fall 2024
Hello everyone, I have finally made the time to write about my experience in Medellín! Medellín is the second largest city in Colombia as well as one of the most popular cities to visit in Colombia. I had a unique experience there and I am excited to tell you all about it so that you can consider visiting if you ever come to Colombia.
Additionally, I will be in another city all next week so no blog post for next week. However, that is why this post is extra special and goes into a lot of detail (and lots of pictures) to make up for next week. I’m also making sure to put the links to the places I went so you have no excuse not to go, so let’s get started!
- Travel Details
- Piedra del Peñol & Guatapé
- El Castillo Museum and Gardens
- Restaurants
- Comuna 13
- Thrifting & Wandering
- Super Bowling
- My Thoughts
- Your Thoughts?
Travel Details
For our fall break, my cohort decided to get tickets and an AirBnB for Medellín two months in advance for a cheaper price. At that point, I did not know much about Medellín as a city, but as the months before our break went by I learned more about the place. From our classes, I learned that Medellín was known as one of the specialty coffee production centers and one of Colombia’s whitest areas. Due to factors of race, socioeconomic status, as well as being a popular tourist destination, many people speak English in comparison to people in Cali. With this in mind, I prepared for a trip to the city.
The trip was for five days and we booked our tickets through Avianca. A basic ticket was $30 USD which included only taking a backpack, but I added hand luggage for $20 USD later on. We left on Tuesday and the flight was a little less than an hour. The AirBnB was in a familial neighborhood with restaurants and corner stores.
Piedra del Peñol & Guatapé
On Wednesday we all went on a tour that included visiting the town of Guatapé. Guatapé is a town in Colombia, about two hours away from Medellín and the popular tourist attraction is Piedra del Peñol. This attraction is a huge granite rock with 740 steps to the top, where people can take pictures and buy souvenirs.
I had seen Piedra del Peñol on Tiktok before I traveled to Colombia and knew that I wanted to go. It was like a huge Stairmaster to me and a challenge I was ready to take on. It took me about 30- 40 minutes to finish climbing all the steps and I took about 5 breaks throughout the climb. It was such a fun experience doing it with people from the program as we encouraged each other. Here’s the link to the tour we used.
After we came back down from Piedra del Peñol, we went to the town of Guatapé, which is one of the most colorful towns I have ever seen. The tour guides encouraged us to save our money to spend in this town as the people received a lot of their support from tourism as an Andean resort town. Here are some pictures of the beautiful town!
Afterward, we went on a boat ride! My group has this ongoing joke of pretending it’s someone’s birthday whenever we go out, so we told our tour guide it was a certain person’s birthday and they played the birthday song in Spanish. We also played “Teach Me How To Dougie” by Cali Swag District on the boat with everyone on board, and I know the adults were absolutely done with us. Afterward, our guide also bought my friend chocolate for their “birthday”.
El Castillo Museum and Gardens
Thursday, my friends and I put on our artsy-fartsy hats and visited El Castillo Museum and Gardens. It is a house inspired by castles in Loire Valley in France with many different art pieces and sculptures made with European influence. Unfortunately, we were not allowed to take pictures inside El Castillo, but here is a picture of the fountain that greeted us outside.
Restaurants
For dinner, we went to a Korean restaurant called Soul Korean Street Food in Medellín and I got a chocolate and cherry milkshake as well as jajangmyeon (Black bean sauce noodles). Here is a picture of the shake.
Friday, my friends and I went to another restaurant that was a 10/10. It was called Sweet Georgia Café and was based on Southern Cuisine in the United States, which is of course intertwined with Black American culture. The restaurant displayed many images of Black musicians like Rihanna, Drake (totally lost to Kendrick btw), Snoop Dog, etc. There was also a football match on the screen, and another TV displayed (and played) music by popular RnB artists like Mary J. Blige. Seeing all this imagery made me wonder if this was how Black people in the US are viewed as a group and also if the owner was Black.
Coincidentally, I ran into the chef on the way to the bathroom. I was surprised to see that she was not Black, but when she spoke to us she said the restaurant was started with her Black husband from Georgia. This served as their inspiration, and man was the food good. I was literally a big back eating everything. I ordered a vanilla milkshake, pancakes, bacon, and Parmantier potatoes. And I ate downnnn y’all, I would 100% recommend it to anyone visiting Medellín.
Comuna 13
After our meal, we went to catch our tour to Comuna 13. Comuna 13 is a community that in the beginning, was not recognized by the Colombian government. Due to this, people took advantage of the circumstances and with no laws, would run rampant causing harm to others. However, when guerilla groups came, they offered some sense of order by establishing laws. But these groups were also involved in illegal industries such as drug trafficking which brought with it waves of violence to the community. Throughout the ’80s and ’90s, Comuna 13 was among the top most dangerous neighborhoods in the world.
With the emergence of guerilla groups came paramilitary groups organized to drive out the guerilla groups from the community. Violence and instability were seen throughout this neighborhood with the addition of gang violence. This neighborhood in particular was under the control of Pablo Escobar, a notorious Colombian drug lord and the leader of the Medellín cartel. He along with the guerrilla groups brought in illegal drugs such as cocaine which caused even more strife in the neighborhood.
However, people in the community started projects to improve their living. For instance, during our tour, we took las escaleras mecánicas or escalators to travel upwards. These escalators were put in the neighborhood in 2011 which helped to connect the community to Medellín. The introduction of elements of Hip-Hop like rap, graffiti, and DJ-ing helped people express the good they wanted for the people around them and strengthened community ties.
Soon, the neighborhood became a place for children to run around as well as a place for tourists to come and learn about the powerful history of the community. I thoroughly enjoyed the tour and would recommend it to anyone traveling to Medellín, here is the link to the tour we took.
Thrifting & Wandering
On Saturday (our final day) I went with one of my friends and explored the less touristy areas of Medellín to go thrifting for clothes and wander. My friend found some really cool shirts and pants and while we were wandering we found ourselves in a random store. While writing this, I asked a friend to describe the place we went to and they said it was a place where “An artist’s brain threw up everywhere.” (Oct 7, 2024)
Afterward, we met up with our other friends and went to a really…interesting place.
Super Bowling
Get this. The place was called Super Bowling but was a combination of bowling, a restaurant, a live performance, axe throwing, and a bar. There was also a place where you could watch the people in the kitchen cook like Gordon Ramsay’s show. It was a very interesting place and so were the menu items. One of them was a taco tree which came on a tree structure with tacos in the branches. The bathroom was also really wacky and had a submarine theme. There was also a bathtub literally made for people to take pictures in (which I ended up doing).
The next day we got ready for our 5 am flight and flew back to Cali, Colombia which was a much more relaxed vibe.
My Thoughts
Looking back at my experience, Medellín city is much more fast-paced and the taxi drivers did not drive as crazy as the ones in Cali. It was a lively city and many people spoke English. As soon as I opened my mouth the locals were already speaking in English, so there was no practicing Spanish in that city for me.
At Super Bowling, we realized that some of my friends and I were the ONLY Black people in the place from where we were sitting and when we walked around. This called attention to the fact that this place (as well as many areas in Medellín in general) was arguably the result of tourism and the removal of locals from these areas due to the increase of prices to match the tourism. We had also learned this aspect of socioeconomic status in class, but it was very different to experience it ourselves as both Black individuals and tourists.
Additionally, there was a moment when we went through a very touristy and expensive neighborhood called El Poblado that was so overwhelming. We were traveling as a group at night and guys were coming up to us and promoting their clubs. There were many people, blinding lights, and a lot of music. It was a noisy and distracting place in general, and my least favorite part of my trip.
Your Thoughts?
I enjoyed my time in Medellín as well as the people I hung out with. I recommended going and visiting the places I listed. Which places interested you the most? Let me know, and once again thank you for reading this week’s post. Your support means a lot to me, so I hope you have a lovely day!
Read more of Ozy’s blogs here.
Source link
All Materials on this website/blog are only for Learning & Educational purposes. It is strictly recommended to buy the products from the original owner/publisher of these products. Our intention is not to infringe any copyright policy. If you are the copyright holder of any of the content uploaded on this site and don’t want it to be here. Instead of taking any other action, please contact us. Your complaint would be honored, and the highlighted content will be removed instantly.