Tuesday, February 9, 2016

Medellin. Colombia 24-28.01.16

  • How to get there: We took a bus from Cali that cost COP50.000 per person and it took almost 10 hours including a stop for food on the way. The bus left at 2:30 pm and it had WiFi and sockets to charge your devices. We arrived late at night and took a taxi from the bus station to the hotel we had booked.
  • Arriving to Medellin: The hotel, Hawaii Hotel Suites is a new hotel still under building work in the centre of Medellin. It works as a hotel and a motel and every room of the hotel is themed. A simple room is COP70.000 per night and a suite like we got is COP120.000, hot tub in the room. But if you want to be in the more touristy area of the city you should try with El Poblado, south of Medellin where most hostels and big hotels are located.
Castle in Medellin

The centre of Medellin, just like Cali's, does not look like it should be the centre. Messy and dusty again, it looks like lots of shops just thrown together. We were staying in quite a safe area, where the tram goes in the city and we kept on enjoying the Colombian breakfast. The city has little to see other than buildings and museums, but since we get easily bored of museums, we decided to skip them and go for the plain sightseeing.
The centre has only one main thing to see which is the park. The park is quite small but pretty, and it would help if the surroundings were equally as pretty, however it is mostly a residential area where homeless people sleep. If you want to get out of the centre to different parts of Medellin, try the metro system, it is a cheap way to move around and it is quite safe, if you keep your hands in your pockets.
If you take the metro, go to the cable car system they've got in Medellin, it takes you right to the top of a mountain where you have panoramic views of the city and if you carry on with the last cable car, it will take you to a park at the top of the same mountain where you can do trekking and have a picnic if you fancy. In this cable car was where we met Leo (Brazil) and Dan (USA), who also wanted to see the view from the top and ended up in that park by chance. We spent a while with them and made arrangements to go to the football match the following day with them. We took them back to the centre where Dan bought a Nacional shirt for the occasion.
The next day me and Oli walked to El Poblado in the morning and saw where all the tourists had been hiding until then. El Poblado is simply a good place to get some food other than Colombian and to go out at night. We went for the food.
In El Poblado we saw the other face of Medellin, the busy, wealthy face that has got no time to smile or be friendly, unlike in the centre, where smiles and kindness were common.
That night we went to watch football, which will be in a different blog dedicated to it, and the next day, before taking a flight to Barranquilla, we went to the castle in Medellin, which was built following the architecture of French castles by its first owner, who died 8 months after it was built, and then it was passed onto a rich family, who started bringing furniture and decorations from Europe in order to make the castle a museum. Today it is a museum and it costs COP10.000 to get in per person with a guided tour in Spanish. Check the pictures out!

The centre of Medellin

The centre of Medellin

The centre of Medellin

El Poblado

View from Santa Fe Mall of El Poblado

Santa Fe mall in El Poblado

The cable car station

The cable car station

View from the cable car

Cable car view

Medellin from the air

Park at the top of the mountain

Bird at the park

Medellin in the distance

view from the cable car


At the top of the "slums" of Medellin


Medellin


Small gardens in El Poblado

Gardens in El Poblado

Gardens in El Poblado

Castle in Medellin

Back of the castle

Gardens of the castle




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