Colombia

Flying across countries in South America is always a money challenge and requires lots of research. We managed to find a flight for 250€ from Guayaquil via Quito to Bogotá. Recommendations told me to rather skip Bogotá and directly move on to Medellin, so I spent one night at the Fernweh Hostel to drop off my heavy luggage since I wanted to carry on with hand luggage to save money on flights. The hostel and location in the historical center made me rethink to maybe spend one day in Bogotá before returning to Germany, still on the list.

My cheap flight with Viva Air turned out to be the South American version of EasyJet. My backpack was a little bigger than the allowed size and because I didn’t print the bording pass before, another 30€ needed to be paid....the flight was only 46€!! No more Viva Air was my conclusion. Latam and Avianca are more flexible and in the end cheaper.

What I didn’t know and unfortunately didn’t check was the location of the airport...it was one hour away from the 4 million people town Medellin. I ordered an Uber that took me on an one hour drive, but a pleasant one. The driver gave me some food recommendations and information about for example cruise boats in the Caribbean.

In the Nomad Hostel located in the North of the city I could have my room already, relax and freshen up. Julia had already arrived and so we walked towards the Jardín Botanico, everything else was pretty much closed, it was Sunday. 

Close to a recommended and much safer area El Poblado was the restaurant, that my driver had told me about for the typical Colombian dish. 

We took the metro from botanical garden towards South, which is very easy, safe and cheap. 

What a rich dish with meat, rice, banana, egg and salad...nothing really special in terms of taste, but we tried.

Now we needed to walk, so headed further to El Poblado for shopping. In a cafe we met two guys from the US and went for dinner in El Botanico. Delicious food and fancy cocktails, that are served with a spectacular. This area has so many nice restaurants and bars to hang out and easily spend a couple of days.

Instead of booking a full day tour we got on a local bus for 15.000 pesos from Terminal del Norte. After two hours you reach the center and can walk around the little streets. The little towns history says that the windows and doors were taken from old farm houses after flooding and built in houses, painted colorful to brighten up. 

The 2.100 meter high Piedra del Peñol can be climbed up with almost 700 steps for a stunning view over the lagoon all around. Definitely worth a visit to this relaxed and colorful place. Even on the way there the estates and farms in the middle of green hills and little rivers must be worth spending more time, which we unfortunately didn’t have.

Comuna 13 is one of the 16 “communes” or comunas of Medellín, Colombia. Also known as San Javier, this comuna is located on the west side of the valley of Medellín. This neighborhood was once considered the most dangerous in the world, based off murder rates. With the ease of access to the San Juan highway, this was the perfect route for the cartel to transport drugs, guns and money from rural Antiqua to the city of Medellín.

Chaos was daily life for this population dense community, as residents were too poor to have means to get to Medellin for work, and little opportunities resided on the mountainside. Since the 80’s, Comuna 13 was ruled by the Medellín Cartel, which came with strong social tensions with the government, large class differences, and daily combat. Residents lived in fear, subdued to the cartel, so something needed to change. In 2002, the government decided to carry out “Operation Orion” which was an attempt to overthrow the cartel militias. This left people of the community in crossfire, with many injured and killed. The civilians raised white flags, literally, to stop the fighting. The government thought this to be one of the most successful operations, lowering the murder rate from 360 to 80, but this is controversial with the people of Comuna 13. They believe the rule went from one corrupt leader to another, and murder rates dropped due to disappearances vs. deaths. With all of that being said, things today are in much better shape.

The walls in Comuna 13 represent hope and life covered by beautiful graphity art, which you can see in different expressions. 

We took the 3 hour walking tour from the San Javier metro station and were told the mentioned history, which surprisingly is not even 20 years ago. Now Comuna 13 is the safest area in Medellín. We enjoyed this tour a lot...