Medellin

Last weekend was a long weekend so I spent it in Medellin with three friends, two of whom are from there.  Since arriving in Colombia I have heard over and over again how beautiful, clean, and organized the city is, that it ought to be the country's capitol, and that I absolutely had to go.  Indeed, I fell in love with the city and sort of (really) wish I lived there!  It reminded me a bit of Minneapolis in that isn't very touristy but there is a lot of culture and its overall just a nice place to live.  My one regret is that it is the hometown of Fernando Botero and we didn't get a chance to see his sculptures.

We went to ParqueExplora which had jumping water fountains outside (LOVE them) with tons of little kids playing in them. 

It had a lot of exhibits similar to Minneapolis's science museum, a 3-D theater, and a pretty good aquarium.

 

That evening we happened across a little organic store that sold whole wheat flour.  Sheer joy after two months of searching!  My joy was compounded when we went to dinner at Naan, Medellin's only Indian restaurant (a step up from Cali, which has none).  Oh, Colombia, how you are missing out with your lack of Indian food!  Good food obviously made this evening the highlight of my trip!

Later on we went to Parque Lleras, a cute little park surrounded by a wide variety of restaurants, bars, and clubs.  Because of the perpetual beautiful weather, almost all of them were open air, producing a vibrant energy that beat Minneapolis's nightlife by a long shot!  One of our stops was at this little walk up bar whose sole purpose is to sell cheap shots.  Apparently these are not uncommon but I had never seen one before and was rather amused.

That night we stayed at Guillermo's parents house.  A few pictures from around the neighborhood.

The next day we took the metro cable up the mountainside, through one of the poorer neighborhoods.

 

The city has invested quite a bit in the neighborhood constructing the metro cable and a massive, beautiful library. I have a pretty serious love affair going on with Minneapolis's Central Library but this library was some pretty stiff competition!  When we hopped off the Metro Cable to go check out the library two little boys greeted us in Spanish, "Bienvenidos a nuestro ciudad!  Podemos darles una gira." (Welcome to our city!  We can give you a tour.) and then they turned to me and said, "Welcome!"  Irresistable!  So for a few thousand pesos we had our own tour guides for two blocks! :)

After our tour guides left us we found a woman making gelatina - basically marshmellows.  When I had woken up that morning my stomach was incredibly angry.  All three of my companions warned me that with an already upset stomach this was probably not the most sanitary thing to be eating.  She was after all, mixing the gelatina on a tree branch.  But let's be honest, good looking street food, especially something involving sugar, is no match for reason.  I clearly had to try this.  Within several hours my stomach felt better.  I'm fairly certain that the marshmellows contained bigger and badder bacteria that ate whatever I had woken up with but then they got stuck in all the sticky goodness and couldn't do any more harm.

Here's a few sights from the bus/transit system.  Miracle of all miracles, people waited for others to get off the buses before they got on!  This is a stark contrast to the MIO buses in Cali.  Stay tuned for Tales from the MIO.

 And a couple more views of the city before we move on.

That afternoon we headed outside of the city to Rio Negro where Kathleen grew up.  There are a lot of farms in the area including little traditional houses, massive ranches, and my dream house (on top).

The area was absolutely beautiful!

A Lulo plant.  Lulo is a common fruit here that people often turn into juice.  They get a bit bigger and turn orange/yellow when ripe.

The house Kathleen grew up in has been in her family for several generations.  Her grandma used to use the stone in the yard to grind corn.