Medellin: A Charming Colombian City

Many people who haven't even visited Colombia have pre-conceived ideas about what the country is like, Tom and I included, before we came here.  It is true that the drug trade is very prominent and there is a lot of political tension and violence as a result, but this has significantly reduced over recent times.  There is so much more to the country than cocaine and guns.

When we first arrived at the Colombian border, the first thing we were struck by was the immigration official.  She was friendly (at least, for someone working at immigration) and even smiled at us as she stamped our passports.  This was a contrast to the people working at Peruvian/Chilean/Ecuadorian border controls.

We were headed for Medellin, one of the largest cities, but hours of bus travelling are rather tiring so we decided to stop in Cali for a couple of days.  For a place which was only meant to act as a stopover, we liked it very much.  It is a modern city and very green, with huge trees along the sides of the road.  We felt safe in the quiet neighbourhood where we stayed, and our hostel was peaceful, lovely after the noise of where we stayed in Quito.

The Colombian Woman - Fernando Botero

Medellin is not as green as Cali, but it holds a lot of charm and there is a lot of impressive architecture.  The government has done a lot of work to clean up the streets and parks to reveal the beauty of the city, and improved public transport links (which frankly are better than those in the UK) to bring together the wealthy and poor areas.

We visited some fantastic places in Medellin, the first being El Museo de Antioquia.  Outside the museum are huge bronze sculptures of women, men and animals, the work of Fernando Botero, more of whose art is displayed inside.  Several different artists' work can be found there, including modern art and religious paintings, but there is a whole gallery for Botero.  His sculptures and paintings portay men, women and animals as being what some consider 'fat'; certainly they appear very rounded.  Even his still life paintings are created in the same style.  He was once quoted as saying that he makes his figures appear fat "to make them sensual; I don't paint fat people for the sake of fat people".  The most famous of his art includes The Colombian Woman.

We also visited Parque de Bolivar, which is small, but holds an impressive statue of the liberator Simon Bolivar and has a lovely fountain in the centre.  It is bordered on one side by the Metropolitan Cathedral of Medellin, an architecturally impressive building whose construction took 40 years.

El Parque de los Deseos

El Parque de los Deseos - The Wishes Park - is a modern sight of the city and is so named because people travel there to look up at the stars and make a wish.  It is home to the Planetarium and the Casa de la Musica where opera music is performed and has some striking features, including two large, convex, stone pieces, the outer surfaces of which are intended to resemble that of the moon.  The insides of the curves face one another, several metres apart.  If one person speaks into one of the curves, a person stood at the other curve can hear them as if they were stood side by side, even though they are metres apart.  Of course, there is a scientific explanation for this, but that is not in my remit.  We were impressed.

El Parque de los Pies Descalzos

El Parque de los Pies Descalzos - The Barefoot Park - has a peaceful Zen garden of bamboo trees.  The park is so called, because there is a rocky walkway where you can walk barefoot, for exfoliaton, then there are cool, fresh pools where you can dip your feet in and relax.  Walking barefoot on the rocks was a little painful, but the pools were very refreshing in the midday sun.



Many people seemed interested by our presence and were friendly; the majority of visitors to Medellin were Colombian so we stood out.  The number of foreign travellers to Colombia is still rather low compared to other South American countries, due to the stigma of drugs and violence.  Many Colombian people want this to change and for more foreigners to come and visit this beautiful country.  We spoke to one local man who works as a tourist guide, and he told us that it is very important for him and his country that visitors from abroad speak well of Colombia so that others will travel here.  Yes, there are drugs and dangerous people, but that is the same everywhere.  We didn't feel unsafe, and honestly it is the first country we have visited in the continent where we haven't been offered illegal substances.  Colombia is a charming country, rich with history and culture, and I hope that more people continue to visit.