Medellin and Motor Bikes

Lets buck the trend of this blog/my life, and start with some rays of sol.  I had one of the best "tourist" days ever a couple of days ago. The day following my horrible arrival experience (which in hindsight wasn't actually that traumatic) I wandered about the old town of Medellin. It was pretty in parts and quite interesting architecturally. I read a really interesting article about how all the internationally acclaimed and innovative architecture made a massive difference to medellin, and contributed to its massively decline in homicides.http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/20/arts/design/fighting-crime-with-architecture-in-medellin-colombia.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 I'm sure that the demise of ole P.Escobar aided a bit too, but the new buildings are visually arresting and oddly beautiful in places.  I'm more of Hogwarts turret lass myself but they were certainly interesting. Anyway that day isn't the day I mean; that day was ok. I spent most of it in the library reading Little Women, which may rank as a failure to some of you, but you'd be wrong.

The Day was the day after, when I was approached by the diminutive host of the hostel, who asked me if i would like to go out with him for the day. My initial response was mais non ma petit chum, but then I realised this attitude may be partly why I am sin amigos at this time. I was recently described (488284 times) as a little bit aloof, and so I decided to buck tradition and say oui, why not, with a carefree European laugh. He also came up to my mid thigh, so I figured he was pretty non threatening. Best of all, his English was pretty horrid, so I figured it would be a good time to get some Spanglish on the go. Anyway, I agreed to the proposal and THEN he said,

"ok, get ready and I will just go and get the BIKE."
" Push bike?" I asked in a hopeful voice.
"No." Empty pause where the carefree European laugh should have gone.

It was a MASSIVE motorbike, one of my worst things. I used to have a boyfriend who I actually knew and trusted, who sometimes asked me to chum him on his motorbike. I would always get huffy aggressive and say never in a million years, whilst googling mortality rates. And yet somehow, an hour later, there I was- old motorbike refusal head, on the back of an enormous machine, being driven by a miniature person. I was really worried my **(hem!) stone to his 3, would cause some kind of horrific mechanical combustion, but he just chuckled and patted my- significantly broader than his-shoulders reassuringly and off we whooshed. Initially I was awful. He kept smashing my knee cap on turns and saying
"Necesitas relajarse, o es peligroso." which is probably the last thing that's going to make you relax, and I felt physically sick on the bends.  To assuage my terror, he was driving at about 7km an hour in the middle of the highway, which was pretty funny as everyone was shouting at him and laughing at the terrified gringa.

 

After a while though I started to calm down and I loved it. It was such an amazing way to see the city, and he took me to loads of things that I would never have even bothered about on my own, because I am an accidental and also lazy tourist.  There are a lot of really seedy areas in the city and I got to see them too, which I think is important to getting the flavour of a place like this.

We went to Botero Plaza, which is somewhat predictably a plaza full of Botero sculptures. I think I've mentioned before that I don't really enjoy his work that much, but this plaza is pretty incredible; it's outside an enormous gothic church like building, which is the museum. There are lots of fountains and huge sculptures of enormous men and women. All sorts congregate with lots of young boys selling avocados with a microphone, literally scores of police men and the predictable mix of tourists and beggars. It's a sun trap, so the well tended flower beds and patches of grass are utilised by drunks who are collectively conked out flat on their backs and snoozing.  There are loads of prostitutes, and apparently they like to have brothels nearby to the churches, so that men can handily atone for their sins after their encounters. How charming.

We went to a castle that was built in the thirtys by some Dutch guy. It was a really beautiful stately home, if you like that kind if thing, with a pretty garden full of parrots.  The guide who showed us round was a beautiful young lass, who was visibly lacklustre about recounting the dry facts of the family. She snapped gum, pulled faces at questions and looked on with ill disguised contempt at our party for a variety of reasons. I enjoyed the tour immensely for this alone, but otherwise didn't find it particularly interesting. The grounds were lovely and cool. Medellin is known as the city of eternal spring, and when it wasn't raining (?!) it did have a pretty dreamy climate.

Medellin has a recently introduced cable car system, for the people who live up in the poorer barrios on the hill. It's been revolutionary for them, as before it would have been a real slog getting up and down the hills-which are more like mountains. Now they just hop on a cable car. We did that at night and it was simply beautiful: I think most cities are at their best in the dark with all the twinkling lights, and especially one like this which is really big, and framed by dramatic mountains. I also liked how you could see in people's windows, hundreds of little tableaux of folk going about their evening, framed in the glow from their lamps.  We went to look for some shoes for my bloodied stumps, and we were roaming about the night markets which were full of prostitutes, dealers and people who were oot their nuts. It was uncomfortable and sad, but there was also a real vibrancy about it that I didn't find later on when I moved hostel to the touristy Pueblito area. We drove back to the hostel just in time as it started to bucket down which meant I had to go to bed, rather than out for the planned salsa and beer (which I was secretly really relieved about, as I was knackered.)

It was a really lovely day, just so nice to let someone else take control and feel I was seeing things which you're meant to. I think sometimes its good to just relax on a trip and not feel obliged to do all the touristy stuff, but I feel like I've done that far too much in Colombia and this was the sort of day that I need to be forced into, and then always seem to really enjoy.  The guy was lovely. Of course he went a bit mental afterwards and sent me more emoticons with hearts in them than any grown (sort of) man ever should, but the day itself he was just a lovely, kind person who went out of his way to show me things. Good egg.

I broke up my time in medellin by visiting the nearby town of Guatape, two hours by bus from Medellin (north terminal, every hour, about 12,000COP). It was described by lonely planet as "stunning", which I wouldn't say was entirely true (more pretty/creepy) but its nice to visit for the day. It's a really wee village with garishly painted buildings, and an enormous hill which is in walking distance from the town itself. The afternoon I arrived I just walked about; it's very touristy so I found it particularly stressful in terms of hassle, but people were friendly and welcoming. The houses are mental, all really bright colours (nothing like the delicate pastels of the coast) and with strange embossed designs on the front. Like frogs. Or guitars. Or cowboys. Really, genuinely odd. I stayed in an Eco hostel. Sigh. That's all I will say about that.

The next day, I set off at about 8 am with the intention of walking to the hill and hiking up it. It's a four hour walk and pretty easy except for the end which is hellish. I really enjoyed it, just to be doing some exercise felt great and it was a gloriously sunny morning.  (More of that dear glorious sun later). I got to the car park bit half way up the mountain and turns out you've got to pay to climb up it, so I didn't bother. Id got pretty high up anyway, and the view of the archipelagos were beautiful anyway. I'm sure I missed out in some incalculable way but I'm not paying money to do something I hate (exercise).
The water levels were really low, so it was apparently not as pretty as it is usually, but it was still bonny and a nice day trip. If I had been pushed for time I maybe wouldn't have bothered going, but as I'm flouncing about doing nothing, it was a nice way to spend a couple of days.

When I went back to Medellin, I stayed at a different hostel, called the Black Sheep. The plan was, to leave after a day, but a combination of exhaustion (?!) lovely friendly girls in my dorm, and seemingly hundreds of really handsome Israelis, I stayed for four days....
In reality the handsome Israelis were the bane of my life, as turns out walking for four hours, in the morning sun had made me look like I'd been slathered in olive oil and tossed onto a George Foreman. Mam, I know you will despair at this but I PROMISE this time, I've learnt my lesson. It was just my face I forgot to do, so I looked really weird. One boy told me when I first came in he had to leave the room as he thought he was going to laugh. It was excruciating; confronted with the first eligible young men on this WHOLE TRIP and I looked like that. Aside from my battered vanity, I had a really fun weekend. I went out on the Friday night, but as I hadn't had a single thing to drink since February, I got a little bit woozy (hem) and had to come home at 10.30, where I took it upon myself to make a fish curry. Hmmm.

The rest of the weekend was spent lounging around talking to folk and gazing adoringly at a group of really funny cockneys who had the best jokes I've heard in ages.  I had seen them a few days before in a shop having banter with the shop assistant, and lurked around hoping they would transfer some of it to me. They did not, but then turned up at the hostel I was in, and I was determined to stalk them into being my pals. There were loads of lovely English lasses there too, and they were hilarious and familiar in their ways. It was so nice to be with other Brits, a sentence I hate myself for uttering but I can't help it. The group of LADS, made crap jokes about my hair, talked loudly about their bowel movements, and looked like they thought they were in the strokes circa 2001, and it was SO NICE, after months of "chao mamasita, shake it baby" and felt so relaxing to have shared cultural references again.  I think the local people you meet traveling are what makes or breaks your trip, and I've been lucky to meet some incredible Colombians, but there is also something so wonderful about spending time with folk from home, especially when you're "tinkin lang" as Granny would say.

I decided after the weekend to have a little swatch at the prices of flights, which is why I find myself accidentally back in Cartagena. It was a really cheap flight and I couldn't be bothered to take a bus for 14 hours to the south.

I am in a sweaty little room with no air-con and a zillion mosquitoes. There is a little man playing guitar under my window and I can hear the trot of the horse drawn carriages whizzing past. Tomorrow I'm going to the beach town of Taganga to live it up with mojitos, fresh fish and salsa bars. I hope.