Medellin, Colombia

Medellin, Colombia was made famous in the 80´s and early 90´s as the home of Pablo Escobar. Despite its reputation, Medellin has proven itself to be an amazing place. It is incredibly modern and very organized with very little crime. It obviously has its fair share of problems, as any large city does, but I felt very safe and am very glad that I included Medellin as a stop on my tour of Colombia.


Having just read a book on the life of Pablo Escobar (¨Killing Pablo¨) I went to visit his grave in Medellin with Aussie Dan. We were both expecting a large extravagant gravesite but were surprised to see a modest headstone for Pablo next to his mother and some other family members. His grave has a caretaker and we talked to him for a bit about Pablo and his effect on Medellin and Colombia. According to him, people are very conflicted in their views on Pablo because although he was responsible for some horrible crimes in his life, he also invested a tremendous amount of money into Medellin in areas such as infrastructure, education and recreation. While nobody would condone the many murders, assaults and kidnappings that Pablo and his associates were responsible for, people are also very appreciative of his generosity towards their community. One thing that was always in the back of my mind as I was going through Medellin was that despite it being such a nice modern city, how much of
this is a result of drug money from the Medellin cartel.

One of my most bizarre experiences in Medellin was visiting a night club called ¨Mangos.¨ Several of us from the hostel took a cab to this American Wild West themed place a little outside of the main downtown area of Medellin. We were told that this was THE club to go to in Medellin so we were all very excited to check it out. I knew it would be a bizarre night when I arrived and was greeted by a group of midgets; some dressed as Fidel Castro, others in cowboy costumes and others in salsa dancing clothes. The main part of the club had several stages around with salsa dancers in very extravagant clothing. Shortly after our arrival though, group after group of scantily clad women came down from a fire pole and started dancing to more popular club music. There were about 5 different groups of people who came down the fire pole before they were replaced again by the salsa dancers. Do I want to return to Mangos? No. Am I glad I went? Yes. An odd night, but good company made it enjoyable.

Medellin has a great metro system that runs to most areas of interest for the average traveler. Part of the metro system is a cable car that runs from one of the metro stations up the mountain into some of the poorer neighborhoods. The system has been great for the working class people in Medellin, but it also gives travelers the chance to take in some good views of the city. Several of us from the hostel ventured up and walked around the neighborhood at the top. There is a very large and very interesting black brick building at the top which is a new library. For us though, it had a nice terrace area giving us a chance to take in the amazing views over the city. There were lots of little kids running around in this area and they were all very intrigued by us, especially since we could speak Spanish with them. Lots of giggling. Perfect.


More pictures of Medellin on my Picassa photo site: http://picasaweb.google.com/jmellgren