Santa Marta to Medellin

Medellin was next up and we had a lovely 15 hour bus journey to look forward to! To add to the excitement we were a bit nervous about this one as it was our first overnight bus journey in Colombia and we have heard about night buses being stopped and robbed. We looked on the Lonely planet website and there was a girl that was robbed and had a gun to her head throughout the ordeal and this was in a place we would be travelling through! The poor girl was in her first week of a year trip and it must have been awful for her and I hope she had the courage to stay travelling. After something like that I don’t know what I would of done?

This is one of the reasons why we were nervous as we didn’t really have much choice but to travel overnight when a journey last 15 hours, we could break it up but if we end up doing that it will take us forever to get anywhere. We decided to go for it and had no problems apart from the freezing air con on the bus. The air con gets so
Sculptures by the artist Fernando Botero
cold at night it’s like being in a freezer. The locals come prepared with blankets and we had warm clothes but still cold. You try and ask the driver to turn it off but no joy, even some of the older ladies were complaining and the driver might turn it off for half an hour or so!

We eventually arrived very tired and stayed in the Black Sheep Hostel. Unfortunately they had no double rooms and we had to settle for a dorm room. The hostel was like a bachelor pad, full of blokes getting pissed until 6 in the morning or when the beer ran out whatever came first and then sleeping until 5 in the afternoon. There were lots of people who have been staying for weeks as they like it so much. Not for us both we like to see a place and then move on and don’t really see the point in getting pissed night after night and then staying in bed when there is so much to see and do, we can do that at home. We must be getting old!

The main reason we came to Medellin was to paraglide! It was
only 15 pounds for 30 mins in the air and it was brilliant! We got to see some great views of the city and surrounding countryside and hopefully the pictures will do it justice. How it works. You would get strapped in with the instructor and he would do all the work. All you would have to do is a bit of running at the start as you ran of the hillside and then you would just sit there. The only downside for me is that I was expecting to be more scared. There was no real adrenalin rush as you don’t feel the speed you are going and it just feels like you are gradually gliding around. The only scary things was when we were doing some acrobatics and nearly turned upside down and I began thinking if anything went wrong I would be dead and when we overshot are landing and had to crash land before we went of the edge of the hillside but apart from that it was not scary at all!

Medellin was a nice enough city and easy enough to get around due to its tube system. Not as cheap as Mexico but still only 25p a journey. We got to see some nice museums and the artwork of Fernando Botero. His artwork consists of huge bulky men and women and in general makes everything look big, even the animals he paints and sculpts. You may have seen some of his work.

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