Medellin 2013 (Intro)

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As some of you are aware, I have begun travelling to Medellin, Colombia in late 2013. So far, I have spent almost 3 weeks over 2 trips with a third trip planned for this New Year’s 2014. The holidays are claimed by many locals to be a beautiful time to visit the “La Ciudad de la Eterna Primavera” or "City of Eternal Spring". An enduring term, given to Medellin by “Paisas” (local people from Medellin and surrounding area), my experiences so far does justify the nickname as the city’s climate is spring-like.

Moderate temperatures with late afternoon showers that disperse after a few hours seem to be the norm in the city. Medellin is in the green “Aburra Valley”, on the Central Andean mountain range at a height of 1,538 meters or 5046 feet above sea level. The Medellin River cuts right through the city center (valley). Sunny days are warm but nights can be a little on the chilly side if the humidity is up.

The population is just over 3 million and is the capital city of the departmento (state/province) of Antioquia. Colombia is a “republic” and elects a president every four years. Any more basic info you can Google yourselves. I personally begin my searches with the CIA’s World Fact Book, www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook probable the only thing this gov’t agency does that I support a hundred percent.

*NOTE: I am using a new camera for this trip. Some of my images did not come out very good. I'm disclosing that some images in this blog may be from other websites or search engines.

On to the good stuff, I was like most of you reluctant to give Colombia a go after decades of insurgent wars, drug wars and no real tourism to speak of. The country now has millions of visitors each year and Medellin in particular has lead that change. The city is known as the fashion capital of South America and an innovator in mass transit for the country. I have always found public transportation to be the most effective and low cost way to get to know a particular city or region. Medellin was no different. The metro is a rail train service (electrical) with two lines that also has a “metro cable” attached to each line. The metro cables are a form of enclosed cable car that traverse over the steep mountains and enter the poorer neighborhoods of the city. The stations along all the metro lines are perfect to get a view and great pics of different parts of the city. The routes are very comfortable and the metro cables are particularly picturesque. All of this public transportation which reaches most of the city proper can be utilized for less than one US dollar per ride. I have been very impressed by the mass transit found in this city. I’m still new to it but plan on exploring various areas around certain stations to get a better feel of life on the local scale. I have added a few pics of areas I found to be interesting around the metro lines.

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