Colombia: Ellis, Medellin 1-8-2010

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1-8-2010
Today i got up with the plan to go paragliding,,,if you dont know what that is check out my facebook photos or google. To get to the place i first had to walk 20 minutes to the metro station, take it to the bus station, and then take a bus headed for san feliz, but get off at ¨las avionetas¨. i got there fine in about an hour and a half. i got there and they explained the safety precautions and instrucitions in spanish and less than ten minutes later i was running off a cliff in the hills above medellin. its expensive by colombian standards but at 40 dollars US it was worth the 25 minutes of flying time! from above you could see all of medellin in the valley below as welll as a few waterfalls that were below. doing this you ride thermal updrafts from the valley floor and can stay aloft for as long as you like, it was amazing. after wards i was offered a ride down the mountain by someone who worked there. i was a little nervous because i knew it was dangerous to get a ride with someone i didnt know. well i guess i misunderstood what he meant cause i thought he was going to be taking me to the metrocable station( which i had been told by someone i know in medellin not to go to since these were the bad parts of medellin)....well it got worse because we didnt go here, but the driver said he had to get something from his house, we went off the main roads, and ended up in barrio robledo. no lie i was freakin out a little , here i was i had been told not even to get off the metro car in this neighborhood let alone to be far away from police waiting in some guys car. it turned out all right when he came back with a big speaker and i relaxed. he took me all the way to the bus station and it turned out all right. i found out later robledo was the barrrio that separates the ok neighborhoods in the hills around medellin from the really bad ones. Then i went to the minorista, a grungy dirty market in a absolutely off the tourist grid location, though interestingly it was only about 8 blocks from common tourists sites. its impossible to properly describe this market and even harder the things i saw while walking there. this is not a place to bring your camera, or anything of any value for that value so i have no photos. on the way there you pass working areas where people welding, building chairs, begging for money, smoking illegal stuff out of pipes, and numerous homeless and trannies spill out from stores into the walkways. watch out for men banging metal bars against the sidewalk to shape them, they may very well take your head off if your not careful! (this nearley happened to me but i got out of the way)¨. the market had everything, food, vegitbles, fruits, spices, coca leaves, everything. i browsed around and ate anything new i found and ended up getting a full meal including drink for tres mil pesos-1.5 USD and it was good. after this i got a huge bowl of sancocho, a soup of chicken and 3 kinds of potatoes along with a drink for only a thousand pesos-50 cents. this alone could have filled me up. i walked around for a few hours before leaving and giving all my leftovers to a man on the street, he seemed pretty happy to be eating something good. Next i headed up along the metrocable to the once most dangerous barrio in medellin, and still not a place to go at night, santo domingo. i went up here , which is up on one of the walls of the mountains around medellin and watched the sunset and ate a snack or two. i went down around 6. again, i didnt bring my camera since it was supposed to be too dangerous for me to have gone at all, which sucks, it was amazing. i got back to the dorm and listened to the hostals local drug dealer, ¨Frosty the Snowman¨ rant about politics and jews in israel. (you can guess what he sold-dont worry family, i dont do that stuff). i hung at the dorm and went to bed a little early.

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Comments

[Taylor C.]

Hahaha Frosty the Snowman... is that translated?