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Published: August 13th 2012
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Why do we love Colombia? Because here cab drivers honk at the police, because people are lovely and because it might be cheaper to fly than to take a horrible 20hour bus ride!
So, when we finally decided to leave to Medellin we booked a $25/person flight the night before our departure. Seems like a pretty good deal considering the bus would have cost us at least $50!! It turned out we weren't the only ones with this genius plan and we bumped into 4 other boat co-travellers at the airport. Everything went smooth and great and once in Medellin we ended up staying at a hostel called "Casa Kiwi" - probably the best hostel we have ever been to. With beautiful rooms, a small swimming pool on the rooftop, a huge kitchen, a cinema and a pool table 😊 the staff was amazing and we stayed there for 3 days, during which we walked through the entire city: 20km in 6 hours... We went to a very cool salsa club and cooked a lot. We also went for a walk in the park "Arvis" which is rather a forest. The park can only be reached by the "Metro Cabel"
a cablecar, the ride up takes about 40minutes during which the entire city can be seen from the top
After the 3 days we got invited by a girl on couchsurfing to come and stay at her place. So we checked out that evening and decided to play a last round of pool. We got challenged by two employees from the hostel to play for a bottle of wine, however: knowing that we have no chance we took another player into our team, who was supposed to pull the dead weight... It was an emotional, close and intense game, but Tatiana smoothly and professionaly hit the black one at the end... and... We won! We enjoyed consuming our prize, but it was time to leave to Juliana's house...
Juliana, our host, lives in a museum... Literally. A beautiful huge house, filled with art and character. We only found out later that her grandfather and great grandfather were important figures in Colombia and very influential with their art.
Juliana looked after us well. Upon our arrival she made lovely "arepas" - a typical Colombian dish (we love it)! We met her friends, family and she also took us
on a tour to Santa Elena, where we met a "silletero" and were shown how "silletos" are made. You can see the art on the pictures, it is difficult to describe but those ones are for the flower festival that we got to take part in a few days later.
On another day we made a daytrip to "Guatape". It's a charming little town with colourful houses that all have drawings and paintings on them...
...However... There was another special thing about this place... There is a stone. A huge stone. Massive. Above the ground is only a small piece of it, like the tip of an iceberg. The main part however is underground.
Of course we had to climb the steep, cold, narrow, and dangerous 750 stairs to the top... We suffered 3 long days afterwards from sore muscles. But the view from the top was indescribably beautiful. You can turn 360 degrees and see nature all around, the waters, the mountains, a few houses. It's breathtaking (just as much as the stairs 😉...).
Medellin in general is not the most beautiful city, very industrialised but very very green and surrounded by beautiful mountains. But
what we found most special about the city is the bright beautiful blue sky and the shining clouds. No picture can give away how this painted-like skyline looked like.
What became very clear is that Colombians are just absolutely lovely and helpful. And even the fact that my headphones and a dollar were stolen from me (Diana) out of the purse didn't change our view of the country.
What also became very clear is that the driving style doesn't only look dangerous but it is in fact very much so. We were in a car accident in a cab. Nothing happened to us besides some bruises but it caused some intensified stress when on buses.
We left on Tuesday night by bus to Bogota, where we are at the moment trying to get used to the altitude of 2600masl. It is rather cold compared to the past 2,5 months but the city is definitely worth spending some time in.
We will update you soon 😊
Besitos Tatti y Dianita
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mehdi
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hey
so cute , pretty girl