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Published: July 27th 2009
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The Medellin Cartel were a network of drug dealers / smugglers founded by Pablo Escobar. At their peak they earned $60m a day through narcotics. In 1989, Forbes magazine named Pablo Escobar as the 7th richest man in the world. He was killed on a rooftop in Medellin after a shootout with police. After 16 years of Pablo Escobar, Medellin, as has Colombia changed lot.
I picked a hostel in the Panito Bonito district of Medellin, which is London equivalent would probably be somewhere like Hampstead. The area is full of designer stores, shopping malls and trendy restaurants. It shows how far the town has come since the days of Escobar. After visiting the Colombian version of the Playboy mansion in Cartagena, I decided to spend nearly a week in Medellin as I wanted to learn Spanish. The problem I had was I picked a Spanish teacher with no concept of time. Out of five lessons, she cancelled two and appeared late for the rest of them.
The majority of the nights out in Medellin were spent in the Zona Rosa area, which was busy most nights. We always seemed to end up in the same club every night,
in fact everyone from the hostel did.
Local attractions that I visited included a daytrip to Guatape, which is a beautiful little town about 90 mins drive from Medellin. The locals travel around the town on horses instead of taking cars etc. Just down the road from Guatape was El Penol, which can be described as the Colombian version of Sugar Loaf Mountain. Consisting of 644 steps to get from bottom to top, and at a height of 2,135 metres, El Penol has two-thirds of its mass underground.
I did make a ‘friend’ whilst in Medellin. Whilst I was in town, it was Colombia’s day of Independence, 20th July. I had been given a lot of Spanish phrases to learn the day before, so I thought the best thing to do would be to get out of the hostel, as they was no way I could sit down and try and learn something there. I decided to head to one of the malls around the corner from the hostel, find a Juan Valdez (Colombians version of Starbucks). I managed to find a table at Juan Valdez and order a tall, skinny, wet, extra cream, mocha, choca latte with
ginger syrup. Actually, I had an extra large Americano, sat down and started on Spanish present tense verbs.
The table I was sat on was covered in notes and Spanish books. On the table opposite a guy appears, sits downs and smiles across. Now looking back, maybe I was a little a simple, but I thought he could see that I was a gringo, and also could see I was trying to learn the language as opposed to trying to speak in English to people. For the next hour, this guy, all he did was stare across at me. It got to the point where I thought that I would probably get more work done in the hostel than have some guy stare at me in the middle of a mall. So, I packed my notes and books up, and went to leave the mall. To get to the exit, I had to go up two escalators. As I was about to get on the second escalator, I looked down and saw that guy who had been sat opposite coming up the first escalator. Panic set in. I shot up the second escalator and dived into Diesel. I picked
up 4 items and headed for the changing rooms. After 10 mins or so, I guessed that the stalker guys must have gone, so I dumped the clothes back on the rack and left the store. I couldn’t see him anywhere, so I thought the coast was clear. As I turned the corner, about 30 metres from the exit, I practically walked into him. He said something along the lines of ‘Oooohh’. I didn’t hang around to strike up a conversation. I headed straight for the exit. As I left the mall, I turned around and the guy was stood in the same place where I had nearly walked into him, he was just stood there still staring at me. So I have some local loon following me around a mall in Medellin to go with so guy from the shop near with my hostel, who followed me back to me hostel asking if it was ok to come in (I don’t think I put that story in my Venezuela blog). Not sure if it my aftershave or perhaps because I am walking around these towns in leather backside less pants, tight white tee-shirt and a biker hat. I just
can't place my finger on what is attracting these weirdoes.
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Merryn
non-member comment
ahahhaha
You're blog was so funny a tall, skinny, wet, extra cream, mocha, choca latte and your story about the stalkers!! That sounded so funny how you went into Diesel to 'try on clothes'...haha I can so imagine!! Thanks for such an entertaining story!!! PS I'm in Medellin next week, hope no one stalks me!