Day 17-22 Medellin and Bogota

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I then spent 2 nights in Santa Marta waiting for my flight to Medellin, which cost a paltry £50 and took 1 hour. Alternatively I could have caught a bus which takes between 16-18 hours and you don’t save that much, for someone as tight as me it was an easy decision to make. On the flight I bumped into another chum from the boat trip who ended up at the same hostel as me.

Medellin was a beautiful city and everybody I bumped into elsewhere on my travels couldn’t stop raving about it. The place didn’t disappoint, after a quick wander round with my chum we headed out for a few beers. The hostel was in El Poblado which is a little way out from the centre but the place for nightlife, pure coincidence I assure you.

The next day I took the metro and 2 cable cars to Parque Arvi which is perched a couple of thousands metres above Medellin and is a place of tranquillity amongst the bustling city. After a couple of hours I returned to the city to admire the sculptures of Fernando Botero which adorn the centre. All his sculptures and paintings are of fat people, dogs, cats and horses, rather odd!!

Later that night a few of us from the hostel went out to café Havana for some salsa dancing for which I failed miserably, the star of the evening was a 82 year old who even took over singing from the professional, he wasn’t happy at all.

I spent the next day wandering round the museums and getting ready for my flight to Bogota, my last stop on the trip. The price of the flight was £20, I love traveling in South America!!!

I only had two nights in Bogota but got to see nearly all the musuems in the old Colonial centre, the nightlife is a bit quiet in that area so I never went out with a bang, which is usually the case. My highlight of the city was the gold museum, closely followed by the Police museum where lots of Pablo Escobar’s paraphernalia was on show. Interestingly enough the police officer who shot Pablo then proceeded to take over part of his drug business, he then got arrested and is still serving time in Prison, that’s Colombia for you!

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