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Published: August 8th 2009
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Don't worry. I did get robbed with a knife, but all's well that ends well. I'll tell that story shortly.
Neil, callum and I arrived in Medellin about 2 weeks ago. After a bad experience with a hostel employee at The Palm Tree in the Suramericana barrio, we decided to move to barrio Poblado, the Zona Rosa. This place is jumping every night, but especially on Friday and Saturday. The clubs here are a bit expensive, though, so when we went out, we generally would buy beers for 2,000 pesos ($1US) and sit in Parque Lleras, the park around which all of the clubs and restaurants are situated. Good times.
We took a 3 day hiatus to visit a small town outside of medellin called Santa Fe de Antioquía. Santa Fe is a beautiful town, if a bit sleepy. Our time there was mostly spent relaxing and playing futbol. (Well, Callum and I played. Neil just got pissed...that means drunk in British.)
After we returned from Santa Fe, Neil's girlfriend, Sara, joined us in Medellin. She's pretty great. Any woman who can laugh at the constant barrage of fart, urine, beer, penis, and poo jokes that Neil delivers
is OK in my book. She genuinely seemed to enjoy his jokes as much as Callum and I.
The three of them left Wednesday morning for the carribean coast. As I will be travelling the opposite direction, this was the end of our nearly month-long traveling fellowship. It was a bittersweet parting of ways. I'll miss them for the rest of my trip (Poo jokes are WAYYY funnier in a British accent), but I know that Emily will now be here in just a few hours! Emily doesn't really have the knack for poo jokes that Neil does, but she kisses better than he does......not that I know how Neil kisses. Callum told me he's a terrible kisser. I'm just kidding. Neither of them are gay (that I'm aware of), I just know they're reading this and I had to get one last joke in.
So, the day they left, I went for a walk around Poblado at about 3 in the afternoon. There are several parks in this area, and I decided to go to one of them to sit on a bench and talk to Emily. It has a gorgeous brick-paved walking trail in front of
the most expensive Hotel in medellin, Hotel Dann. I was sitting right in the middle of the park in front of the statue of the virgin Mary that always has lighted candles in front of it. A group of people passed by and made the catholic cross on their chest as they passed. Just as they vanished out of sight, 3 young men (I assume around 17-18) stepped in front of me. One of them put a BIG hunting knife on my leg and took my phone out of my hands and turned it off. He then shook the knife around my crotch area and demanded my stuff. Of course, I gave it to him. In all, I gave him 42,000 pesos (about $21US), my phone, and just as he left, he took the sunglasses off my face. As they left, I got up and said to him in spanish, "Hey, man, can I have my phone back? You don't need it, and it's not worth much. Can I please just have that?" Improbably, he turned around and threw the phone at me as well as a glance that said "Here ya go, chump". Well, I really wasn't pleased at
the way I had been treated by these young men. They only had $21 and a $4 pair of sunglasses, but dammit, that's MY $21 and sunglasses. So rather than watch them walk away with my stuff, I gave chase. They didn't notice me until we got almost out of the park. When they did, I launched my offensive to retrieve my belongings. "¡POLICÍA, POLICÍA! ¡LADRONÉS, LADRONÉS!", I shouted over and over again. They got almost to the entrance to the park, then began their counter-counter offensive. They pulled the knife back out and flashed it at me. I thought, what are you going to do, throw it at me? As one of them flashed the knife, the other two took off running across carrera 43, a main 6-lane road. I dashed around the guy with the knife, who I assume wasn't very intelligent because of the way he just stood there as if I were attacking HIM with the knife. Also, the drool on his chin was a clue. After I left the dumb guy behind, I hurdled the two fences in the median to continue the pursuit of the primary perpetrator and one of his accomplices, carefully dodging
taxis, trucks and motos a la Frogger. Once across the main highway, I still had visual contact. I continued my shouting, succesfully gaining the attention of every person on the street, who in turn helped me shout and whistle for the police. After about 5 blocks, I caught the attention of a really big dude in a black t-shirt. He was about 1/2 block in front of the perps and I was about 1/2 block behind. As they passed him, the big guy rugby tackled the kid that originally had the knife, then proceeded to forearm punch the kid in the head. Awesome. The other kid just stood there and watched his friend take an ass-whooping. I stood there and made sure that the other kid didn't go anywhere. The cops showed up promptly and I told them what happened. They asked me how much money they had taken and I said 50,000. I had forgotten that I had just made a 10,000 purchase before they robbed me. They searched the kids and didn't find the knife, but did find some drugs and 50,000 pesos, which they gave to me. They told me that since the two kids didn't have
the knife (the dumb kid was long gone by then, presumably to wash his chin) and only a small amout of drugs, they probably wouldn't be in jail long, but they assured me they´d do everything possible to lock them up for a while, anyways. Afterwards, I thanked the big guy and the cops and continued on my merry way with 10,000 more than before I got robbed. Take THAT, CHUMPS! I am now, unfortunately, sans sunglasses, but Emily's bringing my good ones from home anyways. I hope the dumb kid enjoys my glasses. Maybe they can hide the blank expression on his face.
The main day of the Feria de las Flores (Festival of the Flowers) was yesterday. It is a holiday in the city. Most of the shops were closed, and EVERYBODY in the city was there. About 1,000 people march down from St Elena with these HUGE "silletas" on their back with gigantic flower arrangements on them. They call the people "silleteros", because of the silletas they carry. Silleta means small chair. These things have legs on them so that they can easily set them down when the caravan stops and quickly pick them back up
"Orejas"
Pig ears and noses...DELICIOUS!!! when the time comes. It was a lot of fun. In addition to the Silleteros, which were gorgeous, there were lots of marching bands, both traditional Colombian and American-style, clowns, people on stilts, lots of great food, rivers of pilsen, and lots and lots of flowers. There were actually helicopters flying overhead dumping flowers on the crowd. Crazy.
Emily arrives tonight, then we're off to Ecuador Tuesday, after a quick stop in Ipiales near the border Monday to visit a cathedral that was built into the side of a mountain a few thousand feet above a river because the virgin mary once appeared on the rock face there. Should be interesting, but either way, I'm just so stoked to get to see Em for a couple weeks. She will leave in 2 weeks from Lima to return to Memphis. I probably will update around that time. Chao.
PS-I still think Memphis is more dangerous than Medellin.
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Karen
non-member comment
AHHHHHHH! Buddy please, please,please, protect Emily while she is there. No robbing with a knife or any weapon of any kind! That said, I hope you both have a wonderful time together (just please be careful!).