TNT Travels

Medellin

We landed in a torrential downpour which lasted all of 10mins. The ride into the city took under 30mins, thanks to a massive tunnel they have built through the mountains. Prior to that it took an hour.

We stayed at the Art Hotel which was a very modern style boutique hotel.

Lovely place and good location. We dumped our bags at the hotel to go for a wander. Me “let’s do a walk about reccie”, El Tel “that’s aimless wandering”. I follow his navigation and we end up in a shopping centre. We then follow mine and end up in the heart of el Poblado. It’s an extremely social area with loads of bars and restaurants.

It comes alive at night with street artists doing acrobatics in the middle of the road (obviously whilst the lights are on red). Quite a bit of child and adult begging but it’s one of the main tourist hotspots. If you walk north through this area for 15mins you get to a slightly more upmarket area with loads of great restaurants. We had pre-booked Oki.mde. It turned out to be one of the busiest restaurants in the area with good reason. Food and service were fantastic.

I got Terry to try a Pisco Sour as recommended by a former colleague. Apparently there is a big debate between Chile and Peru as to who invented it. Either way it’s definitely an oesophagus warmer.

On the following day we headed to comuna 13 for our 1st organised tour of the trip. This was Pablo Escobar’s stomping ground and has had a terrible reputation for years throughout 70s, 80s and 90s. It still has had this rep so the locals are desperate to reverse it and really want tourism to take off. Escobar died in 1993 and then there was a real struggle between government, paramilitaries and guerillas. In 2001, there was a massacre when lots of innnocents were killed. There is a huge mass grave in the hillside that looks like a quarry from a distance.

Since this massacre Medellin has transformed, especially this district. Comuna 13 is deemed as being super safe and 30% of the district’s population now work in tourism.

Some of the enablers of change have been the introduction of a cable car and 6 escalators. These allowed the community to come together and made it easier to work. There are 6 cable cars across the different districts as they transform locals ability to get work.

The tour started with a ride in the cable car which is up there with one of my least preferred modes of transport. I have only just got over the last cable car experience in Kuala Lumpur 12 years ago.

There were only 4 of us in the group which was pretty lucky as apparently there was 25 the day before. El Tel, me and 2 German chaps in their 60s. We did the cable car trip to get a good view of comuna 13 and get a bit of history before heading down into the heart of the district.

The tour guide asked if we needed the loo before we boarded the bus to the next stop. One of the German duo seemed uber keen to use the facilities (ironic given El Tel thought he was called Uber not Uwe for the whole tour). The guide had a word with the lady in the kiosk selling snacks and she opened the back door to give access to the loo. Uwe raced in and the rest of us stood hanging around waiting for him. 5 mins turned into 10 and there was a bit of an awkward lull in the conversation by when Uwe’s long absence was very apparent. Next thing you know, the door opens and Uwe sticks his head around it from a seated position and announced very loudly zat zer vas no loo roll. If you have heard of the expression ‘sh1ts and giggles’. It seemed very apt as I definitely got a fit of the giggles.

We then got on the bus for a 10min ride up the other side of the valley into the heart of comuna 13. It was standing room only by the time we got in so El Tel and I swung round like a pair of aging orang-utans at Chester Zoos, for the short ride.

Apparently, Pablo liked comuna 13 because:

◦ Good access to coast road over the mountain

◦ Poor people willing to kill a policeman for 1 mio pesos which is £200

◦ Narrow little alleys between houses instead of roads to hide in

The place has a real raw charm about it. Everyone seemed relaxed and friendly. What really strikes you is the abundance of colour and music. Still no police presence at the top. Apparently it’s managed by the people. You feel completely safe as you wander about.

The murals are really thought provoking. The guide’s explanation of the story behind them was 1st class.

During the tour, we went into a tiny art gallery that had lots of paintings created by one of the main artists in the district.

El Tel got awarded 10points off the tour guide for his interpretation of this piece of art.

Painting and colourful creativity balancing out the history of fighting

The 6 escalators take you from half way up the town to the top. Apparently the massive positive impact these have had on the community is immense.

Uber is not officially allowed so one person may be asked to sit in the front so it doesn’t look like a taxi. It’s a bit hit and miss on this rule so given the slight language barrier it can be a bit like the Hokey Cokey whilst you work out the rule for that specific taxi.

On the last night, we went to a restaurant called Alambique, a laboratory kitchen. We got put on a separate table for 2 away from the main dining area. Our reputation obviously precedes us. It was like being in the Amazon rain forest.

If we were to visit again, we would definitely ask for the main area where there was more buzz. All the food were designed as sharing plates. The food was very different to what we had experienced so far. You had to combine the different ingredients in your dish to get the max flavour for example, we had something akin to a prawn cocktail in a pastry basket which you had to bite into whilst you shot a glass of coconut, lime and rum. I wasn’t convinced but always good to try something new.

Santa Marta

Next stop was Santa Marta, which is a coastal town further north than Cartagena. It has been good to split the Columbia trip up between coast and inland to get a break from the hotter coastal temps. The flights have all been about an hour each and check in, security and baggage reclaim have all been under 10mins each.

Coming into land at Santa Marta airport is an experience. We flew in over the sea and you don’t see land until the plane literally touches down. The beaches are the same as Cartegena, greyish water and tonnes of plastic chairs, rather than sunbeds, like you get from a beer company in a bar and a shared brolly typically sponsored by Heineken. There are loads of stray dogs and cats about but they just laze about and don’t bother you.

If you want a nice carribean beach, you need a taxi and a boat to get there. We read up on some of them but the blogs don’t reflect the hype of tourism companies. If you really want the wow factor, you need to head to Tayrona.

Tayrona national park is 30mins away but it shuts annually for the whole of Feb (we knew that in advance but needed to plan the trip to hit Rio for the carnival). It closes for ecological reasons and is only open to Indigenous people. It’s meant to be stunning, proper postcard perfect place with white sandy beaches and crystal clear blue water. Obviously we couldn’t go so here is a google image!

Santa Marta is like a combination of Cartegena Old Town meets the newer part of town. It’s a backpackers type place with loads of bars, loud music playing from all bars and buskers of varying standards.

It’s cheap as chips; 3 Beers and 2 cocktails = £10 in the square. There is also a lovely restaurant called Ouzo where we had a tasty meal for about £40 in total.

We got a new companion on our trip, known as traveller’s tummy. We will just leave it at that!

On the positive side, we took the opportunity to remain within close proximity of a bathroom by chilling out at the rooftop pool of our hotel for most of the day.

We stayed in an Airbnb which was in a 19 story apartment block. The apartment itself was great with very good sea views. The sunset was a bit lacklustre versus Cartagena and not an ant aphrodisiac in sight.

We went into Santa Marta both evenings to people watch around the main square. 2 streets away is the main shopping street where you can buy as much cheap tat as you can feast your eyes on. The people watching is immense, lots more lycra and barely there outfits. It’s probably been a good immersion into what our days will be like in Rio. There was no way we were going to blend in through the clothing, or lack there of, so we thought we would try with the selfie pouts. Epic fail!

The temperature has been early to mid 30s with a good old sea breeze to help manage the heat.

Despite being the oldest town in Columbia, there is a distinct lack of historic charm. There was one big cathedral where I caught El Tel looking for divine inspiration or he could have just be praying to the patron saint of Travellers Tummy for forgiveness for laughing at Uwe.

Next stop: not too far from the Bog-ota