Medellin

Now, I think that this blog needs to be prefaced by two things - firstly, on the basis of recommendations from friends and research we had done, we had high hopes for Medellin, and second, we have always found cities more difficult with kids (and we were coming off the back of a week of delightful travelling around the coffee region). We still enjoyed our time in Medellin, but having expected it to be one of the highlights of our Colombian adventure we were left a little underwhelmed. It felt like the city was much more set up for younger travellers wanting to party, and we certainly saw lots of people having a great time.

We traveled on the bus from Chinchina, and I think it’s fair to say that this wasn’t a typical tourist route… The more regular route would be to go from Pereira, but we didn’t like the idea of backtracking and wanted to minimise the amount of time we would have to be on the bus so opted for this route.

Chinhina was a bustling town, famous apparently for its agricultural research into coffee cultivation. We were dropped in the middle of town where lots of local buses were parked up, but we were quickly informed by locals that the inter-city buses left from the bus company office a few blocks away. Cue a slightly frantic walk through a busy and humid Colombian town with our backpacks. Everyone was, once again, incredibly helpful and made sure we got to where we needed to. In the end we didn’t need to rush as the bus was running half an hour late on its route from Pereira.

The bus route was quite slow and winding, following the river down the valley for around an hour before climbing high over a mountain pass into the valley that houses Medellin. The bus station was huge, and a reminder that we were back in the big cities after our time in the countryside. What was striking on our taxi journey to our hotel was how green the city is in comparison to Bogota. Trees lined many of the streets and, in keeping with the coffee triangle we had been in, it felt like anything could grow in the climate.

We stayed in the Laurels district of the city. This is very popular in recent years with remote worked from the US coming to enjoy the climate, culture and cheaper cost of living. Again, the peace of recent years in Colombia has supported significant economic development. The area was very different to anything we had experienced so far, even in the capital. It felt thoroughly gentrified and, with the possible exception of the traffic, rather European. This also translated to the prices when we were looking for a place for dinner, with main meals costing around double what we had become used to paying. Again, it felt very safe, even after dark, and there was also significant more English spoken, with many restaurants also having menu cards in English.

The other major district that tourists stay in is El Podablo, but we were told that this is much more aimed at people wanting to take in the city’s famous and vibrant nightlife. Laurels was a very nice place for us to stay as a family and was a good base to explore the city. We had a good value family room at Hotel Casa Laurels that had a good buffet breakfast.

One of the things that we had enjoyed most about Bogota was the public spaces with excellent playgrounds, and Medellin didn’t have the same kind of parks that we found. Given the troubled history of the city this makes sense, with the city growing significantly in the 1970s and 80s when violence from drug cartels was rife, people were not seeking public, outside spaces, as in many cases they were afraid to go out. The result is that there are a number of smaller parks around the city, but the large public spaces are very much on the outskirts and take a significant amount of time to travel to.

Public transport in Medellin was a significant improvement on Bogota, and is probably the best we have seen in a large South American city. The metro is fast, clean and cheap, on reflection we should have stayed closer to a station as we were 20 minutes walk from Estadio. Also included within the public transport system are a network of cable cars that connect the communities nestled into the hills around the city. Medellin claims to be the first city in the world to have cable cars as part of the public transport network. The kids were desperate not to have long travel days, so we didn’t take the cable cars up to the large park up in the outskirts of the city (it would have been over an hour each way on the metro and two cable cars), but friends have told us that this is worth it for the views on the journey alone.

Medellin is known as the ‘city of eternal spring’ due to its pleasant weather all year round, in the mountains, but not at high altitude, with daily temperatures in the mid twenties. We didn’t have the greatest weather while we were there with rain and drizzle for our first day (locals insisting it was unusual), but we did experience the climate we were expecting by the end of our visit when we joined in the Sunday ciclovia.

Medellin has a fascinating history, is set beautifully in the mountains, has good public transport and excellent tourist infrastructure. It is definitely a great place to visit, but its success in recent years has made it a little harder to do on a budget and some of that success gave it less of an authentic feel to us. Maybe we didn’t do it right, maybe we were unlucky with the weather, maybe we were tired after three weeks of travelling together, but we didn’t fall in love with Medellin in the way we were told that we would.

Medellin highlights

Communa 13

This is very much a tourist highlight and a great way to spend half a day. This was once one of the most dangerous neighbourhoods in the world when Colombia was at the height of its battle with the narcos. Now it has been completely reinvited and reinvigorated, filled with vibrant street art, cafes, restaurants, bars and tourist shops. 

It is set in the steep hills of the valley and includes a number of escalators in the streets to help residents and visitors climb to the higher levels. From there there is a great view over the city.

The area has a deep and interesting history and there are loads of walking tours of the area, often focused around Pablo Escobar. The kids were definitely surprised by the street markets, loud music, and mopeds winding through the tight streets. They said it reminded them more of our travels in India than anything that they had seen in South America so far.

Parque Explora

We were in need of a reset and had woken up to a cloudy day, so we decided to take a trip to the Parque Explora, a collection of museums in the Norte area of the city. It includes the science museum, which the kids always enjoy and gets us home school points. Our ticket for the day included the science museum, the dinosaur exhibit, the aquarium and the three temporary exhibition halls. The planetarium was also an option to include, and gives you the option of spreading the visit over two days as it would be impossible to fit it all in.

This was a great museum, brilliantly laid out with the permanent science museum exhibits outside in the courtyard focused on physics, all of them interactive and engaging. From there we went into the aquarium, which is focused in particular around the rainforest, with the huge main tank mimicking the flooded rainforest of the rainy season when food is plentiful for the fish and the key mating season takes place. All of the descriptions were in both Spanish and English.

Upstairs, and again outside,were a number of dinosaur models, from species discovered in Colombia or wider South America. The three temporary exhibits on this level were focused on human perception and themed around the mind, sound and time. Again these were really well laid out and very interactive.

We spent a full day at Parque Explora, and it was time for dinner by the time we headed back to our hotel. An excellent day out, much larger than the equivalent in Bogota, and very much recommended.

Ciclovia (Sunday road closures and exercise) 

We loved seeing the Sunday Ciclovia in Bogota, where main roads are closed and given over to running, walking, cycling, and roller blading, so we were determined to join in during our time in Medellin.

As we were staying in Laurels we headed up to the area around the Stadium, and we were not disappointed. The roads around the stadium, usually packed dual carriageways, were closed and filled with runners completing the 1.5km loop, closer in, the pedestrianised areas surrounding the stadium were filled with salsa music as four or five huge, free, dance classes were taking place.

We headed to the athletics stadium as this is opened up to the public on Sundays and we all enjoyed running some laps of the 400m track, and the kids had a go in the long jump pit. After this the kids asked if they could have a go at roller blading, so we hired them some boots (a couple of quid each) and let them try it out for an hour on the loop around the stadium. This was a great way to spend the morning, and we felt much better connected to the city afterwards. We stopped on the way back to our hotel to get Alistair an Athletico Nacional shirt to remind him of his trip.