Medellin, Guatape, Salento & Cocora Valley
Medellin
October 2023
Our highlight of Medellin was definitely the Comuna 13 tour. This was once one of the most dangerous neighbourhoods in the world, which the guide, who was born there, explained was because of its proximity to the only road that had access to the sea for drug trafficking. This was well after Pablo Escobar's time, and was arguably much worse. The early 2000s saw numerous guerilla groups, the FARC, and the ELN, fighting over territory. It developed a bad reputation, and news reporting called it only by its number, Comuna 13. All neighbourhoods in Medellin have a numerical name, however they are all more romantically known by names such as El Poblado, Laureles, La Candelaria. In 2002, the Colombian government launched 16 military operations which involved tanks, helicopters, troops on the ground and machine guns, the last of which caused the deaths of 9 civilians, 3 of whom were children. What followed was a period of political corruption, mass displacement of thousands of people who are still missing, and eventually a hip-hop revolution. The Colombian government invested billions into the neighbourhood, building schools, hospitals, boosting employment, and creating infrastructure for the densely populated area built on the side of a very steep hill. The most unknowingly genius investment was a series of outdoor escalators, the first of their kind in South America, which drastically improved accessibility and movement between different areas of the comuna. These escalators became a huge tourist attraction after 2 rappers visited, and created the first graffiti next to them. This triggered a hip-hop frenzy and graffiti and street art exploded, to the point where there isn't an inch of unpainted wall in the whole neighbourhood today, and world renowned artists adorn the walls with their creative talents, renewing the artwork every few years with fresh depictions of life.
We met our guide, Christian, outside a metro station, and he took us and 5 others for a short ride on a local bus to the start of the tour. He showed us the house he was born in, where his mother and sister still live. Most of the homes built here are informal, but they can become legal once you have lived there for several years. He explained that his family now legally own their house. He took us round the not-so-touristy parts, showing us a new social enterprise where his friends had opened an art gallery/coffee house. We piled into the basement and were served the most delicate chocolatey-coffee through a French press. They told us that coffee should be drank in 3 sips, using a sharp intake of air with the first. Then we walked to the more touristy part, where we were treated to a street dance display by the Power of Life troop. Em got dragged up to dance with them at one point, which Justin did get footage of, but it's not fit for human consumption. We were shown some of the more significant street art, depicting life in the comuna, and its history, but in a very beautiful way. We rode the famous escalators, had local passionfruit ice cream, and tried our hand at "tagging" with a can of spray paint (a lot harder than it looks!).
While we were in Medellin, we also visited the Botero gallery, where the artist has made paintings and scupltures of people, but they are all a little more curvy than usual!
We also visited the botanical gardens, which were home to iguanas and tortoises!
We stayed in El Viajero hostel in dorms in the upscale neighbourhood of El Poblado, full of really nice restaurants and cafes. Luckily, Em had a lot of eating to do, to put back on the 5kg she had lost in a short space of time through illness. The perfect place to start feeding again!
Guatape
We hired a little car we ironically named "Big Suze" (a Suzuki Swift) from Medellin and headed off to Guatape. Guatape is a quaint, very colourful little town on the edge of a 25 sq km area of flooded land, now known as Guatape lake, created by the Guatape dam. The dam was built in the 1970s, and now generates 30% of Colombia's power!
Just outside the town lies El Penon de Guatape, an imposing rock, upon which stairs have been built to allow tourists to climb it. We stayed in the town and got up early to be at the rock entrance as it opened and beat the crowds. This paid off and we had the whole thing to ourselves! There are 740 steps to reach its peak, at which point we started to get swarmed and stung by flying ants, so we took some pictures and made a speedy descent.
Just as we reached the bottom, the heavens opened and didn't close again for the rest of the day!
*since we visited, there has been a partial collapse, where a huge chunk of soil and plant debris let go from the underside of the rock, right onto the path below. Luckily no-one was hurt, but the steps are now closed to visitors while they assess the stability of the rock!
Salento
Next up, was Salento, a 6 hour windy drive through the mountains, drifting in and out of clouds, before descending into another colourful, authentically Colombian town. We immediately liked it here. All the old colonial style houses have been painted bright colours, there were old Colombian men playing guitar on the street, loads of good coffee shops and restaurants, cute boutique shops, and most importantly, Tejo!
Tejo is a traditional Colombian game, played as both a serious sport and as a bar game. We opted for the bar game version. There were a few locals playing, but the Tejo halls had mostly attracted tourists like ourselves. The game involves a slab of clay with a metal ring placed in the middle, little packets of gunpowder placed on top of the ring, and a heavy metal object that you lob at the gunpowder! You get various points for landing your heavy metal object in the clay, for landing in the middle of the ring, and for exploding a gunpowder packet, which is of course the most exciting part. It didn't take long before we'd both done an explosion, the rest of the hall shrieking with the sheer amusement of it all. We also discovered a pinball-esque game, we still don't know the name of, where you throw a small metal ball at some holes in the table, two of which are shaped like frogs, and a computer woman calls out your score, and shouts "Ranita!" if you land it in the frog's mouth. Thrilling.
Em also had a go at a street game shooting arrows into a target board, which she was freakishly good at.
Cocora Valley
Aside from playing Tejo and buying souvenirs, the main thing to do while in Salento is visit the nearby Cocora Valley. We caught a "Willie" truck from the main square into the valley, about 10km away. Cocora Valley is home to the tallest palm trees in the world, some at over 200ft!
We hiked around the valley for a couple of hours, with spectacular views of the wax palms and the landscape. As we started descending, a huge storm rolled in. We just got down in time...on top of a hill next to the tallest trees in the world is not where you want to be during a storm!
