South for the Winter: Medellin, Colombia

From Bogota we moved on to Medellin.

Medellin is famous for a couple good reasons. First, the amazing weather. Supposedly it is always springtime there. This was a nice change because Panama was crazy hot and Bogota was actually pretty chilly. We really appreciated being perfectly comfortable in shorts and a tshirt.

Second, it is the birthplace of Botero, the most famous Colombian artist who paints everyone and everything really fat. When he died a few years ago, he donated most of his personal art collection to the state. Bogota got about half of his stuff, but a lot went to Medellin as well including more than 20 giant statues. The city put the statues into a plaza (aptly named Plaza Botero) for people to enjoy and take goofy pictures with.

Fat Cat

Fat Roman Soldier

Keegan and a fat horse

Piper and a fat man on a fat horse

And third, it is famous for its progressive social policies. Pablo Escobar based his massive drug cartel out of Medellin, so two decades ago it was ranked the most deadly city in the world. It has come a long way since then, mostly from added security and progressive social policies. In 2013, Medellin was given the award for the Most Innovative City (beating out Tel Aviv and New York.) One example of why it deserved this award was how and why they created their comprehensive public transportation system. The city is pretty sprawled out, so for the poorest people living on the hillsides surrounding the city, there was no good way for them to get to the city center. The area was so dangerous that cabs would mostly refuse to even drive up there. So, Medellin created an urban gondola that stops twice along the hillside and ends at a national park at the top of the hill. Tourists and locals alike use the transportation system and it is really pretty ingenious. Keegan and I rode it to the top to go for a long run in the park, and it was awesome.

Gringos in a gondola

The city view from the gondola

Medellin has 2.5 million people and is the third largest city in Colombia, so the view from up here was really impressive

Since we mostly ran in the park we didnt take any picures, except this one that I photo-bombed. The park was beautiful though and vendors at the top sold all sorts of delicious and cheap sweets that we chowed down on after the run.

A few other fun tidbits. The city has the largest cathedral in South America and one of the largest brick buildings in the world. It was closed though, so we didn´t get to see inside.

This is the entrance and the building ran for a full city block

Medellin was good to us. We ate some delicious food and really enjoyed the night life (so much so that we spent one rainy day trapped inside our hostel with a hangover.) Our last day in Medellin we took a day trip out to the small city of Guatape before heading on to the Carribbean coast in the north. Stay tuned!