Medellín

On our last day in Medellín, Noelle and Ricky planned to meet at our hotel in the morning. We decided on an itinerary and we headed out. We were excited to explore the city and continue to share and Airdrop photos to each other’s iPhones!

We took the metro at Industriales where we efficiently bought our passes and quickly caught the train. We took it a few stops to Parque Berrío where we exited through a shopping arcade and wound up at our destination, Plaza Botero.

Here there are famous sculptures of large people and as Ricky noted, “Americans”. We had a lot of fun taking silly pictures and noted the police presence as this is a touristy area. There are sculptures apparently all over the city and if we had more time, would have probably explored some more.

We returned to the metro and took it north where we got off at Acevedo and transferred to the gondola - Medellín is at the bottom of a steep valley. The gondola stops several times, but the top stop is Santa Domingo. On our ride up, a cute girl continued to wave to us after they disembarked and she and her mom almost missed their elevator. Here are some photos of our ride up:

There is street art all over the city and even on the roofs of the many homes. Here are some fun examples:

We walked around only a little and decided to head back down. On our ride down, a cute but shy girl in pink glasses showed us that she could count in English but clammed up very quickly. Here are some photos of our ride down:

Here’s a video playlist of our gondola experience taken by Amanda! You can enjoy the music of our fellow riders and hear our silly conversation!

We then took the metro to Poblado where we walked to a restaurant known for their Ajiaco and Mondogo soups which are traditional Colombian dishes. The restaurant was also called “Ajiacos y Mondongos”.

After the lemonade and hearty soups, we walked a few blocks for ice cream. Here’s a photo of me and Noelle with our ice cream cones:

We had a rousing conversation as the awesome foursome had enjoyed each other’s company for the past few days. Noelle then came back with us to our hotel where we got ready to check out and Noelle who had stowed her luggage in our room headed to her next hotel.

I had again booked a car service with SunTransfers which was a bit early for our pickup to the airport. We hit no traffic and arrived before we could even check in. We enjoyed some Juan Valdez coffee and then waited for our flight on VivaColombia, a low cost airline. Amanda and I were headed north to Santa Marta so we could visit Tayrona National Park.

Our flight was supposed to be an hour, but was a bit longer as we couldn’t land due to weather and had to circle. When we did land, we were disappointed to learn that our SunTransfers pickup managed to forget us. So we got a taxi to Santa Marta city from an elderly man named Jairo who kept pointing things out to us like cactus - we finally arrived at the Hilton Garden Inn which was a friendly and very new hotel.

However, this was not our only disappointment as we all had received what we believed to be drunken texts from Ricky. Ultimately, we learned that Airdrop was probably a euphemism, but alas, there will be no more Airdrops. It is what it is...

Peñol, La Piedra, and Guatapé

Today we planned for a day trip to Guatapé. Amanda booked our trip with MaxiTours yesterday afternoon and they picked us up right at 7 am. They found us while we were eating our breakfast at the lovely buffet. We then proceeded to pick up about 30 more people which included Noelle, a friend Amanda had made on her travels in Morocco, reconnected in Peru, and coincidentally in Colombia during the same time. Amanda and Noelle flew into Medellín together and coordinated being on the same tour.

We drove for over an hour where our tour guide and translator, David, educated us about Medellín and explained our breakfast and took our lunch orders. We learned that David studied English by watching the Simpsons and listening to Metallica. He was definitely our kind as he also brought his mom on the tour.

At breakfast, we had eggs, cheese, a plaintain, and an arepa. We paired it with agua de panela which can be served cold or hot. We had hot which tasted like a sweet tea. Ricky, the other American on the tour, joined us at our table. Here’s our second breakfast of the day:

So we learned there was a town that had to be moved due to the water levels called Peñol and we got to see the new version. In the town, we saw a Rock Temple which was a packed church and we took a selfie:

Then we went on a boat ride on which I dubbed Colombia’s Lake Como. The boat was fun with lively music and some seniors who were feeling the rhythm. Here’s a photo of us and a fun snippet of the dancing with life vests - https://youtu.be/6LG7fw3PyFg:

Here we saw Pablo Escobar’s bombed out house on this lake for the wealthy and apparently, the notorious:

And the goal keeper for Arsenal was definitely having a Sunday Funday with loud music:

But of course, the lake had a cross in the middle:

After our boat ride, we got on the bus and drove to the replica of the Old Peñol. Here we took some fun photos and even saw them filming a music video:

And then the highlight of our trip was to climb La Piedra which means The Stone. The climb is 675 steps and we enjoyed beautiful views of the surrounding area. Here are pictures from our experience climbing the rock - we thought the tour guide, David, kept saying “claim the rock”, but he meant “climb” and Ricky made a fun photo.

At the top, we enjoyed a Michelada beer with mangos. We realized there was a side of the table who were citizens of the world and I was lonely on my side:

We then headed down and took some photos where you could peek through the steps:

We then met the rest of the tour group at the Stone Restaurant. It had beautiful views and we enjoyed our meals pictured here:

The colorful town of Guatapé was our next stop which was famous for their Zócalos which were impressions inlaid on the side of the buildings. We wandered, enjoyed the music, and had ice cream, our tour guides even wanted to take photos with us:

Here’s our whole tour group:

With our Spanish speaking guide:

And our English speaking guide:

Here’s a sample of the music in the plaza while we were sitting on the steps - https://youtu.be/CyxsOQX0rU8:

Ice cream and more walking around the town:

After a two hour ride back, we were the first to be dropped off and we invited Noelle and Ricky to have dinner with us at the Mercado Del Río. We had to convince Ricky we were too old to party and preferred just drinking at dinner.

Here was an extensive food court, beer garden, and lounge seating. We ended up drinking sangria, and shared a meat and cheese plate, sausages, and paella.

What a wonderful day of new friends and nice sight seeing! My toe was wrapped in plastic in my hiking boots in case it started to bleed, but it lasted the fun and sunny day!