We left Medellín early and took a long mini-bus drive to the airport along a hilly and windy road. Slept most of the way after my late-night blogging (and the two mojitos probably didn't help either).
The 9:00 a.m. flight got us in about 10:00 a.m. and we had the rest of the day free to explore.
Cartagena is a very pretty town - the old town is enclosed within old city walls and the camera was busy: very colourful, very touristy. Quite safe here, even in the town section outside the wall where life goes on as normal for Colombians and, although it was a bit rough, I quite enjoyed this area too.
Cartagena is on the north coast of Colombia with a population of about a million, making it the 5th largest city in Colombia. It was founded in 1533 by the Spanish but there were indigenous peoples before that. It faces the Caribbean Sea to the west.
It is hot here; we set off walking when we arrived and the temperature was already 31 deg C.
We wandered the town buying fruit from street vendors, then water from the supermarket. We entered the old town via the Puerta del Reloj (Clock Gate), which comes out onto Plaza de los Coches (Square of the Carriages). We did a circuit and wandered down many pretty streets, ending up back where we started via San Pedro Claver Square and the church also named for Saint Peter Claver, where the body of the Jesuit saint ('Saint of the African slaves') is kept in a casket; and we exited the old town near the Plaza de la Aduana (Customs Square), next to the mayor's office.
We returned to the supermarket for more water and were pleased to be back at the hotel about 2:30 p.m. Very hot! Our rooms were now ready and it was good to get wet washing out to dry, have a shower and settle in. The hotel is nice - especially the big ceiling fan!
We had a quick FaceTime session with Kathryn & Regis this afternoon. Kathryn was feeding Sophie and the cute little girl glanced towards us as if she knew we were watching - big brown eyes! She is very cute.
We have 4 girls leave the tour at this point and 3 new girls plus one guy join us so after a briefing, we all went out to a farewell/welcome dinner at a restaurant nearby. The food was yummy as were the cocktails. It was a good night.
This was the part of town outside the walls.
Now, here are the photos of the Old Town within the walls:
Big day today: starting off with a tour in a mini-van visiting the various key spots in Medellín in the life and times of Colombia's most notorious drug cartel leader, Pablo Escobar.
And then, after a trip on the Metro to get to the meeting place of a city walking tour, we filled in time between tours doing our own walk around the centro area of the city. My Friend and I enjoyed our exploration of the area (before the walking tour started) in particular, the Plaza de Cisneros which had a wonderful black and white photographic exhibition "120 años 1894-2014" which comprised some wonderful photos of the plaza and also the mercado (market) area. This plaza displays 300 lit-from-within poles in the central area of La Alpujarra.
The first tour, organised as part of our trip with Intrepid - the Pablo Escobar Tour, led by a passionate guide, Paula - took about three hours and we were shown Escobar’s grave, his home where he was shot in 1993, the huge fortress-like residence which was bombed by the Cali Cartel and a few other grisly landmarks.
We learned many interesting facts about him but also about the current situation regarding the trafficking of cocaine in Colombia including that 157 million tonnes of processed cocaine gets to the US every year; and that 40-60% pure cocaine can be easily purchased for about 20000 pesos ($US 10) per gram on the streets in Colombia.
We passed through some interesting barrios including Barrio Triste, one of Colombia's most dangerous neighbourhoods: a crowded and dilapidated crush of drug dealers and prostitutes. The use of basuco, which is a by-product of cocaine, is rife amongst the young and the poor here. It is inexpensive and highly addictive and often is compared to 'crack'. I'd never heard of it!
Along the way, we visited Santuario Rosa Mistíca where Paula shared her fairly strong views that Colombia is a 'macho' society and that males are generally regarded as being unfaithful. She holds a very dim view of male-female relationships in her country.
Our afternoon walking tour we organised ourselves; it focussed on the sights in the central area of the city (el centro).
We walked our feet off! The walking tour started about 2:30 p.m. and went until about 6:30 p.m. It was a terrific tour, led by a very well-educated paisano (definition: someone born and raised in this region, the NW area of Colombia). We walked all over the central area of the city, probably over 10 kms in all.
We started at the Ferrocarril de Antioquia which is the former railroad station that is no longer functional but is considered by many to be one of the most important civil engineering projects in Colombian history. The La Alpujarra Administrative Centre was next: the La Raza monument by Rodrigo Arenas Betancur is a very distinctive landmark here.
The public space in front of the Museo de Antioquia is home to 23 large bronze sculptures donated by renowned local artist Fernando Botero; on the other side of the Plaza Botero is the Palacio de la Gobernacion de Antioquia (now renamed the Rafael Uribe Palace of Culture), a distinctive Gothic sight but which remains unfinished.
We walked to Berrio Park which is a central plaza where locals have gathered for generations as their main meeting point and small groups play music here, dance and eat from food stalls.
Our second last stop was the Metropolitan Basilica built in Romanesque style with Byzantine details. It is regarded as one of the largest baked clay structures in the world with more than 1 million adobe bricks and taking more than 55 years to complete (in the year 1930). In front of the church is the Parque Bolívar with a large fountain.
We finished at Parque San Antonio which has an amphitheater, a wide, open plaza and a landscaped park located in front of the San Antonio de Padua Cathedral. This plazoleta has a number sculptures by Botero. The destroyed remnants of his statue titled the Pajaro de Paz ("Bird of Peace") sit next to an identical replacement as a reminder of the park’s violent history. In 1995 an alleged FARC bomb was detonated under the sculpture during a concert, killing 23 people and injuring dozens more. In 2000, Botero had an identical sculpture placed in the park as a "homage to stupidity," a symbol of peace, and a memorial to the victims.
There were some rough areas too and a market in a narrow street Calle 51 with some questionable stuff for sale. A number of small plazas had food stalls; and streets were lined with shops selling sports tops, hats and shoes as well as fruit and food cooking on stoved - like the yummy fried plátano chips and cooked coconut skins we bought as snacks. One could easily be satisfied with street food as a meal here. We were tempted by sausages and potatoes cooking on stoves, the smells wafting into our path as we walked along.
As it turned out, we had a meal at a Colombian restaurant nearby our hotel. I had a yummy mojito to drink and a typical soup - delicious! - of shredded chicken and potato (ajiaco) served with slices of avocado, capers and large-kernelled, starchy South American corn (sometimes called "Cuzco corn") boiled along with the potatoes.
Wi-fi has been 'flaky' the past couple of days ...
Left early today on a small bus to the top of the hill from our hacienda and beyond: into the nearby town of Chinchiná; then a local bus which was only about 15 mins late (good by Colombian standards) for the 4.5 hour drive to Medellin. We were warned this could be a windy road so I took the travel sickness tablet. In fact, the trip wasn't too bad as it was a comfortable bus. My Friend watched a James Bond movie (in Spanish - probably doesn't need dialogue).
By the time we caught taxis to the hotel, it was by now nearly 2 p.m. so we had some lunch at a local cafe which had a wall of black and white photos dedicated to cycling (the cafe was called La Bicyclette).
Medellín is the second largest city in Colombia with over 2 million people. Once infamous for dangerous gangs and drug activity between the 1970s and early 1990s - when it was labelled the ‘murder capital of the world’ under the rule of drug lord Pablo Escobar - it is now called the 'City of Eternal Spring', a moniker I'm sure it prefers!
We are staying in the upscale suburb of Poblado: full of nice shops, cafes, bars and restaurants.
After lunch some of the group stayed in the neighbourhood to look around and a small group of 5 of us went into the central part of the city to take the metro up to the famous Metrocable (a cable car) which takes you up high above the city. It was installed to improve transportation for the people of Medellín living up in the poorer favelas or shanty areas but it also provides a cheap way to get fabulous views. The normal metro (train) itself was incredibly crowded - we had to squeeze on - and the first cable car journey up through the favelas was busy too; but after we passed the last of the residential areas to which the cable car accessed, the cable car beyond this allows access to hiking trails and recreational areas, and this cable car was not crowded at all.
After we had crossed the thick jungle area (Parque Arví) at the top where the hiking trails are located and started to descend back towards the city, we stopped and had a lovely time wandering around a part of the favela area. Here too is the Biblioteca España which was unfortunately being renovated on the outside. The sun was starting to go down and by the time we returned to our hotel, it was dark.
So after yesterday's barista class, we lined up today after breakfast for a workshop on how to identify the differences between coffee beans and then a tour of the coffee plantation and its processing plant.
I must say, I found a lot of the flowers and birds just as interesting as the coffee stuff. And the garden and home of the owner of the plantation were amazing!
After lunch I went for a long walk up the dirt road along which we had come down yesterday to get to our hacienda. It was hot but I stayed as much as possible in the shade of the trees. It was interesting to see the fincas (farms) and the steep hillsides on which the coffee bushes are grown and to try and comprehend how difficult it must be for the pickers. In this part of the world, coffee is grown all year round and the pickers come every 18 days to pick the ripe coffee berries. The plants have ripe and unripe fruit so the pickers have to be accurate.
I was passed by three nice sets of lycra cycling fast downhill as I walked back down. It is very humid here being so close to the Equator so the pool was a welcome sight when I got back to the hacienda. Shortly after, the skies opened up and we had a tropical afternoon rainstorm.
When the rain cleared, we walked down to the little conference area for another workshop - this time on identifying fragrances, aromas and tastes of different coffees, a bit like a wine-tasting. My Friend is in his element.
We are back now waiting for dinner - and relaxing: reading, blogging and watching humming birds drinking nectar from the feeder on the verandah. Birds are twittering throughout the garden. And there is thunder in the distance - looks like more rain coming.
