A day in Medellín

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.