Colombia vol 2: Medellin

Took a nightbus from Cartagena to Medellin after a terrible night/morning of suffering from food poisoning. It's my second time ever of getting a food poisoning and this one was no joke. We can only blame ourselves tho. Eating local foods is one of the mandatory aspects of traveling in my opinion, including local food carts and all that (and this has not changed), but I guess eating raw stuff that may or may not be fresh (oysters in Ceviche in our case) is not the wisest thing one should do. Anyways, everything we read about night buses was horrifying, especially that the climate in the bus is Arctic. So we came prepared. In reality, it was not that bad. I guess it depends on a bus company, but I can sure recommend Rapido Ochoa buses. The seats were super comfy and reclined just enough. There was leg room and it was not that cold, it wasn't exactly earn either but as we came with sleeping bags it was lovely and the 13,5 hours went by quicker than the 2,5 hours would go on a Tallinn-Tartu route. The only thing that disturbed sleeping was that every once in a while I almost fell down from my seat as the narrow, curvy roads go up and down and the Colombian driving style is not the smoothest!

Medellin - the city of eternal spring - was by far my favorite city of Colombia. Colorful, warm, sunny, with exceptional views, bit more logical and bit more safer-feeling, although, people from our hostel almost got robbed a few blocks from where we're staying. 

Travelers are advised to stay in El Poblado area, which next to hostels has many bars, cafes, pubs and parks. It's not exactly central but the metro station was close, also central in any Colombian town is a vague concept and doesn't necessarily mean the place to be.

Santo Domingo. A huge slum that until very recently was considered dangerous. Even now it's very very local.

Traditional breakfast

It was a book fair, photography exhibition, festival de art, literature and culture

Jungle in the city

Ah those maracujas y grenadilles

As having read Ave Ungro's book "My Colombia" and a recommendation from a friend, Parque del Periodista was definitely on our list. A place you'll see all kinds of different people you can imagine. A place where everything is allowed, maybe not allowed, but done anyways. The little bars on the corners are cool to sit in and El Eslabon is quite a wonderful place for some salsa!

We did a day tour "Escobar and The rock" which included a brief history of the life of the controversial drug lord Pablo Escobar, a visit to his second biggest mansion/farm complex, a Colombian style jeep ride, a boat ride on the artificial lakes of the reservoir and on top of the lost city - the town of Old El Peñol, a visit to the beautiful city of Guatape, an ascend to the top of the La Piedra del Peñol - and was absolutely excellent and worth the 115 000 pesos. I haven't seen Narcos yet but I sure will when I go back home, although our wonderful guide Alejandra warned us not believe everything seen on the show.

Colombian style! So easy to amuse us!

The lost city 

Guatape

The Rock

From Medellin we took another night bus of Rapido Ochoa to Bogota. Still fine. Altho, what we later heard from locals, it's better to do some research on bus companies before and not just try and go lucky. Well we were satisfied with ours, so go figure. Our last day in Colombia we spent in Bogotà with Jose drinking coffee, visiting flee markets and chilling in El Chorro de Quevedo drinking Poker, which I most probably prefer from local beers (Club Colombia and Aquila are both alright for easy drinking as well). At night met Andrès, who Keiu knew from Philippines for pizza and a pale ale at Bogotà Beer Company.

Colombia is a beautiful country but I would recommend you to keep your things close, be a bit more careful and alert than usual, not to walk alone at dark and when a situation seems suspicious walk the other way as quickly as possible. There definitely were some sketchy situations.