Pablo Was Here
Trip Start
Apr 27, 2006
1
100
110
Trip End
Apr 01, 2008
Medellin,
Colombia
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
Medellin is, of course, most famous in recent history for the cocaine cartel, Pablo Escobar, the movie "Blow," the political assinations and the finale, the car bombings, the threats to the Supreme Court raids, etc. See Wikipedia on Medellin and Pablo Escobar, Forbes 7th richest man in the world for 1989
Botero Plaza
. After being killed in a shootout in 1993, the power shifted to the Cali cartel before it was eradicated in the late 1990s. This is not to say that Colombia stopped producing cocaine, despite the U.S. worst efforts, but the producers are keeping a lower profile and not letting themselves become too prominent. As evidence of its ready availability here, the going price at the "party" hostel (which I did not stay at), where it was quite openly sold, was $11 a gram, compared with $60 in San Francisco, or $100 at the height of the 1970s Studio 54 era. Unlike Bolivia, though, they do not have a coca museum, although the leaves of the plant are sacred, legal and used for many things by indigenous people all over the Andes. Plus, there remains a coca extract in Coca Cola. However, the drug wars are over and 95% of the country is relatively safe to travel, and is in fact become a destination for "Cocaine Tourists."(As an aside, a few of the remaining hostages held by FARC were freed as I write this, and John McCain is here - http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2008/07/02/international/i122307D90.DTL .)
I got in Saturday evening and immediately went out. That was one of the purposes of the rediculous 6:15 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. bus. I wanted to check out a Friday night in Cartagena, and get the Saturday of the weekend in Medellin
Cruising the Metro
. In the end that was pretty stupid, though, because I got only a couple hours sleep Friday night in the bus station (because it wasn't worth paying for a room for two hours, plus what I could get on the bus, but live and learn. But, I at least made the right choice again about where to stay in the city. The hostel (Tigerīs Paw), was brand spanking new and two blocks from Parque Lleras and the Zona Rosa, which must have had at least 50 bars, restaurants and clubs within a three-block radius. None of three dinners I had in Medellin were particularly memorable, but the scene was with many of those bars being packed to the gills.I ended up drinking Aguardiente out of a milkbox with some locals and just shooting the shit until 3:00 a.m. or so. Sunday was a similarly busy scene because Monday was a bank holiday. I met six or so English guys from another hostel early on and we whittled it down to about four of us on a taxi journey to find a good nightclub, more for them than me, but the ones around the park were either, dead, lame or pronounced to have shite music. We must have checked out five places before we found an open-air bar across from a big box place. There, in a pure coincidence, we ran into two Irish girls I recognized from my hostel. Lots of half-bottles of the local rum, Ron Medellin, and Cerveza Aguila were consumed until the wee hours, including seeing the sun rise back at the British guys' hostel. Random good times.
Monday was slow. I checked out some of the city, had a Cuban meal that wasn't bad, and just read my book. Or maybe I was slow. Either way, I wanted to stay at least another night, but I learned on Monday that getting my Brazilian visa in Bogota was going to take much longer than I thought, so I took off for:
Bogota, Colombia
