Pablito escobarito

Trip Start Dec 07, 2005
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Trip End Apr 10, 2007


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Flag of Colombia  ,
Tuesday, September 5, 2006

right now we are in medellin, but just for the day. there´s not much here in the way of tourist attractions, so we´ve decided to make it a daylong layover on our way to cartegena on the carribean coast. so last night we took a bus from salento in the coffee district to medellin. we got here at a little before six in the morning, bought our tickets for a 730pm bus to cartegena (the ticket guy was real impressed to meet someone from mexico), and hit the streets.

although medellin is smaller than bogota (it is colombia´s second largest city pop. 2.2 mil), it feels a lot more frantic and crowded. they´ve got an 11 year-old, above ground only metro system (the only one in colombia), which we rode around a bit. there is also a gondola that branches off from the metro line and takes 30,000 people a day (so says the tourist map/guide) over a steep hillside packed with houses. it´s kind of a strange addition to the public transport system, because there are lots of parts of the city that sprawl up steep hills and i´m not sure how they chose the hill they did. anyway, we took a ride up and got a really good view of the slums below, kites flying in the afternoon sky, the downtown skyline, and the metro whizzing by the river. this makes our second cable car ride in two weeks, thanks to the ride in bogota. i think the bogota view slightly edged out the medellin view.

we also spent some time downtown today, mostly around the plaza de botero. botero is a modern artist (i think died around 1995) who does lots of paintings and sculptures disproportionately round people, cats, and horses. he is a favorite son of colombia, and the plaza here is full of huge bronze statues of huge and round people, cats, and horses. we also saw a photography exhibit about campesinos (farmers or people who live in the country) who´ve been most directly affected by the violence between the left-wing guerillas and right-wing paramilitaries. really good photos with quotes from the people who appear in the photos talking about their experiences. powerful stuff.
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