Colombia at last! This is the fourth of my posts about my Patagonia to Costa Rica trip. New material appears at the bottom of the post. You can use the following links to jump down. Earlier posts cover Chile, Peru (including Machu Picchu) and Ecuador (including the Galapagos). I’m publishing a few other pictures on social media using the hashtag #patrica.
Colombia: Medellin
Medellin occupies a dramatic position in a steep-sided valley
From Patagonia to Colombia the entire western fringe of Latin America is mountains. Between Quito and Medellin, too, landscapes are rugged, settlements confined to patches of green fields on valley floors. Smoke rises from blackened fields. As we approach Medellin, turbulent rivers carve through the landscape.
“Keep calm and dance a salsa”
Rarely have I arrived in a city accompanied by so many warnings. My driver Eduardo, dropping me at Quito airport, tells me the women of Colombia are dangerous. ‘They’re beautiful,’ he says, ‘but…’ He shakes his hand to indicate burnt fingers. ‘You have a drink with them, you wake up, everything’s gone.’
Staying calm in a fancy restaurant (The Alambique)
My driver from the airport in Medellin, Jose, takes up the theme. ‘The city’s much safer than it was. But be careful where you go. Don’t walk: take taxis. The Parque Lineal is full of prostitutes and pimps. Avoid crowds.’ Walking tour guide Samantha begins our visit to Medellin city centre with a lecture on the dangers of pickpockets in Colombia and how to keep our phones safe. ‘Four phones lost in three years on hundreds of tours, it’s not a crisis,’ she says. ‘All men. Number of women losing phones, zero. What’s the difference? Women listen.’
Cafés in El Poblado (before the rain)
It all feels a long way from the Galapagos. In the pleasure zone of upmarket El Poblado, bars and restaurants throb with thousands of locals. In a chain called Sala de Despecho (“the detention room”), hundreds of dressed-up women bellow the words to pop videos from Colombia shown on big screens, fuelled by camaraderie and shots of spirits. Gringos, or foreigners, are rare: as I stroll around, young men repeatedly sidle up to me to offer cocaine.
Reindeer Christmas decorations
If one El Poblado park is full of sex workers, the next is full of Christmas decorations. Illuminated reindeers and sleighs jostle snowmen and santas in red and white hats. Christmas trees sparkle. People walk around with little reindeer antlers on their heads. Couldn’t someone develop some southern hemisphere Christmas tat?
Restaurant staff in antlers try to attract the attention of tourists in Santa hats in the tropical heat of Cartagena
A tropical rainstorm breaks, huge drops of rain, torrential, persistent. You simply have to surrender yourself to it and get soaked. At least it’s not cold. Bright yellow birds hop around the city.
Can anyone identify this little chap? Is it a Saffron Finch?
The breakfast room of my modest hotel fills with Germans – the first I’ve seen since Patagonia. They leave promptly at eight for a tour. I try to explain to them the metro ticketing system. Dev and Riya are from Croydon: ‘We didn’t really love Medellin. There’s not much to see. The cable car’s good. Bogota was better.’
Immigration queue
People say Medellin is attracting Americans to come and live. They certainly feature prominently in the 3-hour passport queue at the airport. Fewer locals in Colombia seem to speak English than in Chile, Peru or Ecuador – perhaps Medellin is less of a tourist city. I see why Chileans were proud to tell me that drivers respected zebra crossings ‘unlike most Latin American countries.’ In Colombia, drivers ignore them completely.
Vanishing pavement (sidewalk)
Medellin is not an easy walking city. As in US suburbia, pavements (sidewalks) are sparse, suddenly disappearing at awkward moments. Navigating major junctions is nail-biting Approaching the city centre, I see medics attending a young man lying on his back in the road, his smashed-up motorcycle nearby. The victim is looking at his phone until a medic tells him to put it away.
Motorcyclist
Tour guide Samantha describes a traumatised city. ‘People say we’re proud in Medellin,’ she says, ‘but it’s not true. We’re arrogant. Medellin is just such a great city. It’s dirty, it’s poor, it’s dangerous, but it’s Medellin.’ She describes a backwater, neglected by the Spaniards until coffee exports began in the 19th century. ‘There’s no historic centre. One of the oldest buildings is the railway station, but there are no trains: they suffered “Latin American Management”: corruption, accidents, and eventually the line closed. Now the bus to Bogota takes twelve hours.’
Frog statue destroyed by a bomb blast
‘If I say the criminal from Medellin,’ Samantha says, ‘do you know who I mean? I won’t say his name out loud.’ She laments the fact that many younger people in Colombia see Pablo Escobar as an icon, successful with power and women, fighting a corrupt government. ‘They lay flowers at his grave. But people born before the 1990s remember how it was: chaos, violence and fear, with bombings, shootings, and tens of thousands of deaths.’
Peace march politicians kidnapped and killed by FARC
A sculpture of a frog by famous Medellin artist Botero, destroyed in a terrorist bombing of a marketplace, stands in a now-deserted square, alongside a pristine replacement. Another city-centre monument commemorates two district governors who went on a peace march in 2002 only to be kidnapped and killed by the FARC terrorist group. ‘Around then, the government began to crack down on kidnapping,’ Samantha says. ‘Now, things are much better. But Colombians still obsess about security. You need a passport even to go to the movies.’
The scale of the metro – here on a massive viaduct – is impressive
‘When you get to know Colombians,’ Samantha says, ‘you’ll find we try to forget as much as possible. We don’t like to talk about “the criminal”, or about the 100 people killed in the M-19 attack on the Palace of Justice in 1985, or the volcano that erupted six days later killing 25,000 people, or a grenade dropped near here that killed six people. We go to our memory and switch it off. But we remember our Colombian cyclist who won a stage of the Tour de France, or the time Colombia scored a goal against Germany in the world cup. After the bad times, we hold onto branches to keep ourselves afloat. The Metro system is our biggest branch, it gives us hope.’
Cable cars
View from “The Summit” with vultures
The cable cars that radiate from the central metro line like the bones of a fish transform the city, allowing access to the steep hills, covered in barrios or poor neighbourhoods. From the city centre, after a lunch of buñuelo (a kind of fried doughnut with cheese) and fresh mango with lime juice and salt, I take a tram to Miraflores and a cable car to the “13 November” station (commemorating a 1985 earthquake on that date), and climb a steep hill through surrounding barrios to a walking trail. Who can resist a sign pointing to “La Cima” (the summit)? 1,057 steps and much intervening steep climbing later, I look down on the city from a great height, watching vultures circle below (a few, unflatteringly, gather nearby after I arrive). A statue of the Virgen de la Candelaria gazes down alongside me.
View of the barrios from the cable car
Signs from La Cima show a tempting two-and-a-half-hour walk to Parque Avi, an ecological nature reserve. As it’s already 4 p.m. I return home, but the next morning set off to take the metro and two separate cable cars (Line K and then Line L) to visit the park before my airport pick-up at 13.30.
Statue of the Virgin at La Cima
Colombia: Parque Avi
Cable car to Parque Avi
If you only do one thing in Medellin, visit Parque Avi. The cable car of Line L costs six times the normal rate but climbs for miles, through and past the barrios and clouds (for the first time in my visit to Colombia the sun comes out) to an area of scenic, pristine forest. Ancient terraces rise amidst the trees.
In the forest
At the park entrance an earnest, helpful ranger whose Spanish, incredibly, I can understand clearly, quizzes me about whether I really want to visit the forest. ‘There’s a market, a restaurant, rest rooms – you can explore for free!’ After registering – as Samantha said, I need to show my passport and fill in a long form – the ranger leads me to the forest and leaves me alone amidst soaring trees, epiphytes and dense undergrowth. Birds, and tree frogs, chirp. Butterflies appear. In ninety minutes I don’t see another person. If you need a crash course in why people become misty-eyed about rain forests, this is a good place to start. When I near the exit I feel reluctant to leave.
Forest plant at Parque Avi
Thoughts on Medellin
This display in Parque Avi seems to imply we should consume beer, not butter
My driver to Medellin airport, also called Jose, is delighted to chat. Aged 27, he’s a professional driver: ‘The longest truck journeys, within Colombia, are around 2,000 kilometres,’ he says. ‘The roads are terrible, and there are security problems everywhere. You can see the cocaine growing in the fields by the side of the road. But I like visiting Cartagena, it’s a fun city. Just make sure you ask the prices of everything before you pay, or they’ll rip you off.’ I ask how he feels about Colombia. ‘It’s so much better than it was,’ he says. ‘I don’t remember it but my father, my grandfather: they talk about constant bombings and terrorist attacks.’
Luxury flats under construction
Jose says Colombia faces two problems. ‘The first is the President, he’s nuts, he’s so left-wing, he’s a former member of the M-19 terrorist group.’ (Comment: true.) ‘But there are elections next year, so maybe he’ll go. The other problem is that young people don’t want to work. All they want is an iPhone. I don’t know how they afford it, I can’t afford one.’ All this sounds eerily familiar.
Wesleyan (Methodist) church in a barrio
It’s hard to compare Medellin with other places. Apart from Parque Avi there are few tourist sites. It’s fascinating to learn about the city’s tormented late 20thC history and to celebrate the city’s renaissance. But it’s still a good place to be a razor wire salesman. Electric fence builders are doing good business, too. Barrios climb the hills in all directions. Sex workers throng the city centre. Samantha says the Supreme Court ruled that the government could not tell people what to do with their bodies. ‘But if you use a prostitute,’ she tells the group, ‘and it’s someone under age, you must tell the authorities.’ Signs throughout the city, and in hotels, seek information about people-trafficking and sexual violence, including against minors.
Children’s health centre in barrio
Yet in many ways Medellin is a city of hope. Apart from the visible progress since peace broke out 20 years ago, building projects are everywhere. The great spine of the metro is, as Samantha says, a mighty expression of confidence. Even the barrios seem to teem with building activity. At cable car stops serving them, smartly-dressed young people and children climb aboard to travel into the city.
In the Botero park in central Medellin
Colombia: Cartagena
Cartagena sunset
Our flight arrives in Cartagena as the sun sets over the city. My driver, Henry, is a fan of the English football team of 20 years ago. ‘Frank Lampard,’ he says. ‘Steven Gerrard. I love them. David Beckham, incredible. Wayne Rooney.’ We pass the Castillo de San Felipe de Barajas, a colossal mountain of masonry. ‘For protecting against the English?’ I ask. ‘And the French,’ Henry says. ‘Many people in Cartagena say it’s a pity the English didn’t win. This would be a better place.’
Fortress of San Felipe de Barajas
A night-time stroll around the city reveals an astonishingly well-preserved colonial city centre, comparable with Havana or Cusco. On a Saturday night, music pours from every café and bar. Wedding and birthday parties have taken over dozens of hotels. Gaudily-lit “Fiesta Buses” wind their way around the narrow streets, music pumping, people dancing. I might post a video of such a bus on my YouTube channel later.
Dancing in the streets of the Old Town
Castle by day
The Castillo de San Felipe de Barajas opens to the public at seven a.m. By the time I arrive at nine, after breakfast, the sun beats on the metre-thick walls of the fortress like a hammer on an anvil. Humidity is over 80%. Tourists totter up steep ramps, taking refuge from the heat in the hundreds of metres of tunnels that riddle the foundations. About 70% of an animated video telling the history of the fortifications is devoted to the failed attack on Cartagena by the British (referred to throughout as the English) in 1741. Chiming with what Henry told me the day before, the video concludes: “if the English had captured Cartagena that year, South America would now be English-speaking’.
The fortress tunnels
Heading down a tunnel under the fortress I see a group of Spanish-speaking tourists coming the other way and duck into a side-tunnel. An older woman spots me and pretends to shoot me, to much laughter. ‘Well, I am English,’ I say. Further hilarity ensues. I and the woman keep running into each other around the fortress; she “shoots” at me repeatedly, smiling roguishly.
The scale of the fortress is impressive
A man with a trumpet wearing a uniform, standing in the searing sunlight, greets a tour group from Mexico. ‘Viva Mexico!’ he shouts ‘Arriba Mexico.’ He plays some Mexican-sounding tunes on his trumpet. ‘Where are you from?’ he asks another group. ‘Ah, Guatemala!’ Again he plays an appropriate tune, to general delight. Later he corners a woman pushing a pram. She says she comes from Sweden. The man looks doubtfully at his trumpet, then simply shouts “Viva Sweden,’ without a tune. Perthaps he does not realise that any ABBA song would do.
A British-style post-box (“Made in Scotland”) in the Old Town
Outside the fortress a hard-to-read plaque on a statue of Admiral Blas de Lezo y Olavarrieta, the Spanish commander in 1741. “Before these walls,” the caption reads, “England and its colonies were humiliated.” The plaque is dated 15 October 2025 – less than two months before my visit.
Enjoying an ice-cold Pepsi
After two hours in the fortress my water supplies are finished. I buy replacements at a “Refresqueria”, including an ice-cold Pepsi. “Refresqueria” seems a great concept – yet this is the first one I’ve noticed in Latin America. What would be the equivalent in English? Dance music blasts from the counter. Sweat courses down my cheeks, forehead, back and chest, soaking my shirt (not visible in the photo). Wolfing the sugary drink down is pure pleasure.
Banned books in the Palacio de la Inquisition. Some remained banned until 1966.
If Medellin is short of touristic sites, Cartagena has more than you can reasonably shake a stick at, scoring on quantity, quality and sheer size. Some, such as the Santo Domingo church, seem more austere than their Peruvian cousins – there are no ornate side chapels and hardly any gilt. Why should this be? The “Palace of the Inquisition” includes some banned books, including “Madame Bovary” by Flaubert; Stendhal’s “Le Rouge et le Noir” and Copernicus.
Woman touching the cathedral door
Around midday, Cartagena cathedral is closed to visitors. A big Spanish-speaking bunch of tourists gathers outside, people taking turns to fondle the vaguely breast-shaped bobbles on the main entrance door. One younger woman provokes laughter by fondling a couple of dozen of them; a couple take turns, then embrace, to cheers. I ask the grinning guide what’s happening. ‘If you touch the door of the cathedral,’ he says, ‘you’ll meet your true love. Or if you have a partner, your relationship will thrive.’ One of the tourists asks where I’m from. When I say England, she calls to her husband to take a picture of me with her and her two teenage daughters.
Limonada de Coco
In “La Cevicheria” in the Old Town I treat myself to a Limonada de Coco. It’s a mix of coconut milk, fresh lime juice, ice and sugar, and is blow-your-head-off delicious. On the local beaches, the sun is intense but the sea breezes are refreshing. As the light fades, most of the people on the beach, or splashing in the sea, seems to be Colombian.
On the beach
I am struck that although I have enjoyed Cartagena far more than Medellin, I’ve written far less about it. Discuss.
Chile, Peru and Ecuador
A post about the first stage of my journey, in Chile, is here. A second blog, on Peru, is here. A third, about Ecuador (including the Galapagos) is here. The last is about Costa Rica.
Feedback
I’d welcome feedback on these travel blogs, in the comments or direct by e-mail. Is this too much detail? Too few/too many photos? Other thoughts? Let me know. I’m also posting a few photos on Instagram and elsewhere, with the hashtag #patrica (for Patagonia to Costa Rica).
If you enjoy travel writing, you may like to explore my US road trip piece from 1979 “A voyage around America“. Or feel free to explore my piece The Russians: Vladivostok; or my recent account of a disastrous boat trip to visit the dragons of Komodo.
My trip-of-a-lifetime was organised by Sinead at Travel Differently.
4 responses
So is Columbia headed in the direction of greater stability and prosperity? What is needed?
Hard to be sure. I think broadly in all countries stability of government and institutions leads to prosperity. That’s why European and North American countries, broadly defined, have done so well for the last 100 years or so. Some Latin American countries have achieved this to a greater or lesser extent – arguably, including Colombia, compared to where they were a couple of decades ago. But you’re only as good as the last hamburger you served; and countries which in the past had an excellent record of stable government can always crash and burn.
Another interesting story Leigh. I think perhaps you ‘need’ to write less about Cartagena because you know we have a framework of knowledge to understand tourist places. We have all walked round castles. Medellin, I don’t know about your other readers but beyond the terrorism/drugs events which I know were at their height decades ago, I don’t have any framework and am glad you took the time to give one.
Paul
Thanks. It’s true that Medellin is a closed box for most of us – including me before I arrived. Maybe we should all try visiting non-touristic places from time to time, to try and understand them a bit. I kind of crave holidays or stays where you go and live somewhere for 3-4 weeks and learn the language or study something. Let’s see.