Colombia wasn’t on most people’s South America itinerary 10-15 years ago but is a different country in the post-Pablo Escobar era and especially since the government cracked down on guerrilla groups, increased military/police presence and signed a peace agreement in 2016. Tourism gradually developed, cities like Medellin transformed more rapidly, infrastructure improved and international perception shifted. Today Colombia is firmly on the tourist trail.

We’d decided to avoid Colombia’s capital Bogota, primarily due to the high altitude but also as it wasn’t that highly rated as a destination per se, instead opting to start with the 2nd city of Medellin. We found a couple of direct flights from Madrid and opted for Air Europa as we managed to bag a really good priced business class fare. It wasn’t the luxury of Emirates or Qatar, but offered a decent lounge at Madrid Airport with an excellent wine selection and fully lie flat beds for the flight – so far far better than Economy and a quite comfortable 10 hour flight across the Atlantic. Debbie nodded off while half watching ‘And Just Like That’ (the follow up to Sex and The City) and was quite mortified when Steve woke her saying “what the hell are you watching?” and she saw an almost pornographic (and totally unnecessary) scene being played out on her screen for all to see!

Immigration was quick and straightforward, sadly our business class ‘priority’ luggage labelling was ignored, but within an hour of landing we’d managed to find our driver and were en route to the city.

The City

Medellin (pronounced Meh-deh-yeen) was once the world’s most dangerous city, run by guerrilla gangs and drug cartels, now transformed by urban innovation and regeneration. It’s a huge city set in a wide valley in the Andes and is known as The City of Eternal Spring. There are VERY different areas within the city and we’d opted to stay in El Poblado, the poshest district, as do most tourists. We wanted somewhere that was as safe as possible and that had restaurants very close by, so chose Hashtag 98 Hotel – trendy, urban and relatively inexpensive – as our base for 4 nights. The hotel had a great view of the hills of Medellin – the only really flat place in this city is the airport runway – especially from the rooftop bar/restaurant where we enjoyed cocktails and tacos. We wandered slowly (those hills!) around El Poblado, discovering the Provenza district with leafy squares, coffee shops and a guy playing Spanish guitar. This area felt safe but we were conscious that you still needed to be aware of your possessions and not put daft temptation in the way of opportunistic phone/bag snatchers. Looking at the apartment blocks in the area it was clear that this is where the wealthy folk of Medellin live.

There aren’t a lot of must-do/see things here and our research suggested that Centro might be a little too gritty to be worth risking just for the sake of seeing a museum and 23 famous bronze sculptures by Fernando Bottero, so we decided to give it a miss.

However, the previously no-go area of Communa 13 is unmissable and the most striking symbol of Medellin’s transformation, so we booked a 4 hour tour for just £20 each. Our guide Christian was half Ecuadorian and had spent time in The Galapagos, so we picked his brains on the islands in addition to getting a fascinating insight into the troubled history and renaissance of Medellin. There were just 4 of us on the tour – joined only by a giant African-American guy from Miami with a full set of gold teeth and his tiny girlfriend from the Dominican Republic.

After meeting Christian at Estacion Poblado, we took the Metro (clean, safe, one of the best in South America) line A to Centro (“hold on to your phones” warned Christian), switched to Line B for San Javier in Communa 13, and then transferred to the Metrocable. This amazing system of cable cars is also part of the Metro and it was immediately obvious how it had transformed access to the city for the residents of the poorer hillside neighbourhoods. During the ride over the rooftops Christian explained the history of Communa 13 – how the houses had been built precariously (and illegally) on hillsides by migrants escaping rural violence and poverty; the recent history of guerrilla, paramilitary & drug cartel stranglehold and why this place was so dangerous in the past; and the government-led 2002 Operation Orion to remove guerrilla control. The latter was one of the most controversial events in modern Colombian history and although it helped stabilise the area and was a catalyst for change, it is alleged that there were serious human rights abuses resulting in the ‘disappearance’ and scapegoating of innocent teenagers – the “false positives” – whose remains were later discovered in a mass grave on one of the hillsides. As a distraction, the government invested heavily in Communa 13, building outdoor escalators for easy transportation within the district and enabling the transformation. Before the escalators residents had to climb the equivalent of 28 floors just to get home – afterwards they could do it in minutes. Very nice, but the residents of Communa 13 haven’t forgotten and still protest each year on the anniversary of the disappearances.

Communa 13 today is a symbol of regeneration and resilience – while most of the district is still a residential neighbourhood, one area has been transformed into the most visited tourist attraction in Medellin. A colourful area with wall-art and graffiti representing: the memories of historic conflict, protest messages, pride, local heroes, symbols of peace. The shift from bullet-ridden walls to colourfully decorated ones reflects how the area has moved from extreme violence to creativity and tourism. It’s certainly touristy, and spectacularly tacky in places, but what a fantastic area to visit and enjoy. Rap, hip-hop and street-dance performances pop up on every corner – we spent some time with the only female rapper in the district who collected a series of random words from us and on the spot turned them into a rap – amazing. We tried the local beer poured onto a concoction of passionfruit, mango and salt – yuk. We ran the gauntlet of vendors selling tourist tat while soaking up the atmosphere, and sat in a rooftop bar peacefully sipping beer and marvelling at the view over Communa 13 and to the city and mountains beyond. And finally we descended the escalators and steep hills, pitying the poor people who’d started their tour at the bottom of Communa 13 rather than the top!

As it was now rush hour, Christian suggested we took an Uber back to our hotel rather than the Metro which would be packed – that Uber driver worked very hard for his £8 fare as it took well over an hour to get back to El Poblado!!

Guatape

A 2 hour trip East of Medellin was apparently the ‘must-do’ day trip from the city, so we booked a full day tour, including breakfast, lunch, guide and transport for £30 each. It brought home to us just how expensive Australia had been for excursions, where everything seemed to be £100+ (and far more in many cases). In contrast to our Communa 13 tour, this one had 42 other people with us, and at least 2 tours met at 06-45 at the church of Poblado Park, just a 5 minute walk from our hotel. The Colombians are obviously a nation of good Catholics, and even at that ungodly hour of the morning, the faithful in their masses were joined in prayer inside the church while the tourists gathered outside.

After boarding a very modern coach, which would’ve been comfy if the German guy in front of Steve hadn’t immediately reclined his seat, we trundled through the Medellin rush hour taking an age to escape the city – and then realised we’d only gone around the block to pick someone up! After an hour or so on main roads we stopped for breakfast before heading further up into the mountains. We knew that our destination was going to be at 1900m, so higher than Medellin at 1500m, and hoped the increase in altitude wouldn’t impact Steve too much. He’s OK on planes, which are pressurised to the equivalent of 1800-2500m, so should be OK at these altitudes if taking it easy.

Our first stop was El Penol – a magnificent granite monolith rising 220m straight up from the surrounding countryside and apparently the 3rd biggest ‘rock’ in the world. Steve had already decided that he wasn’t going to even think about climbing the 708 steps to reach the summit – there’s no way his knackered lungs would manage that, and especially not at altitude – but was happy to wait at the bottom while Debbie went to see what was supposedly one of the best viewpoints in Colombia. On arrival at the base, Debbie took one look and said “F*** that, lets get a beer instead” even though it was still only 10.30 in the morning. A private family own the rock and surrounding land, which they have turned into a tacky tourist complex, and which generates over $5million per year in ticket revenue. The other 42 people on our tour did make the effort (mad fools) but we were happy enough with the spectacular view that we got over the surrounding countryside and the vast network of islands and lakes created by a hydroelectric dam.

A couple of miles from El Penol we stopped for an hour or so at the pretty village of Guatape where the streets are filled with brightly decorated buildings, and each house has zocalos (decorative painted panels at the base of the walls) telling the story of the owner, the house or the town. A lovely little place.

After lunch we were herded onto a boat for a trip on the lake – a lovely spot, with the banks dotted with luxury resorts, the multimillion dollar homes of Colombian footballers, and most notably the bombed and derelict former home of Pablo Escobar.

After a random stop at a roadside place with llamas, goats, and a singing woman on horseback, we arrived back in Medellin almost 12 hours after departure and too tired to do anything other than nip to the supermarket for sandwiches for dinner – we really couldn’t be bothered going out. It was a great day though.

Just when we thought we’d got through our visit to Medellin without any issues….

We decided to use the hotel’s transfer company to get us back to the airport, despite it being almost double the price of an Uber, as (1) our bags are big and many of the Uber vehicles are not and (2) it’s probably safer as Uber is still a legal grey area in Colombia. All started well – the driver WhatsApped Debbie to say he was there early if we wanted to leave any sooner, the car was big and labelled with the name of the transport agency, the traffic wasn’t too bad. We did hear the driver translating a few things on his phone along the lines of “I need a favour…” and then, immediately after exiting the 8Km Tunnel de Orient, still on a main highway and a few miles from the airport, we pulled over onto the hard shoulder and the driver said (through his translate app) “I’m sorry, I need to cancel the journey here”. Oh F** – here we go! He tried to explain there was an issue with the police at the airport and he couldn’t go there, asked something about cash, Dollars or credit card. We were sure it was some sort of set up or extortion, but Steve didn’t panic and insisted that the guy continued to the airport. Meanwhile Debbie was frantically WhatApping the hotel asking for help. How could this be happening to us? A decent hotel and their supposedly reputable transport provider? Anyway, the driver eventually relented, got us to the airport, quickly took the cash from Debbie – we had planned to pay by card but that was a level of complexity we didn’t need at this point – and helped us with getting our bags out of the boot. Once clear of the car we breathed a massive sigh of relief but the adrenaline was pumping – what the bloody hell had just happened?? The hotel cleared it up via WhatsApp – apparently he just wanted to sort out payment before arriving at the airport as the police can report drivers for taking money and impound their cars, this was very normal (yeah, right), we should’ve been informed in advance (no shit Sherlock), and they had been worried it had been a serious issue when Debbie messaged. Well excuse us, we DID think it was a VERY SERIOUS issue!! OK, it was probably just some bad translation and dodgy (but apparently normal) practice – but it wasn’t the end to our Medellin stay that we’d have wished for!

Nevertheless we enjoyed Medellin. As our first destination in South America we were understandably a bit nervous and didn’t totally relax or feel fully confident to wander outside our hotel for dinner and drinks at night despite being in the best/safest area. That said though, Debbie happily trotted up the hill to the ATM on her own one morning. It’s a fascinating city and gave us a great insight into what Colombia is all about.

But now onwards to something completely different – Colombia’s premier coffee region….