A day of exploration in Medellín, leaving around 10am with the first destination being Comuna 13, a favela in the city.
A former place of drug dealing, murders and disappearances, today it is a colourful and lively favela, where one can still feel the atmosphere of the most disadvantaged areas, but with a little liveliness and colour.
Between views of the city, dancing and impromptu singing, Commune 13 is definitely a place not to be missed, perhaps one of the best places in the city.
Then it’s the turn of a central square, with a very unusual grey and white striped building and statues of ‘gordite’ characters scattered around the square. To get to the botanical garden, we pass through the middle of a district completely occupied by drug addicts, a really heavy situation, with people who can barely stand up, prostitutes who are completely stoned and people willing to do anything for a fix. This is perhaps the place where I felt least safe on the whole trip, but then again, in Colombia it is easier to find drugs than a packet of tissues (I am not exaggerating).
The botanical garden is full of exotic plants, a pond where huge fish and turtles live, and a magnificent specimen of Iguana roaming free among the people.
Of course, while we are in the park it starts to rain (as it has every day since we have been in Colombia), so we move on to a reproduction of a ‘village paisà’, a typical village in the Medellin area.
It consists of the traditional rectangular square with colourful houses with balconies on either side, very reminiscent of Mexican and Cuban ones, and a small church, modest but pretty. Here we have lunch (the sun has come out in the meantime), after which it is time to see the city from one of the viewpoints scattered around. It is huge, I would never have thought so, but it stretches as far as the eye can see along all the surrounding hillsides. It starts raining again, we go back to the hostel. The weather is crazier than the city itself!