Medellín: Part 2

April 24, 2023

For the long weekend in March (celebrating el día festivo de San José), I went to Medellín for the second time! Medellín is the capital city of Antioquia and the second largest city in Colombia with a metro area of about 4 million people. While Medellín was once known as one of the most dangerous cities in the world because of the armed conflict between different guerrilla, military and narco-trafficking groups (a simplification of a very complex and bloody history), it has been transformed. Today, Medellín is a wildly popular tourist destination for Colombians and foreigners. In fact, there's a huge ex-pat population in Medellín, and a lot of digital nomads pass through the city. I have seen the most non-Spanish speaking mochileros (backpackers) in this city of anywhere in Colombia. On one hand, the tourism has been vital to revitalizing the city and bringing income to the people that live there, but it has made the city one of the most expensive in terms of food and housing, driving lower-income residents out of certain neighborhoods.

The view from our AirBnB

Medellín is nestled in the midst of mountains, giving stunning views no matter where you are in the city. The neighborhoods stretch throughout a valley and up into the mountains. This means that getting around the city can be a bit tough if you're not prepared for hills or stairs (or the sheer size of the city), but luckily Medellín has a fantastic public transportation system that includes buses, trams, a metro, and cable cars! The Medellín Metro is the pride of the city, and it's almost a tourist attraction in its own right. The views from the above-ground metro cars are beautiful, and it is by far the fastest way to get around the city. The cable car system is also revolutionary. The gondolas connect some of the poorest neighborhoods much higher in the hills to the transportation system, making it far easier for people to get up and down to the most central parts of the city.

The cable car system brings you high above the city

A view of the cable car lines from the metro station

The famous outdoor escalators in Comuna 13

Another transportation feature that changed the city is a system of outdoor escalators in Comuna 13. I did a tour of Comuna 13 last time I was in Medellín, but this trip I just walked around the touristy parts of the neighborhood with my friends. The escalators total over 1200 feet (apparently it's the size of a 28 story building), and they make it easier for tourists and locals to get around the neighborhood, which is built on some pretty steep hills.

Comuna 13 is such a tourist attraction because it was the site of some of the most extreme violence and conflict during the 1980s and 90s. The area was controlled by various violent drug trafficking groups who used the location on the mountainside to transport drugs in and out of the city. The constant conflicts between guerrillas, gangs, and paramilitaries made it an indescribably unsafe place to live.

In 2002, the government began a military raid on the city. This operation put the neighborhood's 100,000 residents in danger from the crossfire, but it was the first step in liberating the neighborhood from the conflict.

As the neighborhood became safer (and the escalators improved transit and access), artists started to decorate the streets. Now, Comuna 13 is covered in murals telling the story of the neighborhood and celebrating local heroes.

Comuna 13's history represents the history of Medellín as a whole: a place marked by violence that will never be able to forget that history but that is slowly revitalizing, covering the bullet holes one mural at a time.

Another activity that we did while in the city was visit "Museo Casa de la Memoria," a museum and archive that uses multimedia artifacts to document the violence that was seen in Medellín and Colombia as a whole. The museum serves as a place of remembrance and reflection, and it is beautifully put together. There are maps detailing the violence seen in different areas of the city, and testimonies from people of all backgrounds that can be read or listened to.

One of the most impactful exhibits for me was a "wall of whispers." There were many small boxes on a wall that quietly played different people's testimonies about the violence they experienced. From far away, the recordings combine and are hard to distinguish, but when you put your ear right against an individual box, you can hear that particular account, while still getting bits of the stories being told from the other boxes. It's a masterful way to communicate both individual stories and the breadth of the impact on so many.

The museum includes a permanent exhibit, temporary exhibits that change semi-regularly (it was closed when we visited), and a public library and archive that specializes in materials related to conflict and peace-building efforts in Colombia and around the world. While the museum's materials are mostly in Spanish, enough of it is translated to English that I think it can still be impactful to visit even if you don't speak Spanish. It was one of my favorite museum's that I've visited in Colombia so far, and I felt like I learned more about the conflict than I have from other sources.

A lot of the trip was spent learning about the history of Medellín and appreciating the way the city has changed in the last few decades, but we also visited some beautiful nature areas. Medellín is one of the prettiest cities because it is so incredibly green. The greenness of the surrounding mountains feels like an integrated part of the city.

One of the places we visited was the Botanical Gardens. I had gone here in January when I visited, but it was nice to come back and see the different flowers in bloom at this time of year. We also visited the Butterfly House, which I hadn't done before. It's an enclosed greenhouse full of different types of butterflies fluttering around. It had some of the biggest butterflies I've ever seen in real life, and it was definitely worth the extra ticket cost (especially since the gardens are free to enter)!

We also visited Parque Arvi, which is a huge biopark outside the city. We had to take the cable cars to get there, so we got to see the transportation system in action. To get there from El Poblado (the neighborhood we were staying in), we first had to take the metro to a hub in the north, then take two different cable cars. The first line took us over the city, passing over the busy streets and people's roofs. On the second cable car, we exited the city, and it was about a 20 minute ride over the forests of the park. It's always a surprise when I see the edges of a city in Colombia because the transition from urban to rural is so abrupt. There's no suburbs surrounding cities like Medellín, but rather, one second you are soaring above a neighborhood of the city and the next you're above some cows grazing on a farm set on the side of a hill.

The park is a huge forest reserve with certain parts that you can hike, but a tour guide is recommended because it is so vast. We didn't have a ton of time because we went there the morning of our flight back to Bucaramanga, so we decided not to pay to enter the larger park. Instead, we explored a few free trails and the buildings at the entrance to the park. There's a craft center, a plant store, a cafe, and stands where local artisans can sell their products.

Parque Arvi is a beautiful place to see the flora of Colombia and appreciate the conservation that has happened in this region. While it was fun to walk around the park, the cable car ride to the park was almost the best part. It is one of the prettiest views of the city and the surrounding nature!

As always, when visiting one of the bigger cities in Colombia, a highlight was definitely the food. We got to eat at some really great restaurants, including getting Thai food and birria tacos. There's lots of cafes, too, since Medellín is sort of close to some of the best coffee-producing areas in Colombia. And of course we had to visit a bookstore :)

One of the cutest coffee shops I've visited

Bukz bookshop in El Poblado

Medellín is one of the prettiest cities in Colombia that I have seen, and it has the most unique vibes of any city I've visited here. While it is full of tourists, it is still easy to feel like you're interacting with the Colombians that actually live there. There's a lot of tourist attractions, but it is also a city that is honest about its past and open to teaching people about it. There is some narco-tourism related to people sensationalizing the drug-related history (things like Pablo Escobar tours), but the majority of people seem to want to move on from the violence and embrace all the good that Medellín has to offer. Of course, it is a huge city, so it is important to be aware of your surroundings and to take normal safety precautions, but I didn't find Medellín any more dangerous than any other city I've visited here. It is a place to learn about a complicated and violent time in Colombia's history but also a place to appreciate the beauty and culture found here.