City of the eternal spring

March 12th-14th, Medellin Cololmbia

After a relaxing few days in El Rodadero, Santa Marta in the north of Colombia, we took a 1 hour flight south to the second largest city in Colombia - Medellin. We had the best hotdogs of our lives at the Santa Marta airport, of all the places!

I've been really excited about Medellin, especially after watching so many episodes of Entourage! We're in the land of Pablo Escobar, notorious leader of the Medellin Cartel, who used to control 80% of the world's cocaine. Medellin was once known as the 'most violent city in the world'. However Escobar's death in 1993 ended the drug war and crime has since decreased. What's actually kinda funny is the number of people who've mailed to warn us not to go to Venezuela because of the violence (we're not going), and we've resassured them that we're fine in Colombia. It's great how this country has managed to pull itself up and shed it's past image. Of course not all areas are safe, it's still very violent at the border near the Amazon but we're sticking to the cities, so we should be fine.

We got here and took a 45 cab from the airport which is outside the city, to our hostel Black Sheep. This place is awesome! It's like a hotel really, in fact better than many hotels I've stayed at, but still has a downstairs hang out area for the social hostel vibe. Reminded me of 7 Patas in Sucre! We checked in and immediately started chatting with a British couple in the patio. Soon the conversation extended to everyone there and we were all exchanging our travel stories, it was good fun. We met a Canadian guy, about 45 years old, who used to be country head at a pharmaceutical company and quit his job to travel - and he's now been traveling for 2 and a half years! He told us that it was 2-4-1 chicken wings at Hooters that night. Hooters in Medellin!! We immediately said yes because the day I say no to hot wings is the day something is very wrong with me. So the 5 of us went to Hooters for dinner and the wings were definitely the best I've ever eaten in my entire life. They were so spicy even I was dying!

Then we walked around the main square and enjoyed the sights. We are staying in a nice resedential neighbourhod on the outskirts of El Poblado barrio which is very safe and quite upscale. The main El Poblado area is also the tourist hotspot, so lots of restaurants, bars, nightclubs etc. The place is very beautiful, I never expected Colombia to be so pretty and well kept! After dinner, we went to the Medellin brewery for a quick beer before heading home. As usual, Bernie was a star, no one in the world can resist his happy vibe. :)

The next day we didn't really do anything at all other than go out for lunch for ribs. The rest of the day we were complete vegetables watching TV! We've been told that Colombians speak the nicest or 'best' Spanish in all of Latin America. However they speak quite fast and have some major differences which confuses us - for example, the word 'calle' means road. We were taught to pronounce it 'caye', all double 'l's should be pronounced as a 'y'. In Medellin however, it is pronounced 'caje'! In Buenos Aires it was 'cache'. It's not easy being a Spanish student traveling across this continent! However I understand pretty much everything but Bernie seems to have some trouble with the accents. People in Colombia as well don't understand his Spanish, it really makes me laugh.

Today we plan on going on a walking tour of the city, this place is definitely one of my favourites already. Because of it's great weather, not too hot and not too cold, it's known as the city of the eternal spring.