We'd visited Medellin on our previous visit to Colombia, and it probably already ranked as our favourite city in the country. Our second visit was very short, but it certainly cemented Medellin's place in our hearts.
We arrived early in the morning and after a walk, a metro ride (on the only subway system in Colombia) and another walk, arrived at our hostel. We also had a wee bit of a nap before hitting the town again, this time going to the north bus station to procure tickets for our onward journey the following evening.
From there we recreated one of our favourite days in Medellin, walking alongside the metro tracks back into town. We revisited the lovely botanical gardens, complete with big green land iguanas in amongst the trees. We revisited the venerable old Cemeterio San Pedro, whitewashed and filled with flowers. We even walked down a side street to visit a particularly striking church and found ourselves having a blackberry milkshake across the street at the exact same cafe where Sarah had enjoyed one six years previously. South American blackberries are bigger than those elsewhere and have a subtle earthy/herbaceous flavour that distinguishes them.
By the time we'd walked all the way back to our hostel, we had to almost immediately head back out again to make good on our plans for the evening.
We'd met Valentina through Couchsurfing after I'd searched for members in Medellin who had an interest in beer or brewing. She very kindly agreed to show us around some of her favourite breweries in Medellin.
But before we even got going with the breweries we started with a couple of coffee spots. We met Valentina, her sister Laura and her girlfriend Laura at Rituales, a cool cafe in a neighborhood that was packed full of bars, restaurants and so forth, almost all of which have sprung up in the past five years. Sarah had a filter coffee, while I had a flat white, which was quite possibly the best coffee I've ever had in my life. And for good reason! The coffee works directly with growers in the hills outside of Medellin which, while technically part of the city, are quite separate from it, as they're poorer than the urban residents and receive pretty much no services from the municipal government.
The cafe roasts the coffee themselves and then takes it full circle by returning it to the farmers and giving them the opportunity to try the final product, a chance that almost no coffee farmers in Colombia ever get! This means that they have the opportunity to taste the difference that different terroir, growing conditions and bean fermentation processes make, in turn giving them a better understanding of how to control, modify and improve their processes. And this higher quality coffee gets bought at a price 40% higher than the national marketing board pays, leaving everyone happy with the situation. It was awesome that one of the company's founders took the time to explain all of this to us during our visit.
Following another cafe visit, which proved another exception to Sarah's observation that places that grow coffee (and Colombia in particular) drink lousy coffee, it was time for some beer.
We visited two breweries, Cerveceria Libre and Madre Monte. They were both little brewpubs serving tucked away in spots that we would've struggled to find on our own. And I'm delighted to say that their beers were very good! Particularly memorable were the coffee stout at Libre, and the Berliner Weisse and Foreign Extra Stout at Madre Monte. Despite the fact that it was after 22:30 at the time, the brewer at Madre Monte took the time to show us around the brewery (almost exactly the same size as Wild and Woolly had been back in NZ), and to chat about beer and brewing with me (my Spanish improved markedly with the clear context and lots of technical brewing terms that are the same as in English to draw on!)
The rest of the company was great too. We had a fabulous night out with Valentina and the Lauras, talking lots about beer and Colombia and Medellin and both her and our upcoming travel plans.
The second day of our whirlwind visit to Medellin began on a more sombre note, with a visit to the Museum of Memories, which documented and provided, if not closure, then at least sombre commemoration of Medellin's dark recent past.
I was familiar with the violence that racked the city when the drug cartels controlled the city, locked in a war with the government and justice system. But I knew less about the times surrounding this, when Medellin was at inthe centre of mass migrations, and right wing groups sought to stem this tide by murder and arson, especially directed at the city's growing black population. Nor did I realize how central a role Medellin played in the years-long war between the government, the conservative paramilitaries, the left wing guerillas and those who simply wanted a fairer, more equal society. The stories ofbsome of the hundreds (thousands?) of social justice activists and “communist sympathisers” who were disappeared or murdered were particularly poignant.
The museum was very well designed and presented but, unsurprisingly, left us feeling a bit melancholy following our visit.
We'd originally planned some specific activities for the afternoon, but decided that we'd just spend it walking down the vibrant corridor of the new LRT line and around the city's heart at Botero Plaza once we reached its end.
As an illustration of how Medellin has become safer (or at the very least more tourist friendly) you need look no further. Just six years earlier, the square had seemed, if not precisely dangerous then at least pretty seedy and not the kind of place I'd want to hang around at night. Now it was packed with visitors and locals enjoying a sunny afternoon and posing for photos with the many statues by the square's namesake artist.
The street with the LRT was also very pleasant to walk up and down. It's entirely free of traffic (save for the trams of course) and full of pedestrians browsing a wide variety of businesses, including a fancy little dining district that was kind of reminiscent of the little court that Auckland bar Lovebucket sits at the back of.
And to top it all off we had lunch on the large patio of a bustling little restaurant which served perhaps our favourite meal in Colombia, with vegetarian soup, lots of salad, memorable aji (chili) sauce and delicious spicy beans accompanying our mains.
From there we rolled back down the hill to the metro and up to the northern bus station. As the sun went down the lights came on in the neighbourhoods clinging to the sides of the valley high above central Medellin, looking like thousands of brilliant stars sending us on our way.
It was, I suppose, a little downhill from there. A thirteen-hour overnight bus journey is downhill from most places. But our time in Medellin had left about as happy as could be and excited for our trip up to the Caribbean coast.
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