Medellin day 2

On the street near my hostel

Today I have booked a spot on a walking tour in Medellin. The planned meeting time is 10 am so I will have a relaxed  m6orning before heading out to join the tour.

Depending on my energy at the end of the tour, I need to go  to the Cyclista office to complete my registration to be able to use the free public bike system.

Breakfast was not as complete as yesterday. No eggs and no cereal, but cheese was added to the offerings.

I left early enough to add money to my Civica metro card. 

Passing by fruit vendors on alm6ost every corner. I saw this wagon of pears that looked very tempting. I will have to buy some later.

Arriving at the Metro station, I charged my Civica card and then  took a short ride on the rail system to the meeting point for the tour.

I met up with the Real City Tours walking group at 10 am. The group I was assigned to was lead by Milo. I think we were about 16 people. This tour company provides the leaders with small portable speakers systems that really improve the tour. I have been on some  tours that you really have to struggle to hear. Especially for people like me with hearing lose.

Let me tell you about Milo. He is a college graduate with an degree in Environmental Engineering. He worked for awhile as an engineer, but while temporarily laid off, he discovered the tour industry,  fell in love  with it and has been doing it for over 8 years now (Except for a time during covid when he again had to work as an engineer).

Our first stop was to sit on the steps of one of the municiple buildings in the city where he gave us a energetic, very interesting and thorough introduction to the history of Colombia, Medellin and the Piasa ethnic group that are the original inhabitants of Medelliin. He walked us through a time line of Medellin, starting in the 1600's to the present day. The good, the bad and the ugly. He talked about the first economic drivers of the area. Coffee. 

He did talk about the rise of the cocaine industry and of Pablo Escabar. This was interesting because he never said his name. He explained this, saying that most of the passerbyers, do not speak English, but if he mentions Pablo Escobar by name, peoples ears would perk up and make assumptions about how he was representing him. There are still some supporters of Pablo Escobar in the poorest areas of the city where he made token improvements for the community.

Milo and the majority of the inhabitants are not fans. He specifically asked us not to go on any tours or visit sites associated the Escobar that would somehow glorify the memory of this vicious, murderous drug lord.  

He also talked some about the conflicts between FARC and the elected government much more recently. If you are interested in that, you can find alot of information on the internet. Although FARC is still around, a truce has been reached which resulted in Colombia becoming the tourist destination that it is today.

 

He talked for over 15 minutes. I wish I would have recorded it. So much information, too much to absorb. 

Our first stop was then at the Alpujjara Administrative Center. On one side the governors office building, on another the Congress and on the third, the judiciary. The main attraction here is the Monumento a la Raza Antioqueńa. A very large concrete sculpture by Colom6ibian artist Rodrigo Betancourt. This is a very complex sculpture illustrating the history of Colombia. I will not try to explain it. Visit this Wikipedia site for discription. https://es.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monumento_a_la_Raza_(Medell%C3%ADn)

We then continued through some street markets. Before doing that, Milo advised us on security measures to ensure we didn't have our wallets, valuables and phones pickpocketed. A couple pieces of advise, no wallets or phones in back pockets. He told the best place for our phones was to hold them.

This is contrary to advice you see in other places. It makes sense though, everyone has cell phones. But that wasn't the reasoning. Pickpockets work in teams and most people that are pickpocketed don't realize it to raise alarm. If you hold your phone in you hand, you know if someone snatches it, you scream alerting everyone around you. That triggers mob justice that would result in the thief being severely beaten or even killed. 

We passed through the Plaza Cisneros, the plaza of 300 light poles on our way to Centro Comercial Palacio Nacional shopping mall. 

The Centro Comercial Palacio Nacional was originally built as a government office building. When those offices moved to newer buildings, this building was left empty and in a state of disrepair. There was talk of tearing it down. Luckily some business people stepped in to rescue the building.

It was renovated in starting in 1993 and turned into the mall that it is now. The building is fantastic. The first couple floors are filled with small shops, but the 3rd and 4th floors house a galleries of a huge number of Colombian artists.

 

We didn't spend enough time there to see all the art. I will be making a return visit before I leave Medellin.

We took a short break at the Plaza Botero. Home to 23 sculptures by the artist Fernando Botero. I had visited this Plaza yesterday and posted a couple images.

Continuing on we visited another plaza that Milo was really excited to show us. There were a group of musicians playing traditional Colombian music. He used this opportunity to demonstrate and teach us traditional Colombian dance. There is a longer video clip of this on m6y Facebook page.

Our last stop for the day was at a plaza, popular site for outside music and also home to more Bolero scuptures. In 1993 a large car bomb was detonated by the cartel killing over 20 people and distroying one of the Bolero sculptures.

The city wanted to removed the damaged sculpture, but Bolero objected, saying if you remove the sculture people will forget what happened here. Leave the damaged sculpture and I will donate another identical one. The damaged sculpture has a plaque under it commemorating the people killed in the attack. 

So there are now 2 sculptures, the original distroyed sculpture next to the new one.

This incident was a major turning point for public anger directed to Pablo Escabar.