(It’s currently November, I have been back in the UK for almost 3 months and it has been/continues to be rough. I’m hoping writing these posts will actually help me feel less despondent. For context, I was in Medellín in May).

I did not fall in love with Medellín the way I thought I would. I definitely enjoyed it but I think a lot of that had to do with the people I met there, which is the case for so much of my travels. My friends from Cali were in Medellín at the same time as me which I was buzzing about and I met some cool people in my hostel too, but I can’t say that I was overly enamoured by the city itself.

As always, I did a walking tour with Beyond Colombia. I chose the ‘Surviving Violence & Post-Conflict Tour’ as, in all honesty, my knowledge of Medellín is mainly Pablo Escobar with a bit of Maluma and Karol G thrown in there. The story of Medellín is quite a sad one really. Do you remember in my Bogota post, I mentioned there was the assassination of a super popular, salt of the earth, guy running for President which sparked riots across the country? Well, for some reason, these riots did not reach Medellín, so whilst other cities and even parts of the countryside in Colombia were on fire, Medellín was growing and developing. It was once the ‘Manchester of Latin America’ being a hub for the textile industry until about 1958. The legacy of this can still be seen today as downtown is full to the brim of market place vibe stalls selling all kinds of clothing.

Anyways, the Cuban Revolution of 1959 inspired a lot of Latin American countries to make a change of their own. The terrain between the Amazon and the Andes is perfect for cocoa leaf production and Colombia began doing their own full coke production – we’re talking everything done in house as it were. As I mentioned, it has been months since I took this tour and the notes I took on it were terrible but my understanding is that FARC were controlling cocaine producing areas and began taxing them. This allowed them to develop into a stronghold paramilitary group. At around the same time, the Medellín Cartel, (which was not actually started by Escobar btw, he was just the head of it during its notorious reign of terror), were on the rise and essentially controlled the city. The one thing I didn’t fully grasp before this tour was how divisive the Cartel is. I know in Narcos, there are the scenes where Escobar is seen to be the ‘Robin Hood’ of the city but that actually goes far deeper. Apparently, many in Medellín still somewhat rate the Cartel for the ‘good’ work they did in building social housing, protecting people and providing jobs. Despite all that, Medellín became the centre of fighting between the FARC, the Cartel and the government destroying the lives of so many which you can see in the Museo Casa de la Memoria, which outlines the human impact of the violence that plagued the city for so many years. It’s a really harrowing museum of first hand accounts from people who survived the horrors of those years in the city.

The tour itself was pretty sobering but I do remember feeling like I had gotten a lot out of it, especially a deep appreciation for the strength and resilience for the people of Medellín and Colombia as a whole.

Aside from learning about the conflict and violence, another great thing to do in Medellin is to go out out. From a hostel salsa ‘competition’, I won free night out to a club crawl in La Provenza where you can find Karol G’s ‘La House’. This and ‘Distrito Federal del Perreo’ in Poblado were my faves. The vibe was always right, the music slapped and people were actually outside to shake ass.

One of the big attractions in Medellín is Comuna 13. Everyone raves about it and I reckon if you do a guided tour you might have a better experience as you’ll get a better understanding of how it’s gone from one of the most dangerous places to a tourist hot spot. I personally just found it really odd – it’s as if someone plonked a btech DisneyLand in the middle of a residential estate. One minute, you’re walking past a bar blasting music and the next minute walking into someone’s washing line. It was truly sensory overload from all angles. The views you get over the city are pretty good but I would definitely say go in a group or do an actual tour to get the most of out it.

Other than some museum visits and general wanders around the Manila and Poblado area, that was about it for my time there. Medellín has a lot to explore, amazing public transport, great bars & restaurants and fun nightlife, I just think if I took away the people that I was with, I wouldn’t have enjoyed it as much simply for the city itself.