The first week of vacation I headed up to Santa Marta to
visit some other Peace Corps volunteers. Volunteer Carla really took one for
the team when she met her now boyfriend Ryan, great guy and owner of an amazing hostel (La
Brisa Loca) and restaurant (Uzo) in Santa Marta. We spent two nights at his
picturesque beach house, lounging in hammocks on a private beach and falling asleep
next to the ocean. We swam out early every morning to see the snow covered
Sierra Nevadas before the clouds rolled in. I haven’t seen snow in 16 months
but seeing snow covered mountains while swimming in the warm ocean surrounded
by palm trees was a definite first. Ryan also took us up a close-by mountain in
his Land Rover to explore rivers and eat cocao plant seeds (tastes nothing like
chocolate in its seed form).
Cocao plant before it becomes chocolate
After being back in Cartagena for a bit, it was off to
Medellin. Medellin is famous as the “city of eternal spring” and therefore has 80ish temperatures/none
of this 115 degrees crap (I needed to know no more—count me in!) not to mention it
was home to the famous Pablo Escobar, leader of one of the most powerful drug
cartels and 7th richest man in the world according to Forbes magazine
(worth $24 billion) in the 1980’s. Medellin today it is a modern city, with a
main city center and residential neighborhoods that sprawl and crawl up the surrounding
mountains. People were helpful, friendly and cultured not to mention beautiful;
however, plastic surgery is booming and cheap in Medellin, so I never knew if
what I was looking at was completely for-real. It may be just a 50 minute plane
flight away, but the coast and the interior of Colombia are two different
worlds. I went with four other Peace Corps volunteers, and together we all
experienced our reverse culture shock… wow, Colombians can throw their trash away, read books in parks, exercise, and give
directions and advice that actually make sense. Revolutionary. I literally laughed out loud at the sight of goosebumps on my arms when I got off the plane. Wearing boots
and scarfs again, going to museums, using crosswalks, eating nachos, and riding the metro—oooooh yeah, so this is
what it feels like to be a real person. That being said, I did miss my
Costeno culture. Medellin may have temperature bragging rights, but the coast
is beautiful, with the happiest and friendliest people, and the dancing, puuulease,
even we blew the Medellin crowd out
of the water with our Costeno-taught salsa moves.
Here are some highlights:
Fernando Botero is a world-famous artist from Medellin who generally paints and sculpts fat things, from people to animals to fruit, because, according to Botero, “it gives them sensuality”. Here we are in Botero Park and with some of his paintings.
Parque de las Luces/Park of Lights, otherwise known as "Lightsaber Park"
Aside from the amazing metro system, Medellin also has cable cars and the world’s longest escalator, thus making the high-preached, poorer neighborhoods more accessible. Can I do Peace Corps here? Great people, great food (see below)
Introducing the "Bandeja Paisa", Medellin's typical dish. Rice, beans, fried plaintain, french fries, arepa, chicken, sausage, and fried egg. Domination.
After filling out bellies, the next logical thing to do would be to get matching seahorse spray-on tattoos, of course.
We took a day trip to El Penon de Guatape and climbed the 740 stairs to the top for an amazing outlook and ass workout.
The first night we stumbled upon a Mexican restaurant with, low-and-behold!, real Mexican food... tortillas, spiciness, Coronas, and all. Needless to day we went back another two times. Add that to the hot wings, ravioli, Dominoes pizza, and REECE's Peanut Butter Cups (see below--we got the last two in the store!), and I'm happy to say my US food cravings have been satisfied. Another 5 months of rice and bananas here I come!
