[13/03/224 – 20/03/2024[

Intro

Before getting back into the hustle and bustle of a large city, Stefan wanted to have some peace and quiet and not much interaction with other people, which I was happy to go along with, especially since he outdid himself in finding a proper location. He is aware that he just raised the bar for himself and of course I´ll keep telling you about it.

Not too long ago we got asked which of the South-American places/cities/villages we could imagine ourselves to live in for a longer period of time. Back then my answer was Puerto Montt (Chile/Patagonia), due to its proximity to the Patagonia glaciers, the Pacific Ocean, with Chiloe island just around, and the 7 lake district to the north. After having visited Medellin, I have to revise this. Even at the beginning raining season, the climate in the city was quite nice, the city itself offers a lot, and I not only mean the rather touristy places of El Poblado but as well the city center, and around. In addition, I come to like cities that are build alongside mountains, as the lights you can see at night are quite spectacular.

The time we spent in Medellin till the arrival of the girlz, we spent in Comuna 10 – La Candelaria and on the 19th we moved to Comuna 14 – Poblado. In Medellin itself we went to the Charlotte de Witte concert at Pabellon Amarillo. The concert itself was really good, especially since it was the first music event we chose to go to on our trip. From a music perspective AIROD was my discovery of the evening. Regardless though, if you go to an event like this you do expect prices to be higher, what we did not expect though is the fact that the prices where approximately 4 times higher then on the outside when going to a restaurant. Ok, I could have coped with that fact, but even though they did have local beer (proper beer, e.g. Club Colombia or Aguila) in the freezers the only one they were allowed to sell was Heineken. A sober concert it was for us. The consumption of drugs around us was quite open, party powder, pills, some sort of stuff you sniffed at and marijuana (which according to the locals is legal in Medellin, but illegal in other parts of the country).

Santander de Quilichao – Hacienda San Isidro

Located in the middle of nowhere, this Hacienda offered a most welcomed place to just unwind. With a pool and a jacuzzi, and the fact that for the first evening we basically had the place to ourselves. They grow bananas, coffee, avocados, tangerines and oranges. The ride itself was uneventful, fully paved windy roads, the only thing we had to cope with was overtaking, just like the week before when we entered Colombia. The people in Colombia, we met thus far, are very friendly, they are proud of their country and do appreciate you speaking their language, however bad your language skills might be.

Hacienda San Isidro – Medellin

We followed the Ruta 25 (part of the panamerican highway) towards Medellin which was a spectacular road. We climbed down to 700 m elevation and there we hit 38°C. That was quite a change after having spent wonderful times at temperatures between 20°C – 30°C. The traffic in Medellin was ok, not as chill as in Quito but definitely not as bad as La Paz or Lima.

As Stefan and I where expecting the girlz soon, we decided to not do much sightseeing in Medellin, and for the first time had a proper laundry machine, that cleaned our clothes properly. I did do some shopping as i needed new shirts. Saturday was the concert and we spent the time till Tuesday exploring the inner city and the quarter around our accomodation, did use the Metro and the cable cars, and did do our laundry. I was really happy about that machine ;-).

And Tuesday night the girls arrived. Manuela was first at 22:00 hrs. Ann-Kathrin and Birte arrived at midnight due to some snafu with the flight booking up front.

This concludes week 16
Till next time,
Happy Hacking everyone