I’m loving Colombia’s nature. It’s so cool to wake up every morning and see the lush green mountains. I always enjoy the whispy fog and clouds folding into each valley leaving the tops of the mountains peeking out. I learned that the mountains surrounding Medellin are packed with waterfalls and beautiful hikes. This week we take our adventures outdoors and get to explore nature from a slightly different perspective. Lately, I’ve been doing a lot of jumping. This week … Off bridges. Off boats. Off Waves. Off Mountains :) Off course :(
Day 41 - Jumping Off Bridges
This weekend, we head to Guatape to see El Peñol, a massive rock in the middle of a lagoon that friends have suggested look like something out of blue people Avatar. We are reunited with our rafting guides Andrés and Rafa who are excited to show us the “road to Guatape”. This trip is not about the destination. It’s about the journey. What a journey it was.
On the way to breakfast, we pick up a street performer who rides in with us for 10 minutes and his harmonica and drum. At first, we were so confused why we were stopping on the side of the road. We were more confused when a stranger entered our van. I found it remarkable that this guy, who has so little and plays music on busses for a living, was so cheerful and joyful. Music was super fun too.
Our breakfast is a nice home cooked meal of eggs, arepas, and fruit. We hear stories about how the other van’s door flew open while driving and the hood flipped up while on the highway, blinding the driver for a little bit. Not saying I wish I was in that van, but I bet that was actually wild.
Stomachs stuffed, we head on to our next few stops. Guatape is surrounded by water, but we learned that all that water is actually not naturally occurring. Back in the 70s, the Medellin equivalent of the army corps of engineers built a damn for hydroelectric power. In the process, they intentionally flooded many towns and forced people to relocate. Many small new towns were built to replace old ones. We got to visit one of those new towns and just get a teeny sneak peek into how the towns have had to rebuild and redesign themselves. Fully a tourist trap though.
Our next stop is to swim, and I’m not quite ready for it. It’s kinda gloomy out. I’m full. We begin walking over to the beach and I immediately feel giddy as we cross the bridge. I’m going to jump off. I can’t wait! I run to put my stuff down at the beach and get back in position on the bridge. I’m over the pencil dives. I’m ready to front flip. It goes great, but sometimes I forget that I’m not the strongest swimmer and that I don’t have a life jacket on like I did during the rafting trip. Just a longer swim back to shore than I was expecting.
Time to jump again! This time, we’re going to up the ante. I’m going to try a backflip. I get up there on the railing and kinda realize I don’t know how to do one. Do I face forward and jump out while I flip back? I would probably smack my head if I did that. Okay, so I’ll try to stand facing backwards. Nato, a muay thai trainer himself, is watching nearby and starts to coach me. “Just throw your head back and let your body follow.” Sweet sounds easy enough. Nice and relaxed, I jump out and throw my head back. I’m not gonna say I should be a diver, but that entry was CLEAANNNNNNN. That was my first back flip! I was fired up. Felt so cool! :)
Pretty soon after, we get on a wake boat and ride away rocking out to “Sweet Child O’ Mine”. We take turns wake boarding and while the first person is out on the water, the sun turns to dark clouds and the rain begins to fall. Then, it begins to pour. It’s one of the coolest experiences just blasting music and ripping it out on the water.
When it’s my turn, it takes me a few tries to get up on the wakeboard, but once I do, I am in full control. Pretty quickly, I’m playing with the rope tension to control my speed. I’m using snowboarding mechanics to turn and weave. When I wipe out it’s because I’m trying to rip from one side of the boat to the other and jump over the wake. Ate it :)
We finally make it to Guatape and it’s definitely the least exciting part of the trip. It’s a rock. We are excited to climb it. Some 650 steps to the top, but it’s not very difficult. I wonder how many stairs I climb when I get on a stairmaster. The view is pretty much the same all the way up. It’s also crowded as hell because it’s a long weekend for Colombians. We spend maybe 10 minutes up top before we start to head down. Because of how many people there are, it takes 40 minutes to get down. Nothing that exciting. Like kinda a must do because of how unique it is, but it definitely was about the journey.
At last, we end up at Rafa’s house for lunch. By this time it’s 4pm and we hangry. The lentils reminded me a lot of black eyed peas dal that my mom makes and we got to enjoy. It began to pour again and we kinda huddled up waiting for the rain to stop before we went to explore the town. While we were waiting, I was able to pull up the Bama game for like 8 minutes. The rain never stopped and at this point, the group was happy to just go home. After a super long, super traffic ride back home, we grab quick dinner and head out dancing. It is Saturday night after all :)
Day 42 - Jumping Off Mountains … Well More Like Running
We are headed into the mountains to start the day. During our ride up, I learned from the tour guide that there was still a lot of drugs and crime in Colombia and Medellin specifically. However, the government has made deals with criminal rings to conduct their activities out of the sight of tourists. So, it just happens under the scenes, but it allows the government to develop that narrative of growth and transformation. Who knows how true this stuff is. This is one’s person account/perspective, but it does validate some of my doubts early on. I had been curious for a long time about what the agents for change were. Turns out it might be more of a relocation of activities than a complete cleanup. Although, no, I did not see anyone get shot on the streets or explosives in buildings like what was happening in Medellin just years ago.
Today, we are going paragliding! I’m so excited to fly! Overall, this activity feels like chaos. Nobody gives us any warning for what’s about to happen. There is no orientation or safety review. We just kinda are told to hop into a harness and within seconds, they clip you onto the pilot and are telling you to run, run off the mountain. We launch ourselves into the valley where we get to see so many beautiful waterfalls that I hope to be able to hike to later. It’s super cool to really experience what it’s like to find a thermal and use the hot air to gain altitude. My favorite part is that we literally get to fly with the birds although my biggest question was what happens if a bird rips through the parachute. I really enjoyed how freeing paragliding felt. I would definitely want to do it again if we got to go down into more narrow valleys and closer to the trees. Man, I miss my drone.
My ride was about 20 minutes. After 45 minutes, without hearing from the guides and losing sight of our buddy Matt who missed his first landing, we are starting to get worried about where he is. One of the guides (the English speaking one) said they had to rush back to the city for another tour and was going to take us home and leave Jill behind to wait for Matt (her husband). I waited with Jill and after 20 more minutes, we are really not sure what’s going on. We are still waiting. The Spanish speaking guide says that Matt is still flying. We ask him how that could be possible … he’s been out there for an hour already. While we are worried and starting to freak out a little, these guys are so relaxed, just sitting back looking out at the mountains smoking a cigarette chatting and laughing. Colombians runs on Colombia time. Chill chill chill.
We wait for 10 more minutes and I start to pry again. Apparently, Matt and the pilot are deep in the valley above the city, but we still can’t see a parachute with the same color as Matt’s. Eventually, one of them just randomly gets up and says “okay, we are going” and starts walking towards the car. We still don’t know where Matt is. He tells us we are going to meet with Matt at the backup landing spot in the city. As we are driving there, we stop on the side of the road and out of nowhere, Matt gets out of a taxi and hops into the car. Turns out he was in the air the whole time. His pilot, the same one I had, was in denial about missing the first landing and kept trying and failing to find another thermal to gain enough altitude instead of just heading to the backup spot. Silliness.
We get back to El Poblado, and I’m ready for a quick change and head right back out to meet up with Zoe and Nato to go back to Comuna 13. I hadn’t eaten yet at this point, but they were in a rush because Nato’s flight was that evening. I decide that I’m going to just eat some street food in Comuna 13. After a stretch of 75 degree days, today pushed us to a humid, sunny 85. I’m hungry and my body is starting to scold me, but I keep repeating to myself, “only 6 more days in Medellin, gotta push through.”
We did a speed walk of Comuna 13, trying to show Nato around and actually had the awesome surprise of running into Daddy Yankee who was wandering Comuna 13 before his concert later that night. Despite living in NYC for a year, this was my first accidental celebrity sighting and I was here for it. People were screaming and running after him. Look how mean his bodyguard looks in the top right corner of the picture above.
Nato and Zoe left to head to the airport, but I really wanted my mango popsicle with lemon juice and salt. I walked around a little bit more and ventured deeper into the neighborhood where we hadn’t visited before. It was interesting to see how many local people lived there, just next to all the tourist activity. I wonder if they hate it. I wonder how impacted they were by all the violence over the past half-century.
My uber driver on the way home is telling me how his family eats Doritos chilaquiles as a lasagna, an absolutely wild thought to me. After a quick pit stop at home, we head out to watch the sunset at this little park, Pablito Paisa, that our community leader recommended. We only caught the tail end of the sunset, but it was super cool to see the city lights come alive as darkness fell. It’s around this time where I start to realize that I had done goofed. I still hadn’t eaten, but had expended a TON of energy and was super dehydrated. I needed food ASAP. We get some Italian food, drink a bunch of water, get dessert, and I crash.
Day 43 - Jumping Off Course :)
I woke up tired, definitely dehydrated, with a little bit of a scratchy throat. I made a boo boo. I’m gonna need to spend some time relaxing today. I work in bed. I hop over to the coffee shop to get hydrated and put some food in my body for the afternoon. I remember the ginger lemon tea that I always drink when I have a sore throat. I buy some gatorade (passion fruit flavored in this country) and a ton of water and finish the rest of the afternoon working in bed. That evening, I pushed myself over over to taco night so that I could get some food in my body. Before I could get looped into any other activities, I ran away. I was asleep by 8:30.
Day 44 - Recharge
I’m feeling a little bit better, but I’m not quite there yet. Regardless, I have signed up for a local market fruit tour and don’t want to miss the experience. I end up showing up an hour early and have to wait it out at a coffee shop. As I walk to the shop, I start to sweat. I’m wondering if I had a fever that just broke. Weird.
When the fruit tour starts, it’s honestly overwhelming at first. I’m putting a ton of really strong tasting fruit in my mouth one after another. We start with passion fruit. Turns out, there are many different types of passion fruit that look nothing like each other and grow in very different parts of the country. We try 4 of them. Some are sweeter than others, but all of them are super tangy and honestly too sour for me. We move on to little orange tomatoes that grow from trees and are sweet. We try plantains and guanábana and a super sour kiwi called lulo. We try all sorts of guavas and different types of mangos and even though they are delicious, my taste buds are overwhelmed. It’s been a freaking ride, but super cool to learn more about the biodiversity of Colombia. The one thing Colombia doesn’t have are actually … apples :) It’s too warm here for them to grow, so they export a ton of them from Chile and the U.S. Although, they say that people generally don’t like the apples from the U.S.
I’m working from home again still not feeling well. As I sit there, I start to get that teeny voice in my head asking why I’m traveling. There was no real purpose of going on this trip. I just did it because I could. I don’t really know what I’m looking for, if anything. I was just excited to try something cool, and even though I’m having the time of my life, I had a mini questioning session in my misery.
I was supposed to make it out to our city managers house in the mountains for dinner, but the trip sells out before I’m able to register and now all of a sudden I’m out for an activity for the evening. However, it’s also raining and I’m not at my 100%. I wander a little bit and get some chicken katsu ramen. A stranger asks to sit down next to me and we chat about his life and business. He grew up in El Poblado and was able to tell me all about what it used to be like. The rows and rows of restaurants, boutique stores, and clubs used to be people’s homes. Those folks had to find new homes when the government wanted to develop the area to be the “new Colombia” that tourists would see.
Carla came back from her side trip to Atlanta and we went to meet up with her and lounge around. She was also talking about how she had that little thought in her head about why she’s coming back to Colombia. She’s in the same boat as me where there wasn’t a real reason she came on this trip. She’s also got things back in Boston that she wants to prioritize. I’m glad she’s back, but I understand the sentiment.The group of us hang out in our living room for a little bit before I fall asleep on the couch.
Day 45 - 7 Courses
After work, I’m excited to hit up the botanical garden .. finally .. with Elger and Astrid. It reminds me of the garden in Brooklyn - a small park in the middle of the city with some pretty flowers, walking paths and places to sit, but nothing spectacular. We head back to their apartment just to see what it’s like and grab some mochi. The last item for the night was to get some dinner at Carmen, a tasting menu restaurant that we’ve been thinking about going to for quite a while. It came with good recommendations.
Overall the meal was like pretty hit or miss. 7 courses. I’ll walk through them.
Course 1: Some fish empanadas that legitimately slapped. This was a goosebumps moment because it was so good. They were perfectly flavored and was a great blend between fried empanada and fresh fish. It came with some awesome salsas, one more tomato-y and one a more spicy mayo, though neither were spicy. Very good! 10/10
Course 2: A sea bass ceviche that was absolutely disgusting. Like the fish was 10 times worse than any fish I had ever had in Michigan. Disgusting. There were like tendons in the freaking fish. How .. Why? What? When we left our food unfinished, the waitress asked us if we didn’t like it. Eric told her that what they gave us wasn’t ceviche. 0/10.
Course 3: This was my first time eating like legit octopus .. like tentacles and all. That was so wild. When I first felt the suction cup on my tongue, I asked myself what the heck I was doing. Extremely delicious. Cooked beautifully. The octopus wasn’t even squishy. Loved it 9/10.
Course 4: The sea bass is back again. This time cooked. I’m nervous to try. Somehow it turns out to be quite delicious. I’m quite relieved. I’m honestly just so thankful that my gag reflex wasn’t activated. Neither of us are huge seafood people, but we wonder whether we made a mistake coming to this place with so much seafood. 8/10
Course 5: A stuffed cheese tortellini dish which in theory could have been an unreal comfort food dish. Unfortunately, it also had some freaking wild orange peel after taste which ruined this for me. Orange peel? Why? I don’t need citrus with my freaking pasta. 6/10.
Course 6: Second to last was a little papaya based curry with a mushroom on top and some other fancy crispy strips garnishes. If you can’t tell by now, I’m not a food connoisseur. This was warm. It was cozy. It was tasty. I was happy with it. 9/10.
Course 7: Last is desert which was a blackberry ice cream, ice cream from a special Colombian sweet tomato, and a little bit of some cracker crumble. This is like fine, but not the type of experience I’m necessarily looking for out of dinner. As you might imagine, tomato ice cream is freaking tart and sour. Gosh darn it. Made my stomach leave the meal feeling riled up rather than satisfied. Madness. 7/10.
Day 46 - Back On Track
This is my the third day working at home and I’m noticing how beautiful the sky looks. I know that it’s one of my last days here in Medellin, and I’m wasting it sitting in bed working. I didn’t sign up for our evening Colombian party bus activity because I felt like I didn’t really care to do it initially, but 30 minutes before the event I was in a dancing mood and was feeling like I missed out. These thoughts are how I know I had recovered and was ready to go back out there and get active. Honestly, it was a reminder to hold the pace when it comes to those unique cultural experiences you can’t find in other places. Those aren’t the events that you can skip.
We’re about to embark on another massive side trip. There’s really only 1 free evening left in Medellin. We’re entering out last week in Colombia and I’m sad about it. I only started planning out my extra activities a little over a week ago and there isn’t enough time to do all the things that I wanted to. I have this nagging feeling that I don’t even want to go on the side trip. I just want to stay in Medellin and explore. I have to remind myself that I’m not living - I’m traveling.
After spending a ton of time with Ben in Lima, we haven’t had much alone time together since coming to Colombia. Getting pizza together might have been our first one-on-one hang out since coming to Colombia 3 weeks ago. Obviously, proximity can have an outsized impact on relationships. It’s really interesting to think about how I could be having fun with different people based on who I’m around and what I’m getting looped into, but because I’m usually not the organizer or planner, other folks I enjoy spending time with kinda fall to the sidelines in my life. I’ve been noticing a lot of things about my personality that I knew to be true, but never really understood the implications of fully. Here, I’m able to see, through a series of isolated micro-experiments, the impact of the way I am on the people around me. I think this is one of the coolest things about getting me out of my natural habitat. My behaviors are so unpredictable, even to me.
Fruits of Colombia
Air Thermals
Back flips
Don’t forget to smile today,
Thejas
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