In which Roz and Layla soar above the mountains and play in a maze

By Roz

Next morning I woke up late (at 9). Layla alas had been awake since 6.30, which seems to be her favourite time for waking up on this holiday. But it meant we had a slow start to the morning and were only on our way downtown mid-morning. We were heading to a place called Park Arvi to do some hiking. But the journey itself felt like an adventure in its own right, since the Medellin metro system is integrated with two cable-cars. This delightful innovation was a mechanism to connect the poorer bits of the city - in the hills - with the downtown. The first cable car was pretty full (just like any metro) but the second was much more empty which meant Layla and I had a cable car carriage to ourselves. I'd anticipated the ride being fairly brief, but it turned out to be the longest cable car ride I have been on - covering about 5k we later learned. There were really lovely views - of the city and of forests and mountains, and we felt amazed at how unexpectedly lovely it had turned out to be.

Arriving at the end of the cable car line, we found ourselves at an information center in the middle of a forest with delightful paths leading off in various directions. A brief discussion with a guide established that there would be a three hour free hike setting off at two and a vegetarian restaurant nearby. So feeling very cheerful we headed to the restaurant which turned out to be a somewhat random shack but which provided a very nice lunch for not very much money. After lunch, with about 45 minutes before the hike, Layla had an enthusiasm to take advantage of the free bikes for hire. This proved to be a fairly brief enthusiasm after she found how hilly the park actually was. Shamefacedly we returned the bikes and went to read our books until 2.

Our fellow hikers were all Colombians, and we got chatting with a very nice young couple from Bogota who'd come to Medellin for a happiness conference. We compared notes on Medellin (it was their first visit too) and I was immensely amused that the only thing they didn't like was the heat - in contrast I have loved the weather in Medellin which is a consistently nice temperature without humidity. They would not enjoy a Washington summer... It proved to be quite a slow walk (with the occasional complicated explanation of something in a Spanish that was too complicated for me) but very pretty. It seemed hard to believe that Medellin was so close.

After the walk we got the first cable car and then hopped out before the second one for a short meander round the area and to see the much praised library (which brought regeneration to the area). It was quite fun to see another area, even if it did feel a bit sketchy. We then got our second cable car and the metro back to Poblano and contemplated our dinner choices. I was lobbying hard for a return to Carmen, the amazing restaurant we had been to the night before last. Layla pointed out that there was a huge number of other options we should try but eventually my greed won through. Our booking wasn't till 8.30 so we headed to the chocolate shop opposite our hotel for some chocolate and a read. Layla went for the maximum option, going for a cold chocolate drink in addition to a couple of handmade chocolates (whilst I looked smug with one chocolate and some sparkling water - though I am afraid that this is less about my virtue and more about the fact that I don't really like chocolate). We then decided to move to a nearby nice bar for me to finish off my book. The nice bar proved even nicer when they gave us popcorn to go along with our drinks... Layla was looking decidedly full by the time we got to Carmen, but I was made of sterner stuff. We had a lovely meal - just as good as the first time - and I was only disappointed that Layla couldn't be persuaded into dessert. We headed to La Bicicletta for a nightcap drink and some people-watching and congratulated ourselves on having decided to stay in Medellin instead of returning to the riots of Bogota. 

Next day, I persuaded Layla that we should try out Medellin's Ciclovia (where a main road is closed to traffic). It's possible to get onto the Ciclovia road relatively close to our hotel, and it wasn't long before we had hired bikes and were heading away from town. Like the Bogota Ciclovia, it proved to be a very jolly and communal experience involving pretty much half the city so far as we could see.  People were out on bikes, skateboards, skates. There were runners (including some people who had just done the colour run) and walkers. And there was the odd aerobics class taking place on the street. It was really fun - despite the odd hill - and I was disappointed when we found ourselves at its end after about 40 minutes of cycling. Even the square (at PablomEscobar's old home) where the Ciclovia route ended was jolly with a festival atmosphere and small children learning to ride bikes. We were enjoying the cycle back so much that we overshot the place we rented bikes, and were only alerted to it when we heard the bike owner calling after us...

We then walked down to the metro and headed over to the Botanic Gardens. We found a beautiful place for a late lunch in the middle of the gardens overlooking water and had really delicious soup (one served in a squash). The gardens themselves were unexpectedly good, with a quasi-rainforest area, a labyrinth, a butterfly house and so forth. They were just the right amount of busy - it is clearly a place where loads of locals go on a Sunday - but there didn't seem to be any other tourists kicking around. After this, I had an urge to go to the "barefoot park" where you a encouraged to walk barefoot through seven different areas to experience a variety of textures. Alas this aspiration was foiled after a fairly long walk in the centre of town by a huge concert taking place in the area and so we headed back to Poblano and to the chocolate shop. Not deterred by her experience the day before, Layla bought a chocolate cake... Conscious that a number of restaurants would be closed on a Sunday and also that Layla needed to pack, I sent her back to the hotel after her cake whilst I went on a recce to scope out our options. We ended up in a Mexican place which wasn't the best of food but was quite jolly. From there we went for dessert (yes, Layla's second of the evening!) in a nice nearby place (which focuses on seafood), drank wine and tried to cheer ourselves up despite our impending departure. 

And that's it! Next morning we got up at an ungodly hour for a plane to Bogota, and I am typing this from our plane from Bogota to the US. It wasn't absolutely the holiday I expected with all the riots and so forth...but it is currently my favourite place that we have visited in the Americas. 

Books read whilst on holiday:

Layla: Maggie and Me(Damien Barr), Reality Reality (Jackie Kay), Almost English (Charlotte Mendelson), The Last Runaway (Tracy Chevalier), The Marrying of Chani Kaufman (Eve Harris), A Tale for the Time Being (Ruth Ozeki), Instructions for a Heatwave (Maggie O'Farrell) and midway through Glasshopper (Isabel Ashdown).

Roz: Bertie's Guide to Life and Mothers (Alexander McCall Smith), Almost English (Charlotte Mendelson), Transatlantic (Colum McCann), Five Star Billionaire (Tash Aw), The Marrying of Chani Kaufman (Eve Harris), Let the Great World Spin (Colum McCann), The Handmaid's Tale (Margaret Atwood), Reality Reality (Jackie Kay), Flesh and Blood (Michael Cunningham), and midway through Americanah by Chimamanda Adichie.

In which Layla and and Roz lose a finger and a wallet but keep their heads in a riot

By Layla

Our arrival to Medellin started off with less glamour than we had hoped, at a slightly hostelly hotel... But soon we were out in the streets and initial scariness rearranged itself into a very cool and stylish area abounding with hip bars and restaurants. We chose one called La Bicicletta (The Bicycle), and had a very pleasing late-ish dinner that involved lots of halloumi... We strolled home via a friendly Italian restaurant where we had a final glass of wine before bed. Cheery and pleased with having such a nice first night in Medellin, I popped into the bathroom, while I vaguely heard Roz saying something about opening the patio door. Five seconds later I heard a terrible, blood curdling shriek and dashed out to find Roz rocking on the bed, wailing in a way very uncharacteristic for a girl who hurts herself rather more than one might hope. I rushed to her in a panic, trying to find out what had happened. In fact, there had been two patio doors, and as one had swooshed past the other, it had cut off the tip of her finger. We looked down, the bed was a pool of blood, and we shrieked in a manner not befitting a doctor and a first aid veteran... 

Luckily the hotel was very helpful and nice, and the amount of finger lost was not very much, so before long she was disinfected, drugged up with extra strong Ibuprofen and the half bottle of wine from the minibar, and eventually we managed to get to sleep. An inauspicious start for our stay in Medellin... 

The next day was to be no better. Up bright and early, and guidebooks in hand, we walked down to the Poblado metro to head downtown. (Our hotel is in the posh, extra-safe, extra-nice bit where the cool young things of Medellin hang out). It was disappointing to find our hotel a half hour trek from the metro, but when we got there, all was well and we zoomed into the centre of town.

When we got there, it was all a bit hot and chaotic and confusing. We went to a plaza with big wax tree sculptures but we didn't really know what they meant. We walked down a pedestrian street that was a bit like Peckham. Then we got to Plaza Botero, a really cool square full of sculptures by Botero, one of Medellin's (and indeed Colombia's) most famous artists. His work is characteristic for being of 'fat' people though he apparently conceives them as being sensuous and mis proportioned to represent different things. The sculptures were great, but just as we whipped out a camera to take a photo of one, someone came up to us and said something in Spanish, which Roz figured out: "The rioters are coming! Take cover in the museum!"

The Museo de Antioquia (the region) was right there so, alarmed, we dashed in. It was full of Botero sculptures and pictures and was really quite interesting, and a cool building. But just as we advanced to the international artists room, the museum staff approached us. The riot risk was too great and they were closing the museum! Two minutes later we were unceremoniously dumped back into the square, with the loudspeakers from the approaching protestors ringing in our ears! We decided that we'd better abandon our sightseeing plans and rapidly found the metro and leapt upon it and found ourselves back in Poblado.

With the half hour walk up a hill awaiting us, we realized everyone else was boarding little green minibuses so we joined them, I paid, and were soon pleasingly being taken up the hill. I opened my bag to find something. I closed it, I think. Then someone came on the bus and started singing about peace in Colombia. I vaguely listened. Then we got off the bus, had sandwiches in a random sandwich shop, went to pay, and found that my wallet had been stolen! Cue much angst as while I'd spent the entire holiday only taking one card out with me and locking the rest in the safe, I'd managed to bring both debit cards and both credit cards - plus a wad of cash. And my lovely wallet. This was initially grounds for hysteria as we have a joint account and thus imminent zero access to a cash source! Luckily Roz remembered one of her cards wasn't linked to mine, and after canceling all mine, we dashed to a cash machine to get money out urgently. Only to have the card rejected. By three different machines! Things were feeling a bit hairy as we ran up and down the hill, seeking banks and glowering at the green buses... But after finding wifi and getting the bank to unfreeze the card they'd mistakenly decided had been stolen, and finding the one machine that accepted it, we were back in action! Then of course there was the small matter of the riots... We suspected that all things considered we should probably get out of Medellin - or indeed Colombia! Roz started researching options - Quito? Caracas? Florida? New York? We gave up, I stopped hyperventilating and hating myself, and we retired to a very cool New York-ish coffee shop on a really fab street with our books and our un-angsty life resumed!

That day had been pretty much a washout, but we could still recover the evening! And so we did - we made a reservation at Carmen, one of the fanciest restaurants in town, and had a spectacular meal (one of our best ever) and fab cocktails in a lovely setting and paid with our one remaining card, and all was right with the world. We looked at each other and grinned - maybe we didn't want to leave Medellin after all!

The next day we turned over a new leaf and suddenly Medellin was fantastic again. We walked down to the metro and met up with the Real City Tours guide, a delightful guy called Pablo who united us with the only other Caucasian people in evidence in Medellin. And so we set off on a really excellent four hour walking tour of downtown. Pablo had grown up in Medellin when it was the most dangerous city in the world. His narrative gave us a real vision of pre-war Medellin, what had happened to the town, what the politics were about, how much everyone hates the drugs trade, how the benefits of drug money to the city are pretty much all a lie, and the transformation from living in fear to living in what was named this year as the world's most innovative city. What was delightful was that his stories were so engaging that by the end of it, we were in love with Medellin, joyfully rooting for its ongoing success. Some of the transformation came through investment in infrastructure - building big, beautiful libraries in the most dangerous central squares and in the slums, building a fabulous metro system, linking the slums to the city with cheap, efficient cable cars, situating the Ministry of Education in a previous notorious drug den. We heard how people reclaimed the city and were wonderfully proud of it. We heard how Colombian people manage to be happy (which indeed we have found them to be - generally cheery and friendly and smiley). Essentially they seek to ignore all their many memories of violence, terror and sorrow, and overemphasize any good memories they have, taking delight in the smallest things, and being determinedly optimistic. The metro system is a symbol of this hope and delight. And how could I do anything but love a city whose citizens are filled with joy and pride by the existence of their public transport system! The tour took us past City Hall, and various plazas and churches (with prostitutes - or 'loving providers' - plying their wares outside), lovely statues and public art. I particularly liked seeing a Botero sculpture of a bird that had been bombed (several people died) - alongside a brand new identical statue Botero installed next to it as a symbol of hope for the city. I spent lots of the tour trying not to cry, with sorrow and also with how far the city has come. We had lunch in a delicious vegetarian Indian restaurant called Govinda. We chuckled at a building which was half beautiful, intricate European architecture...with one side plain stone with no decor at all - we heard the Belgian architect had left halfway through due to an argument and the Medellin architect who replaced him took one look at the blueprint, pronounced it far too complicated, and slapped up a plain wall to close the building. We also heard the Medellin philosophy of Papaya - if you get pick pocketed it's essentially your fault for enabling it through inappropriate levels of vigilance over your possessions - if you make something available, someone will take advantage of the opportunity. Apparently their 11th Commandment is 'Do not give papaya" and their twelfth is "If you give papaya, people will take it". It made me feel more philosophical about the loss of my wallet.

After the walking tour, we took the metro home with more open eyes, and after braving the green minibus with extra vigilance, we changed our flights and extended our hotel stay so that instead of returning to the potentially risky Bogota (all the news reports said that the downtown area of Bogota was a no go area) for our last 2 nights, we would stay in Medellin. After which we installed ourselves in our lovely coffee shop for a couple of hours of reading and drinking, had dinner in an excellent Arabic restaurant on a cool restauranty street, strolled down to La Bicicletta for a glass of wine amidst the Friday night hip party crowd, got excited about the cool things we still wanted to do, and felt very cheery about being in Medellin.