Medellin - city with a reputation

   All I knew of Medellin before we arrived was that the Medellin Cartel and Pablo Escobar had controlled 80% of the cocaine heading out of Columbia until the early 1990s.  And that it had a good metro system.  After getting into our hostel we found that these two things pretty much sum up Medellin.

   We had taken an overnight bus so inevitably we lost 4 hours that morning to napping, after which we took the metro and the cable car for a view over the city and booked our "Pablo Escobar tour" for the following day.  When we checked in we thought our hostel was insanely cheap, but we´ve been getting some really good deals lately so have come to take it for granted that we´re blessed on the accommodation front.  When we returned to our hostel that evening the sun had set and we found out we were in the centre of the city´s red light district, surrounded by a wash of local character.  On our tour the next day we were driven through a dodgy area where our guide remarked on the seediness and drug usage, but it had nothing on our place.

   Actually the tour was really good.  Very informative and only a little macabre.  I found the guide a little bit distracting as she had clearly picked up a lot of her very clear English language from some unsavoury characters.  Also as Kizzy pointed out, "Her tits are a real distraction, she needs to wear a bra or a more supportive top."

   On our way out of Medellin we had a few hours to kill before boarding the night bus to Cartagena.  We had read in certain travel guide that bus fares in Columbia are not set and you should offer about 25% les than the asking price.  Kiz and I had been a bit wary of trying this up to that point, but in Medellin with a choice of about 8 buses to Cartagena and all of them much pricier than the routes heading south, we decided to give it a go.

   This is actually quite a challenging prospect.  The Columbian the accent is different from most of the rest of South America.  We had had enough trouble being understood on straightforward transactions so trying to hussle the bus companies took a bit of planning and extensive consultation of the phrase book.  We looked at the bus times and the different companies then came up with a negotiation strategy crafted to fit well with our basic Spanish.  We geared ourselves up and approached the counter, trying to see how much other people were paying as we waited in line.

   All of this came to naught.  When I suggested a lower figure to the cashier he looked bored and started serving the guy behind me, who must have been the only person in South America tall enough to see over my head.  Still, it was another cultural experience for us.