Medellín

The hostel was lovely. It had a small terrace and a huge kitchen where we cooked a lot as it is very expensive to eat out in Medellín as it was in Cartagena. Our room was clean and airy with a big window and the hostel,Casa Kiwi (except for Friday and Saturday nights) was quiet.

We went up in the Metrocable on our first day which is a cable car that was built to connect the shanty type towns on the hill with the centre and the metro (Medellín is the only town in Colombia with a metro system.). The council built a library where children from the poorer surrounding barrios could go and read, play and learn. Everyone was very interested to meet people from a different part of the world and the kids stopped and stared and asked lots of questions which was good Spanish practise.

We visited the Museo de Antioquia (the area that Medellín is in) and ate in a typical restaurant for the area. We went to the botanical gardens and saw the orchid collection and the modern art museum.

It was the festival of flowers whilst we were here so we managed to catch a glimsp (over the heads of lots of onlookers) of the flower parade and of the old car show.

The people who live here are all very attractive and smiley and extremely helpful and eager to practise their English. It's one of the first places in south america where the women have actually smiled at me as I think a lot of the time they see young foreign women as a threat. Well, the women here are so beautiful that I don't think I'm a threat to them!

Medellín seems like a pleasant town to live in but it's no way as vibrant, exciting and bohemian as Bogotá. Just a shame about the weather in Bogotá.