Medellin: 22nd - 25th December 2025
22nd December – Monday
Today has been frustratingly hard to say the least. It all started when Carlos added extra TAX to my hotel costs. Naturally I disputed it so he called Booking.com. Problem number one, I made my booking via Agoda, but he said he is not registered with Agoda. They are affiliates! So I contacted Agoda, but had to do it via chat. To cut a very long and exhausting story short I had to pay the extra TAX and Agoda have said they will absorb the cost, what ever that means, if I provide them with a stamped or signed receipt from Carlos – FFS. Carlos said he will send me one, but I haven’t received it yet and it is now tomorrow. I will contact him in the morning as I really need to sleep now.
Carlos is so lovely, even after all of that stress he still offered me a lift to the bus terminal, so decent of him. Here I encountered problem number two, I had missed all the morning buses to Medellín and the afternoon bus was full. I tried every counter and eventually found myself outside one with no person in attendance but a huge sign saying Medellin. There was a guy waiting there, so I left my rucksack with him and went and had a breather to calm my nerves down. When I returned he suggested, well pointed, to the left luggage place. What a fabulous idea and it cost less than £1 to leave my rucksack there.
Eventually a lady appeared and I was able to buy a ticket for the 3 O’clock bus – what a relief, even if it meant 3 hours hanging around in the bus terminal. With my rucksack stashed and only my valuables to carry around I was quite happy and relived. I messaged my hotel to inform them of my late arrival.
The coach journey was long: 7 hours and 40 minutes. It was quite weird, and reminded me of some of the trips between Siem Reap and Phnom Penn, as we stopped after 10 minutes so the drivers, there were two of them, could eat lunch. It was then I realised the bus had come from Bogota, which explained why it was already full when the handful of us in Honda bordered it. They had already been driving for at least 6 hours. When I boarded there was a lady in my seat and she refused to move so I had to sit in a random seat and spent the whole journey paranoid, every time we picked up new passengers I was expecting one to want to turf me out of their seat. Luckily this did not happen.
I didn’t arrive at my hotel until 11 pm. The guy here Diego, is lovely. When he told me the cost it was higher then my Agoda quote, which I showed him. He did some research and then informed me that I was down as a Colombian citizen and they are charged an extra Tax, tourists are not. He did not charge me and I paid the Agoda price. This explains the problem I had with Carlos and also why the people at the hotel in Villa de Leyva asked if I was Colombian, I will get this
sorted out tomorrow as it is so frustrating being overcharged, although Carlos is the only person who has actually made me pay the extra ‘Colombian’ TAX.
Medellin looks amazing, not that I have seen much of it. But all of the house lights twinkling on the hill opposite the bus terminal made it look very special. I am staying in an area called Laurels and it is very alive with lots of clubs, bars and restaurants. I can hear something going on from my hotel room but luckily it is not loud enough to keep me awake. I am very excited to explore tomorrow during the day and night.
23rd December – Tuesday
I am exhausted, but for good reasons, I did over 17,000 steps today! I took a stroll through some very beautiful back streets to Parque de Rio. They were all residential streets but mainly with blocks of apartments rather than houses. What I really liked was all the greenery that separated them. It made the area feel really calm and a lovely place to live.
Parque de Rio was beautiful, it is on the river Medellín, which is a branch of the Magdalen River. The park is really well maintained with lots of placards with information about the environment and trees and fauna. They had beautiful birds and butterfly Christmas decorations hanging over the river, but as it was daytime they were not lit up. I walked along the river and crossed over to the other side where there were displays of Christmas houses and people dancing. I think I may go back tomorrow evening to see it all lit up, I bet it looks spectacular. There were also lots of Christmas stalls but they were all closed.
I crossed back over the same bridge and continued along the river and headed inland and uphill to Pueblito Paisa. It was quite a climb and the road was extremely long with a couple of hair pin bends, but I found a couple of short cuts. The first was through Parque de Toboganes, which was an odd little park. It had quite a few covered picnic seats and tables, which looked like weird mushrooms, and then all of these really long and steep concrete slides. I’m really not sure what clothing you’d need to go down them, or contraption, I am sure concrete is not great for sliding down, too much friction. The second short cut was up a foot worn path and through some trees, it was extremely steep and very precarious in places, but once I had started there was no going back. I felt quite relieved when I saw a jogger not far above me, so I diverted slightly and found the path he was on and followed it to the town, which was at the very top of the hill.
Pueblito Paisa, as the name suggests is a very small town, it literally took 10 minutes to walk around, but boy was it stunning, definitely worth the hike there. It was so colourful with houses with wooden balconies covered in flowers, an artisan market, a food court and a central square with a little church and lots of little souvenir shops. It was also full of tourists which was not actually surprising. I sat in the town square for a while and had a draught honey beer, which was delicious, before heading back down the hill. This time I found a path that was mainly steps and, much to my delight, it cut out all of the road and shorts cuts that I took going up and halved the time it would have taken me to get back to my room.
I had a pork burger and chips for dinner in one of the restaurants across the road from my hotel. I was very upset when I dropped a very large and delicious looking chunk of meat on the floor – such is life. This evening I thought I’d find road 70, which is the road where all the action in Laureles happens. I checked my route on G Maps, only to realise that it is the road literally round the corner from the hotel and I have already been on it 4 times today – lol. In the evening it is quite lively and lit up with many Licores Tiendas, bars and clubs. I walked down to the one end of the road before settling on a place to have a beer. After my beer I walked all the way to the other end, and then came back to my room. So now I covered the entire street. I think I must have been the only solo female out tonight, I didn’t see any others, everyone was
either in a couple or a group. It made me feel all lonely and wish I had booked myself on one of the nightclub/drinking tours that I saw advertised on the internet this morning when I was researching things to do. I did however book a Pablo Escobar tour, which I am going on tomorrow and really looking forward to. I will have to get the metro to the meeting point which is an area called Poblado, which is where most of the cheap hostels are and most of the back packers stay. I am actually staying in a classier part of Medellín, being the classy type of girl that I am – lol.
24th December – Wednesday
I went on a Pablo Escobar tour today and it was quite an adventure. I first had to get myself to Parque de El Poblado which involved a metro journey. It was very easy, a bit like the metro in Bangkok. You have to buy a metro card and then get that topped up with your fair. I had to change at San Antonio but it was not difficult, everything is clearly signposted. One thing that I did see that was very unique was the platform opposite one I was walking down had cage like booths that reached across the lines for people to stand in when waiting for the train. It looked like the train didn’t actually go next to the platform so this was a novel way of getting the people to the train doors.
I got to the park nice an early so had time for a cake and coffee before meeting the guide. The first guide, which was not mine, sounded so sexist when he was chatting to some of the other guys and then he turned around and had a go at me for vaping. Well, it’s legal here matey so I can vape all I like – tough titty. Luckily my guide was far nicer and it wasn’t before long that we were in a van heading to our first location, the house / roof top where Escobar met his demise. The house has had another floor added, the facade has been renovated and the window Escobar jumped from is blocked up. But it was still interesting, especially as the guide said the official story regarding his demise is not the one the family tell. The official story is that the police shot him down. The family one is more on the lines of suicide and that Escobar spent 27 minutes on the phone so that his location could be triangulated and that he actually shot himself before jumping out of the window. The guide believes this story as he said the shooting the police claimed to make left no blood on Escobar’s body, his only injury was to the side of his head.
From there we went to the Escobar Museum. It was very interesting full of newspaper and magazine cuttings, his vehicles and other bits and bobs that belonged to him and his family. But the best bit for me was meeting his niece and nephew, who really does look like him. They have actually only been back in the country for a couple of years. They were outlawed, along with the rest of the family, and basically another cartel demanded the family hand over all their assets and profits for the freedom to return to the country without being in fear of their lives. Many members of the family have not returned and do not want to. After this we stopped for a free beer and then went to the cemetery where Escobar and some family members are buried. Our final stop was a wall of remembrance which dated all of the mass murders and bombings that occurred during the revolution period, at least that is what I think it was. I had kinda lost interest by then – lol – and was happy to be dropped back of at the meeting place.
I didn’t go straight back to my room, instead I got off the metro early and went back to the river side to see the Christmas decorations all lit up. And as expected it was magical. When I got to Laureles I had a little walk up and down Road 70 and bought a rather delicious shawama wrap for dinner. There seemed to be different clientele out tonight, it was a lot more diverse, quite a few goth looking youngsters and a lot of gay couples, and a very cosmopolitan way to end Christmas Eve.
25th December – Thursday
Merry Christmas!
Breakfast was a shambles. There are so many people here now and not enough tables or staff. I waited for a good 20 minutes for a spare table then a family jumped in front of me. Finally I was given an inside table that had not been cleaned from the previous users. It wasn’t until they finally brought out my fruit that they half cleaned it, that is, removed the dirty plates, they did not wipe it down.
After my breakfast I went back to bed – lol – and spent a few hours exchanging Christmas wishes with friends and family. Christmas in Colombia is celebrated at midnight with fireworks, exchnaging of presents and, if really religious, a visit to church. So it was a quiet day all considering and I was happy to spend most of it bed. It was my rumbling belly that finally got me up and I went for a walk around Laureles. There were quite a few bars and restaurants open but it was very quiet and I really enjoyed the tranquil walk. I finally settled on a Mexican restaurant that was overly decorated with the day of the dead theme. I had nachos and guacamole for starters and then a mixed meat burrito. I washed it all down with two cocktails before I headed back to my room and back to bed.
Merry Christmas!