Medellin - Manizales
Trip Start
Jul 04, 2010
1
8
12
Trip End
Aug 18, 2010
Medellin, Colombia
Friday, July 30, 2010
My first day in Medellín I ran into a girl from San Francisco that I had met earlier in my trip in Villa de Leyva. We spent a couple of days together checking out the town. The first day we took the Metro ($0.75 per ride) to an area where you find the Palacio de la Cultura Rafael Uribe Uribe (not a typo...his name has two Uribe's) which is a cultural center with changing art expositions, concerts, conferences, and other events. Across the street was the Museo de Antioquia, the second oldest museum in Colombia with some incredible art collections and a fantastic temporary exhibit on the music of Colombia. Outside the museum is the Plazoleta de las Esculturas, a nice little park with over 20 Botero sculptures.
The next day we took the Pablo Escobar Tour, two guys with a van that recently started taking tourists around the city explaining Escobar's cocaine cartel and driving by some of the important sites. I can´t say that I learned anything new about El Patrón since I just read "Killing Pablo", but I'm glad I got to see some of the buildings I had just read about. We also visited his grave, the 2nd most visited grave in South America after Eva Perón's. Pablo is actually buried with his parents, his bodyguard, his younger brother, and his nanny. Two places I really would have loved to visit are La Catedral, the luxory "jail" that he stayed in after he turned himself in and Nápoles, his enormous estate. La Catedral no longer exists because after he escaped from the jail the place was torn apart in search of Escobar's buried/hidden drug money. Nápoles can be visited but it's 2-3 hours outside of Medellín and is now only a zoo housing some of his animals (zebras, hippos, and ostriches). The hacienda is in the process of being turned into a theme park though.
I took a bus to Manizales yesterday which is about 5 hours south of Medellín. I spent the morning today at the Recinto de Pensamiento (Botanic Garden). It's a beautiful area with a trail that passes through a medicinal garden, a forest area, a Japanese garden, butterfly house, and an orchid area (unfortunately not many were in bloom).
The highlight of today was going to watch and try to play the local game of tejo. The best way to explain this game is that it's like our version of "bags", but instead of passing the bag through a hole, instead when you hit the target there is a nice little explosion. The playing area is about 30 feet long and the place where I went there were four lanes of play. You throw a lead disk of about 4 pounds towards a wooden board filled with clay and the target is identified with four red triangles. Underneath the triangles is gun powder. If you're lucky enough, or skilled enough, and hit the target you see and hear a loud explosion sounding like a gun shot. My best guess from what I observed is that one in 15 throws hits the target. The game is free, you just need to order drinks...not a problem for me :) So I watched these men playing for awhile to get an idea of how to play. After a couple of beers and a shot of aguardiente (a sweet aniseed flavored liquor which is 27% alcohol) they let me give it a try. I never hit the target but I did hit the clay box everytime. It was quite fun, probably mostly for the men laughing at my weak-ass attempts!! Make sure you watch the two videos I uploaded here.
I'm probably spending one more day here in Manizales to visit a coffee plantation and then I'm off for Salento, just a couple hours south of here.
en paz,
Jen
Comments
Thanks for the knowledge about Medellin. My previous knowledge was limited to Entourage episodes about Vince's movie entitled Medillin. FYI the critics didn't like his movie.
Awesome stuff Jen, kind of makes my summer at the pool seem pretty lame. Maybe we should try tejo in P.E. this year at Collins.
Beautiful pictures again... save some weed for me...