Viernes

So Friday came, and Mangue announced she was taking me clubbing. Apparently there's a huge House scene in Medellin and she is knows the owners of all the good clubs. Everyone seems to know her name. She told me, "I am, how you say, V.I.P." Apparently the DJ playing that night at B-Lounge was a big deal, it was a good time. Mangue somehow managed to ask a friend to take this picture of us over throbbing, eight million decibel bass, I have no idea how.

There's a hostel nearby called La Casa Kiwi owned by a midtwenties Seattleite named Paul; I had swung by to get some travel advice from the other backpackers and hung out for a bit. There are always people drinking beers and playing pool, and everyone's exceedingly friendly. Some guests are Colombianos too, one guy even helped me with my Spanish for a while. Anyway, a few Brits I'd met there came along for the bar crawl and Mangue laid some game on the one on the right. That girl parties like it's her job.

Downtown

The Plaza Botero in downtown Medellin is home to one of the country's best known works of art: a collection of statues called Las Gorditas. They're stylistically overweight figures and they're scattered in front of and inside the Museum of Antioquia. Underneath them plaques read self evident titles like "Mujer" which means woman or "Perro" which means dog.

They were made by Medellin's premier artist, Fernando Botero, for whom the plaza is named. He also creates gorditas in other mediums and the style has become distinctly Colombian.

This is not a gordita. This is a man painted the same color as the gorditas, and although I noticed immediately he was extremely thin compared to the others I didn't realize he was alive until I saw his eyes. Underneath him the sign reads "Esclavo" which means slave. Below that it says "Traido del Africa para realizar trabajos pesados obligado por sus compradores." I thought it was quite clever.

El Poblado

I'm staying with a Colombian family and every morning I wake up to a fresh Colombian breakfast. There is plenty of fresh fruit as well, some of which I'd never even heard of before. The only thing missing is the coffee. Apparently all the best stuff gets exported to the developed world.

The apartment is on the 8th floor so I have a great view from the gigantic window, which is practically always wide open since the weather is forever pleasant. We're also just a short walk from La Zona Rosa, a section of El Poblado--my neighborhood--with lots of restaurants, bars, shops, and parks. It's a pretty sweet deal.

Flying South for the Summer

I'm migrating wrong this year. It seems I have a knack for finding bad weather to spend my summer in. Last time I went to India during monsoon season, this time I'm going to the southern hemisphere where it's the middle of winter. Luckily my first stop is La Ciudad de la Eterna Primavera, or The City of Eternal Spring.

Medellin lies nestled in a valley in the Andes at 5000 feet above sea level. Since the country is equatorial, its temperature is determined entirely by elevation, and 5000 feet just happens to correspond to around 75 degrees so it's basically the perfect temperature year round.

In the heart of Antioquia, possibly the most resource laden state in Colombia, the city is a major cultural and commercial hub. It's home to Fernando Botero, Shakira, and of course the late Pablo Escobar.

Luckily for me the famous Medellín Cartel is a thing of the past. Thanks to President Alvaro Uribe's aggressive policies and a lot of American drug war dollars, cocaine trafficking has been expelled from the cities and is now almost entirely in the south. With Escobar dead it's run by the FARC, a radical leftist guerrilla organization. They too, however, are losing ground, and with a constitutional amendment passed so Uribe can serve another term, they may suffer the same fate.