I woke up in the middle of the night on my bus journey, it was freaking cold because of the air conditioning in the bus even after wearing the jackets. But we could see the bus driver neatly tucked into his uniform but not wearing any jacket. We were wondering how that is possible, when we were into two jackets and still felt the cold. I do not know whether he overheard us, but somewhere he made a pitstop early in the morning to have some coffee and breakfast.
We took this chance, got off the bus, and ordered a coffee and a Bunuelo, a local snack in Medellin. We paid them by card, it cost us 9000 Colombian Pesos (COP). We were waiting outside, and an old man who was limping started talking to us and we understood what he said and gave him some cash before we boarded the bus. After a couple of hours, we reached our destination, North Bus Terminal (Terminal de Norte) at 11.15am. Remember we started at 9.15pm last night.
Our bus ride to Medellin - Expreso Brasilia
Bunuelo
Our first metro ride in Medellin
From the North Bus Terminal, we caught the metro to Poblado station where we stayed. It was a 2 minute walk from the Terminal to the Metro station. After reaching the metro, we had to buy tickets, it looks like the metro station does not accept credit or debit cards and also we need to buy the metro card which cost us around 11,000 COP. (I read online later that the card cost is only 10,000 COP bus, somehow I was charged 11,000), Plus the ride which is 3900 COP per person. We loaded the required money into the card, we swiped at the turnstile and entered the metro. It was one straight metro to Poblado, 5 stops from there towards La Estrella station.
After getting down at the El Poblado station, our Airbnb was a 30 minute walk. We had both our luggages and started walking slowly. Meanwhile, I texted my Airbnb host that I need to check in early because the check in time was at 3pm. Luckily there were no other guests and she agreed. We reached the Airbnb, refreshed and then headed towards a restaurant for lunch.
Outside Pablado metro station
Walk towards our Airbnb
Our first halal food in whole of Colombia
We researched in Cartagena itself where to eat lunch as we were without meat for 10 days. Even though it was 10 days, it looked like many days without meat. We found a shop called “Chapati Halal” near the metro station. We walked back and ordered Chicken Karahi with Basmati rice, extra two chapatis and a mango lassi. It cost 58,000 COP.
Restaurant
Chicken Karahi, Basmati Rice and Mango Lassi
After a wholesome meal, my wife talked to the lady at the counter. She mentioned that the shop belongs to them and she married a Pakistani who came and settled here. After our brief conversation, we headed back to the Airbnb, but decided to make a couple of pit stops on the way. One - to try the roadside mango and the next to do our namaz. There is a mosque - Mesquita As Salam which is a 15 minute walk from the metro station and our Airbnb. To our surprise, it was a big one unlike the Cartagena one and also we saw a couple of women with hijabs on the road. We did our namaz, and on our way back, stopped at the supermarket to buy some groceries. This time we bought milk, bread, pasta, veggies to cook and most importantly washing powder to wash our clothes. We carried only 10 days worth of dresses so it was our time to do the laundry. As soon as we washed, it started to rain and we had to dry inside with fans. With that, we wrapped our day earlier to only start our next day at 5am
Most beautiful day of our life - La Piedra and Guatape
La Piedra
We decided to explore Guatape town for this day. We used Redbus to book our tickets to Guatape the previous day, again the bus goes from where we got dropped from Cartagena, the North Bus Terminal . Our bus was at 7.20am, the first bus was available at 5.30am itself. When I researched, everyone had written that we could go and buy tickets there, but unfortunately they will accept only cash and also depend on the availability. Hence I decided to pre-book. It cost us 17,000 COP + 900 COP as a booking fee for Redbus. Since it got late and we had to walk a lot today, we booked a cab to El Poblado metro station, saving us a 30 minute walk. From Poblado, we recharged our metro card for 15,600 COP (3900*2 persons*2 rides) and headed to the North Bus Terminal.
On reaching the terminal, we went to the SotraPenol bus counter which was the bus we booked. We exchanged our online tickets into physical tickets and went to our platform to board the bus. On boarding, when we told the conductor that we needed to get down at La Piedra, he mentioned that the ticket we bought was only till El Penol, which was the previous stop.We had to pay him 8000 COP additional to get us dropped off at La Piedra.
View from Metro Station
Our bus to La Piedra
It was a 2 hour journey and we reached around 9.30am. From the place where we got dropped off, we can either take an auto rickshaw, horse ride or walk. Auto will cost 5000 COP, but we chose to walk. It was a 15 mins walk with stairs halfway and then road but it was uphill. During our walk, we were surprised to meet the couple we saw during our walking tour in Cartagena. We briefly greeted each other and continued our way to the foot hills of La Piedra.
La Piedra is a monolith made of granite and has an ancient history to it. It is formed due to volcanic activity and is surrounded by the river Nare. Two thirds of the rock is underground and only one third is above the surface of the earth. It is in between the El Penol and Guatape towns and residents of both the towns wanted it to be theirs. On reaching the foothills of the La Piedra, we saw a big parking lot from where we could admire the rock standing tall and shiny. We had our Granola breakfast at 6am, so we were hungry. We stopped at one of the many cafes there, had two coffees and a cinnamon roll.
Hike up to the La piedra
La Piedra, from Parking Lot
Notice board
After that, we went to the ticket counter to buy the tickets. It was 30,000 COP per person and we had to pay only by cash. After buying the tickets, we started climbing up. It had 700 steps to the top, with the number marked at every 50 steps. Once we reached the top, we saw a few shops and there was a spiral walkway to the lookout area which was the highest point of La Piedra. The view from the top was mesmerizing, we could see mountains on one which extends to a whole big greenish lake. Amidst the lake, we could see pockets of garden a.k.a small towns of that area. After admiring the beauty we decided to climb down
Entrance to the La Piedra
First 50 steps
Half way mark with Mother Mary
View from the top
Going down was harder than going up, as the steps were steep and also slippery due to the drizzle. Also the steps were narrow and did not have enough gap so we had to walk down sideways. At the end of the descent, our legs were shaking. We had some time to warm down and take final pictures of La Piedra and again went back to the same place where the bus dropped off
Guatape
Our plan was to go to one of the towns we saw from the top, the nearest one was “Guatape”. Auto ride would have cost us 14,000 COP, however we chose to take the bus and it cost us 2,000 COP per person. It was a 30 minute ride, once we got down we saw one of the most colorful towns. Having seen a colorful village in Egypt before (Nubian village), this was like a modern colorful town where they painted each house with brighter colors. Before we ventured out, we decided to have lunch and chose a restaurant (Montara) which had 5 star reviews on Google. We ordered a burger and a falafel salad, our bill was 50,000 COP, it was slightly higher than we anticipated. Since I paid by card, they charged us 5% extra
After a sumptuous meal, we randomly walked around the town. We tasted chocolate bunuelo and a carrot cake at a panaderia (Bakery in Spanish). As soon as we reached Guatape, we booked my return journey to Medellin (Terminal Del Norte) for 5.30pm through the Redbus app. We exchanged it for physical tickets and the bus was on time. We reached Medellin in a couple of hours and then made our way home by walking and wrapped our day by eating a homemade sandwich. On the way, we made a pitstop to complete our prayers in the mosque nearby.
Some pics from Guatape:
A visit to Comuna 13 - home to all the criminals in 90s
For the next day, we booked a walking tour to Comuna 13 through Guruwalk. Comuna 13 is the place where all the drug lords, mafias and criminals resided when Colombia led the drugs business. Now it has transformed into a safer and a tourist destination.
Our tour started at the San Javier metro station, where our tour guides waited for us. It was a shared tour and tip based tour as usual. Since we were very tired from lots of walking the previous day, we booked our tour at 3pm in the evening. After our lunch at home, We directly took a cab to San Javier metro station. We were delayed by 5 minutes, however the crew waited. There were only 5 of us on the English tour, 2 girls from Canada, one guy from the UK and another guy from Germany. Our tour guide was Laura, she grew up in Comuna 13 and was a college going student.
From there, we had to take a bus to Comuna 13, our guide led us through. A bus ticket cost us 2000 COP each, and a 10 minute bumpy and crowded ride like how we ride back home in Indian buses during the peak time. As soon as we reached, we could feel the vibe of the town. First of all, it is located on a hill and not a flatland with lots of shops stuck on either side of the roads masquerading the houses with lots of graffiti on the wall. Also it was like a maze, where we could enter one street and come out of the other.
The tour started with graffiti of a woman from Singapore who fell in love with the place and started helping the locals. As a gratitude, they have her picture as graffiti with a local outlook. We moved on to a square, which was converted into a futsal ground, however in earlier times it was used to execute people to instill fear among the residents. We also witnessed rap, hip hop dance performances along with Graffiti which has become a refuge for the people over there.
First view of Comuna 13
Graffiti
An alley to the houses
Hip Hop dance performance
Execution square turned into Futsal ground
Bus ride to Communa 13
A small history about Comuna 13 from the words of our tour guide, it housed three major gangs - Guerillas, Militias, and Paramilitary
- Guerillas - they started as a political (communist) party who later transformed into an extremism gang. They tried to make money by trading drugs.
- Militias - Pablo Escobar’s gang who again traded drugs.
- Paramilitary - They are ex-military people who are hired by the Government and others to keep everyone in control, but also turned violent.
Government with the help of Paramilitary carried out 20+ operations, which killed mostly civilians. Once, they opened fire from the helicopter. Apart from this, there were other new gangs that sprouted. Our tour guide mentioned that their uncles paid one of the assassin groups to kill their grandfather since he was a sexual molester.
Look alike of the hired assassin gang member
As soon as I heard the history of this neighborhood, I could immediately relate it to the Srebrenica massacre in Bosnia which I learned about during my euro trip. Not just that, the Gaza massacre happened in Palestine now. Looks like it is very difficult to remove the barbaric culture that we imbibed from our ancestors.
The way our guide narrated we could feel the pain of what they went through during the difficult times. While the place has changed a lot after 2005, with the place becoming more safer and touristic, there are still gangs invisibly operating within the neighborhood.
A restaurant at the top with Comuna 13
After finishing the tour, we walked around the place and then headed to the San Javier station by foot, skipping the bus. It was a 1.5 kilometer walk to the metro station, from where we caught the metro to Poblado station. From the metro, we walked to the mosque to complete our prayers and then headed to the restaurant. We decided to treat ourselves after a hectic couple of days, so we chose Restaurant As-salam which had Arabian cuisine. It is in the same building as the mosque, and based on what I read on the google reviews, the management runs both the mosque and the restaurant and the profit goes into the running of the mosque.
Restaurant and Mesquita
Veg Samosa
Baklava
We ordered a chicken shawarma, vegetable samosa and a baklava. After a good but expensive meal (100,000 COP), we walked back home and wrapped up the day and also brought the end of our Colombian journey.
