Settling in Medellin – part one

Once again I find myself back in Medellin. As I mentioned in my last post, I’d found a pretty cool volunteering opportunity which would allow me to live for free and have 95% of the day to myself, for up to a month – winner.

So off I went, sadly leaving Cartagena behind, but ready for a change – I set off, yet again, for Medellin. The volunteering was around 45 minutes from an area of Medellin called Envigado. I knew nothing of the area and did little research, I just wanted a change. But, before I could try the new lifestyle, things were about to get a little nasty.
Firstly, my first bartering attempt at the bus station ended in success, a saving of 20k pesos, around £5 – win.
On the bus, I take risk and sit on a different seat to the one I’m allocated, for a better view… I hit the jackpot as some cute French girl sits next to me and we strike up conversation for the 10 hour ride and exchange numbers. How I came all the way to Colombia, only to fall in love with the French accent, I’ll never know.

Volunteering was due to start in a few days, so I decide to head to Jardin, a tiny town a few hours of south of Medellin – another place some friends had recommended. I immediately go out for drinks with some room mates and experience ANOTHER terrible snoring experience that night. So bad, that rather than a repeat the following night, I hire a tent just to get a peaceful night’s sleep. This travel gig ain’t all sweet roses.
Anyhow, In Jardin I make a good friend (male for a change) and go for a hike to a waterfall, pick my own avocado which I can’t each until it’s ripe (around 10 days), and, most importantly, FIX MY LAPTOP!!! Yes, somehow, whilst sat in a cafe patiently putting the parts back together, the laptop powers itself on, to my shock. The next hour results in extreme frustration as I’m trying to get the track-pad and keyboard to work simultaneously, they really didn’t make the motherboard connections easy to reconnect on this Chromebook.

It was in Jardin where I realised I’m starting to become okay at this whole travel concept. I was giving advice to others on where to go, meeting people who had been travelling for less time, people who spoke less Spanish than me, people who had a fixed number of months or even weeks before they had to return to their lives; this gave me a confidence boost!

So here comes the nastiness – I get back to Medellin via bus and take a metro towards the volunteering in Envigado. I’m on the phone to my dad using my Bluetooth headphones when I enter a rush-hour packed metro train. I feel a nick in my pocket and when I check for my phone, it’s gone. Instantly I look around and in front of me, I see a Colombian guy, perhaps mid-twenties, who just looks (judging a book…) a. the type who would pick-pocket and b. guilty.
Without even thinking, I ask him where my phones is (in English…), he gestures as if he doesn’t know but I instinctively check all of his trouser pockets. He let’s me do this, which makes me think he knows he’s been caught. As I’m feeling him up, a little girl bends down and picks up my phone from the floor and hands it to me. There’s no way that by chance my phone came out of my pocket itself and fell on the floor, clearly he dropped it once he knew I was on his case. I get an incredibly lucky escape here. He then faces away, and quickly leaves at the next stop – I’m more confident that this guy tried his luck.

After some reflection and explaining the situation to my dad, who’s still on the phone, confused, I realise that the local was just an opportunist and that I should take a leaf out of his book, just not in the field of theft…

I make it to the volunteering host’s house, it’s in the area of Las Palmas, which I totally underestimated the remoteness of. Hey ho, lesson learned. Here I meet the family, and get a few days and nights to get to know them before they set off on their vacation. They are extremely laid back, and have a beautiful, huge spacious house and garden up in the hills overlooking Medellin, win. They even have a fireplace, a PS4 and Netflix – how will I ever get anything done?

That evening, I arrange to meet Tatiana, the Canadian girl I met and became good friends with during my two weeks in San Carlos, she’s also in Medellin.
It is this day where the strangest coincident yet happened. As I enter Tatiana’s hostel, I realise I recognise the receptionist. She brings up the point, and it hits me that she’s the girlfriend of the hostel manager during my volunteering in Guatape, the guy I didn’t quite see eye to eye with…
On reflection, I did recall the owners say they were buying a hostel in Medellin – but out of the hundreds of hostels? What were the chances…

This isn’t all, when I enter the hostel’s chill-out area, I see three more people I recognise, yes three!
A volunteer from the hostel in Guatape, Ka – this makes some sense, he transferred to see some of Medellin.
The other two, however, I did not expect to see. It’s Pietra and Adam, the guys I met in Cartagena through the Minca girls. How did this happen???

Finally I meet Tatiana and we catch up for a few hours before hitting Poblado for a salsa night out, we meet Pietra and Adam out there! What a great, strange night!

I spend the next day with Tati, people watching and strolling around the Laureles area of Medellin. She leaves for home the next day, so we discuss at length how we are at totally different ends of the travellers journey. I spend a good hour kicking a football around with a Colombian kid at around 10 years age, he had skills and I realise how much I miss playing!

That evening, I go back to the house for the first time and stay over. They kindly invite me to dinner with the family and the next day, they leave for their holiday to the Caribbean coast – I give them a few tips on where I’ve recently been and they decide to include Minca on their trip.

The family had an electronic bike in the garage which they said I can use. I decide to take it out to get some food shopping, the concept of an electronic bike is great; it takes some of the strain off peddling uphill, until you ride one, that is. What actually happens, is the weight of the motor and extra accessories is more or less balanced out by the power it generates, so you’re not much better off… I get off and walk with the overweight bike when it comes to hills, either I’m unfit or the idea just hasn’t been executed, or both…

I then cooked and spent the evening binge-watching Better Call Saul on Netflix with the fireplace lit, if you liked Breaking Bad, give this at least two episodes, it’s freaking awesome, and I realise the dangerous situation I’ve gotten myself into.

I spend the next week “commuting” to El Poblado by bus & metro, it’s the touristy/party area of Medellin and therefore has great cafe’s to work from. I spend my time trying to launch my own remote security consultancy business, but thus far with limited success, so I won’t go into detail right now…

I also got to practice my new morning routine. I figured I should do more exercise and better prepare for the day. So my new routine looked something like this:

1. Make my bed – apparently doing something so insignificant yet productive at the start of the day gets your brain into productivity mode and subsequent tasks are done with less motivation
2. Drink lots of water and snack on a piece of fruit – to prepare for step 3…
3. Either go for a 20 min run or bike ride, or, do 5-10 reps of something to wake up
4. Shower
5. Meditate – 5-10 mins (I use Headspace – I think this will help in the long term with my poor concentration skills…)
6. Breakfast – granola with nuts, dried fruit, seeds, and a chopped banana – healthy, tasty and filling

Did I execute this every day? Hell no. I probably did the run/(electric…) bike ride once per week, damn my self-discipline is bad, something else to work on in the near future… which probably explains why I tended to fall asleep so often whilst meditating.

At some point during the first week, I have my first fail. As I’m trying to get used to my new surroundings, I manage to go the wrong way out of the metro station three times, there are four exits…
By the time I make it to the bus stop, I’ve missed the last one, which apparently happens at 7pm daily. The bus would usually take 45 mins, so walking is out of the question. I grab a taxi and explain where I want to go and show the driver on Google Maps, he quotes me 8,000 pesos (£2).

When we finally arrive, he tries to charge me 32,000 pesos despite the meter saying around 18,000 and despite the 8,000 quote he gave me earlier. I play the “no entiendo” (I don’t understand) game and after around 20 mins of playing stupid, he calls a friend who speaks some English and puts me on the phone to them, I continue to play stupid.
His next step? He calls the police, yes.
At this point I’m wondering whether I should just cough up the money, but due to pure principle, I waste another 10 mins playing language barrier games, knowing it will take the cops at least 20 to get up the hill from Medellin, that’s if he isn’t bluffing.
I figure at this point it’s not worth the risk, I hand him 30,000 and walk away, feeling frustrated but at least a little satisfied that I’ve wasted half an hour of his time, I had nowhere to be…

The next morning the complete opposite happens. As I’m waiting for the bus outside the house, a car pulls up and offers me a ride into Envigado for 5,000 pesos. His name was Juan, we make conversation the whole way, in Spanish, talking about our families, work, travels etc. For the first time in my life, I was able to hold a basic conversation in another language, I was chuffed to bits. Juan also showed me a Spanish language School called Colombia Immersion, I take a mental note. He drops me off and doesn’t try to shaft me, win.

Later that day, I meet a girl called Tayler. The family of the house-stay arranged for us to meet, she’s the daughter of the family’s best friend, from Canada, she’s just started her travel in Medellin so I guess why the hell not. We go to a posh rooftop hotel overlooking the city and go to pick up her bag from the hostel she’s staying at. This brief stop turns into a long rum and coke drinking session with some of the hostel staff. Four hours later and a little tipsy, I ring Juan, who is now my personal taxi amigo, and he takes us to the house so we can finally cook some food!

The next few days I spent either travelling into El Poblado to work from a cafe, or work from the house; the house’s Wi-Fi was awesome. I have ongoing battles with the dogs escaping from the house, following me on my runs, destroying the rubbish bags looking for scraps. I feel I get a sample of an early father’s life…

At the weekend, I meet up with Sofia for an Indian, I briefly met her in Minca and we stayed in touch as there was a small chance we would be in Medellin together at some point. The strange part, though, turns out we’re both staying close to the area of Envigado. After a catch up, we agree to meet up later to go to a football match. Atletico National, one of the two Medellin teams are playing the second leg of a cup tie, they are 1-0 down on aggregate going into the tie.
I spend an hour queuing up for a ticket, only to find I was in the season ticket queue. When I finally get there, the actual match ticket queue was empty, you live and learn…

I then hang around for a while for the game to start at 9pm, a late one but I figure it’s to escape the day’s heat. It’s about 90 mins before kick-off as I’m sat in a bar, messaging a friend I met in Jardin, he tells me he’s watching the Atletico Nacional on TV, now. I realise I screwed up again and tell Sofia to hurry. We miss the first 30 mins, my bad…
Luckily, we missed the right half, it was 0-0 and within ten mins of the restart our team is 2-1 up on aggregate.

The atmosphere is incredible, we’re sat in the stand where apparently the most passionate fans are. Everyone is singing constantly, waving flags, banging drums jumping up and down. drinking, smoking. Here’s the second goal and a flavour of the atmosphere:

During half-time we’re asked by a fan if we want a smoke of his joint, we politely decline, my concentration is bad enough already.
The game finishes 2-2 on aggregate and goes to penalties, our team loses yet practically all of the fans stay behind to cheer on the team and continue singing. Even when your team wins in England, you leave the stadium almost immediately after the final whistle, these Colombians really are passionate about their football teams!
We head back to Envigado and soak up the Xmas lights with a beer or two.

I spend the next few days enjoying my freedom at the house “working”, watching Neflix, cooking, writing my blog, walking to the Indiana shopping centre, which is about a 40 min walk and full of posh cafes and restaurants.

I realise I should get out and end up joining a walking tour in Medellin; despite giving up on the last one in Cartagena… I get to the meeting point an hour early and find a market where I can get my Jesus sandals fixed, the strap on one is on it’s last thread. I find a shoe repair place and they are fixed in less than 10 mins for a cost of 2,000 pesos, 50p – these Colombian’s are efficient! I tip her and she seems surprised; she doesn’t realise how much I love those sandals.
The tour is actually pretty good this time, interesting facts and delivered enthusiastically enough for me to stick around for a change.
Check out the picture of the coffee prices – politeness is an extremely important part of the culture in Colombia, and is often rewarded, politeness = cheaper stuff.

I bump into a girl from Minca, Katherina, who has just finished another walking tour, we go for a few drinks in the centre.

The next day I force myself out of my comfort zone and attend a free language exchange in El Poblado. My Spanish isn’t great but I can make basic conversation. I can understand most of what people are saying, it’s the speaking part I’m still uncomfortable with. I get pally with a Colombian called Carolina and we exchange numbers to meet again. I feel better.

Later that week, I attend another language exchange suggested by Sofia. It’s at the Colombia Immersion school in Envigado, the one that Juan, the taxi driver pointed out to me. We learn how to make natilla, a popular festive Colombian dessert which is often made in the streets around Christmas time. It reminds me of rice pudding…

Sofia & me abandon the exchange to spend an hour walking around the streets. Colombians really celebrate the festive periods with pride; streets are closed off and decorated with candles, Xmas lights are everywhere, Colombians sit outside drinking their national drink, aguardiente (think sambuca but worse). At one point, a family sat outside their house insist on us having a shot of aguardiente with them and talk to us about why we are there and whether we like their country.

Having spoke to some of the other students from the school (mostly in English unfortunately…) I’m deeply considering signing myself up. You study from 9-1 Mon-Fri and can opt into one-to-one sessions with native speaking conversational coaches. The school also have activities planned each day, similar to the Spanish Adventure school where I volunteered in San Carlos. I decide to give it some thought over the weekend.

On Saturday I meet up with Sofia for some mulled wine at Indiana, we cook up a storm and our own mulled wine in the house with the fire on – this is the first time I felt like it was Christmas. I’ve never been anywhere other than England for Christmas. Even though Medellin had pretty good lights, decorations and events, it just didn’t feel like Xmas to me. Especially given it’s around 20 degrees each day, I think it was the lack of cold weather. Not that I was particularly missing it…

Back to the classroom
On Monday the 11th Dec, I start my first day at Colombia Immersion, the Spanish school. I’m given a quick assessment to decide which week to start in. I’m put in a class somewhere between beginner and intermediate (looks like the Spanish lessons in San Carlos helped after all), with five other students and an attractive, early-30’s Colombian Spanish teacher; this could help my attention span.
I find it pretty difficult, especially after two weeks of fairly non-structured routine. The last time I sat in a classroom-like environment was 3-4 years ago at University.
The students from the class all grab lunch together most days and I join. They are all good people, easy to get along with, and at a similar Spanish level to me.

The same day, I meet Carolina, the Colombian from the first language exchange, she helps me with my homework and spends an hour correcting my poor Spanish tongue. On the way to get a taxi, I give a homeless guy half a hot-dog, my good deed done for the month.

The next day, I start to struggle. A four hour class, followed by two straight hours of one-to-one conversational coaching take their toll. I feel stressed for the first time since being out here.
The day is nicely finished off with a few acts of bad luck. Firstly, I get shat on by a bird, then I return to the house to discover I’d lost the keys. After climbing through a window, I find the keys in my bag… To top it off, the dogs chewed up the TV remote to a point where the circuit board was in several pieces on the floor. No more Netflix for me… Cigarette please…

The following days get easier. I’m starting to get used to the learning intensity and being forced to speak in class – honestly, the best way to learn.
When I stay out to socialise and miss the bus, the taxi-rides come in all different shapes and sizes, from drivers who get angry for driving all the way up the huge hills, to pleasant ones who quiz me on my life, to taxi cars so old that they have to drive the whole way up the hills in first gear – I ain’t joking.
I spend some more time with Sofia after she tells me she cooks a mean Irish stew, she wasn’t joking.

I decide to go on one of the school’s arranged activities, a tour to an area of Medellin called Greenbelt, a recently transformed metropolitan area which just a few years ago, was overwhelmed by violence. This was pretty interesting. If you’ve been to or seen a picture of Medellin from above, you’ll know it’s shaped like a bowl which makes it unique and beautiful, but means most of the poorer locals living in the steeper sides of the bowl often never leave their neighbourhood. The result is extremely curiosity when the locals see people from other parts of the world, especially the children!
The transformation was influenced by the decision to only select workers from the neighbourhood to help maintain and develop new infrastructure. Gangs and trouble causers didn’t want to graffiti or damage property that their friends or family were working on.

Once at the summit, we enjoy the views with a few beers, Medellin really is stunning from atop.

My first week at Spanish school ends in each class having to sing a Spanish karaoke song in front of everyone – the joys.
Afterwards, I go into town for coffee and bump into Sofia – Envigado really isn’t that small…

That evening, like the previous week, I attend the language exchange. This time I can actually converse a little better. After sinking some beers, the group, around 20 people strong, leave for a reggaeton bar. I’m stood outside, contemplating paying the entry fee and entering with a bunch of people who are practically a bunch of strangers, but I decide to go for it.

Something comes over me, a new confidence; the alcohol helps my fear of speaking Spanglish and also helps my fear of dancing salsa with strangers, something else I’m not particularly proficient at… I get four numbers this evening, two European women, one Colombian guy and another girl. These language exchanges really do pay off…
Anyhow, my recently found love for the French accent results in me giving a French girl salsa lessons on the dance floor – I finally sleep at 6am!

Just a couple hours later, I get up to go on a exotic fruit tour with Sofia. I hitchhike a ride for the first time (thanks for the inspiration Sofia). I was turned down several times but eventually someone stopped, this helps me overcome my fear of rejection and looking silly in public.
We try around 15 different fruits; this is the tour for me, eating…
I go straight home after the tour and hit the sack, 12 hours of sleep later and I’m feeling myself again.