Thinking Allowed: Ciao Medellin

Medellin really exceeded our expectations for holiday cheer. Most people seek out resort holidays or snowy spots to have authentic Christmas spirit, but I would say that Medellin should be right up there on the list. We liked all the extravagant light displays. We liked all the festivals leading up to Christmas. We liked walking past religious ceremonies and singing sessions as the date got closer. We liked being back in a country that that has ripe mangoes in December. Even the nightly fireworks sort of grew on us.

That being said we are going to have to return to Colombia as I imagine the rest of the country is just as nice. Aurora, Sophia and I managed to go for a day trip out of the city. I debated about where to go but in the end opted for the most popular option as most of us going were dreading the long twisty bus rides. Also, I was interested in getting to see Colombia's version of Uluru (minus the sacred aspect) - El Penol - a. 220 meter high granite mass. As this rock is not sacred to any locals there is a staircase going up with 750 steps that we had the pleasure of climbing. The view from the top was worth the trip and offered a really good opportunity to discuss the reasons for damming and its effects on environment and the towns destroyed in the process. When plans were made to damn the regions surrounding the rock the developers knew that the town of El Penol would disappear in the process and thus offered to pay the townspeople. The woman of El Penol were unhappy with the arrangement and took over negotiations demanding that a new town be constructed further up the hill within the year. We only drove through the new version of El Penol as Guatape is the main tourist attraction in the area. With its brightly coloured and painted buildings and lakeside position it is a perfect tourist hotspot. We enjoyed strolling through town but I think Aurora and Sophia most enjoyed the playground and getting to sit inside the town Christmas tree. The town church, all decorated up for Chritmas also looked like a scene out of Harry Potter.

We're leaving with a lot of loud, vivid memories: the crush of people at Parques del Rio carrying us along in a stream, breakdancer teams practicing outside Estadio with four boomboxes playing different rap songs; the old guy cycling past our flat droning "ba-na-na ... pa-pa-ya ... ma-ra-cu-ya" into a tinny microphone; the insanely busy hawker street downtown where we'd get super-salty michelado; the salsa dancing at Parque Arbi that we had to flee from within one minute, ears ringing. The dogs were so beautiful we can't get over it; homeless people had lovely purebreds, and tough macho men lumbered by leading poodles with long eyelashes. Jakob mostly missed Sophia's birthday as he recovered from his first bender in ten years (also a Colombian thing to do!) Although the traffic was stressful to navigate, and the noise was truly endless, we rolled with it pretty well and had a fun time experiencing Medellin.