El Loco Desnudo

 

We took a 20 minutes flight from Bogota to Medellin which saved us about 9.5 hours on a bus through the mountains and were, for the first time in quite a while – awaited at the airport: my beautiful host sister Maria and her wonderful parents Olga and Jorge were there to pick us up and take us to their home, where they took amazing care of us for over a week! Together with Maria's awesome sister Natalia and her charming brother Santiago (and their aunts, grandmas and friends) they truly made us feel at home away from home and let us rest from what had become quite a stressful travel for a while.

Our plane landed around 12pm, so the natural stop on our way from the airport to the house (a 45 minutes drive as the airport is not in Medellin but in a neighboring valley) was at a restaurant where we tried our first typical Colombian breakfast: Yummy Arepas with cheese and scrambled eggs and different sorts of sausages and fried pork skin. After a curvy ride up and down a mountain, the valley opened up in front of us, and we caught our first glimpse of the big city of Medellin that, together with its smaller neighbors, fills what looks like a huge pan. Beautiful surrounding mountains and large green patches of tropical trees throughout the skyscraper-dotted city made it a picture-perfect sight – if it hadn't been for the towering dark clouds that turned the sky dark. A second later a tropical storm broke out (funny enough we had icy hail on our first day in the hot city) that we sat out in the country club next to 'our' house: great food, jacuzzis, pools, tons of sport facilities and a spa for the massage after the workout: what a great place to laze away a stormy Saturday afternoon. Of course we came back several times throughout the week...

When we woke up after the most comfortable sleep in ages (we got to sleep in Maria's and Natalia's comfy beds) the sun was shining again and we did a family trip to the antique city of Santa Fe de Antioquia. The typical colonial streets of the little town boast flower-filled patios, whitewashed houses and tree shaded plazas with an astonishing number of beautiful small churches; Street vendors sell juicy, sweet local fruits that, in some cases, we had never heard of before (and of course had to try); and the Puente de Occidente, one of the first suspension bridges in the Americas, invites for an unusual crossing of the Cauca River. We enjoyed brilliant food, great views and lots of fun with the family. As
 beautiful as Santa Fe presented itself, the greatest memory of the day will remain the way back home to Medellin; We took the most lonesome road there was to find that lead us right through the jungle for the longest time. In the thickest bush, a crazy naked guy suddenly jumped on the street in front of us, screamed like a siren and tried to get into the car. When we were sure that there was in fact nothing wrong with him and he didn't need our help, we baptized him 'El Loco Desnudo' and he became our mascot for the week (as we attracted a few more locos whenever we explored the city ourselves...). The rest of the way back went quite smooth, except of the minor inconvinience when 4 stone avalanches blocked the road and we had to wait around for 4 hours before we could continue our way. Quite an adventure.

During the week, we explored Medellin on our own and with our hosts. We took a tour bus to get an overview over the touristic sights of the city and ended up having a great time with our personal guide (between him not speaking the greatest English and us not being the best Spanish speakers the world has ever known we ended up having quite some fun discussing about everything and nothing!). We followed Natalia around the city center, the sports complex with the impressive stadium and watched her work in her design class in the university. We enjoyed stunning vistas from the Metrocable on our way to the Parque Arvil nature reserve where we went for a beautiful hike. We got our culture fix with Maria's lovely aunt Estrela when she took us to see the large Botero-collection in the Museo de Antioquia and followed that up with a visit to the small but very cool Museo de Arte Moderno. We enjoyed an informative, educating and extremly entertaining visit to the interactive Parque Explorer with Maria who enjoyed nothing more than the moving dinosaur statues. And we reached for the clouds when we flew over
the city in a breathtaking parapente-experience. The nights were spent enjoying great coffee in luxurious shopping malls, meeting all the friends at obnoxiously funny Star Wars parties, being introduced to the greater family and best friends at incredibly delicious BBQs, walking around the blinky 'Goldmile' and enjoying homely dinners with the whole family gathered around the inviting kitchen table.

For mothers' day weekend we left the noisy city to go to the finca at El Peñol. A 90 minute car ride took us to this completely different world. The truly beautiful landhouse (not at least due to the incredible woodwork that Jorge did himself) sits in a huge garden with direct access to the massive artificial lake that became our playground for the weekend. Waterskiing, kayaking, donouting, fishing and just driving around on the lake kept us busy whenever we were not eating or relaxing in a hammock on one of the many porches with great views over the surroundings. A must-do on this trip was climbing the vast El Peñol, a giant monolith that looms over the lake. 740 steep stairs lead up to its highest top that offered grand vistas and highly welcomed snack shops that sell the tastiest water ever. Close to the stone is Guatape that we visited to see its famous zocalos, colorful base-relief scenes that decorate each and every house in the tiny village. Steep cobbled streets, a small plaza and lots of colorful flowers make it very cute and quite worthwhile to wander around in.

After 10 memorable days in Medellin we sadly had to say goodbye to Maria, Olga, Natalia, Jorge and Santiago. They took such good care of us, spoiled us as no one has done since we left our mothers last year, offered the most comfortable beds since we left home and showed us their welcoming and beautiful city in a way that we couldn't have imagined possible - it was really hard to leave them. We will surely miss their warm welcome, beautiful smiles and fun company and won't ever forget their amazing hospitality. We hope that we can come back some day!