La Ciudad de la Eterna Primavera

City of the Eternal Spring

Because of the pleasant springlike climate all year, Medellín is known as “La Ciudad de la Eterna Primavera” or “City of the Eternal Spring”. We are hooked and want to just stay. The nights are just cool enough, almost a light sweater is needed. Sometimes it rains, but just enough to keep it green. The mist hangs in the mountains and elevations of Medellin, making it’s way down into the valley briefly in the early mornings. You sit outside and sip your morning coffee as the birds chirp all around you. People out walking, “Buenos días” in the air as you smell fresh sweet bread and the lushness of green everywhere. Then you walk down to the corner and get a cup of jugo de naranja recién exprimido, or fresh squeezed orange juice. It’s starts to warm, slowly, as the morning bustle comes to life. What’s not to like.

While we were here we took the on/off bus for a tour of the city. It was 2 days on the bus and it cost US$14. One of the places it took us was the inspiration village for Encanto, the Disney film, Pueblito Paisa. The little village is a re-creation featuring traditional white-washed houses, a picture perfect central plaza, and spectacular views of Medellín’s surrounding mountains.

Another noteworthy stop was a visit to Inflexión Memorial Park. The introduction area: There are more than 46 thousand victims between 1983 and 1994. The park is built in the same place where Pablo Escobar came to build the Monaco building, it was visited for many years by tourists, but the “narcotour” was never well seen, given that this is a very sensitive issue and because we continue to see documentaries, merchandise, t-shirts glorifying Pablo Escobar or just portraying him as a hero, likewise there are tours guided by people who claim to have been part of the Medellin cartel, like his brother. The path of heroes: there are atriums with quotes from people who serve as a role model for new generations. The mural of more than 70 meters long, where there are more than 46 thousand holes, representing the victims. Visitors can set a flower, honoring and paying tribute those people. On the back of the wall there is a timeline, with over 200 tragic events, bombs and attacks, highlighting then the fact that we want to reconstruct our memories so that WE DON’T MAKE THE SAME MISTAKES IN THE FUTURE AGAIN. – Finally, we run into a tree that remained standing, representing the resilience and spirit of our people, who always stand our ground despite adversity and move on, without ignoring our roots nor where we come from.

The next day we visited Albert Crutcher up at his casa. What a fantastic property and million dollar view, but not for a million dollars, not even close. Of course we had coffee and tea and checked out his motos. A person could get into trouble with those.

A couple friends from Australia were riding around Colombia and we caught up one afternoon and night in the tourist section for some drinks and pizza. Tim Robinson and partner Janne de Vries have rented a DR 650 and have been tooling around Colombia, south of Medellin. As is the usual when meeting other travelers on the road, it was like we were old friends. After we had thrown down a few drinks and a couple pizzas, we decided to call it a night. Hopefully we’ll be able to catch up with him one more time before they head back to Australia.

What should have been our last night here, we went down to a pub near our Airbnb, the Philly Steak. Carmen was there again and so were several other people from the US. We had a good evening joking about the reason people leave and stay and got caught in our horrendous thunderstorm. A guy was playing his guitar earlier and I gave him one of my stickers which he put on his guitar. I also put one on a dollar bill and attached it to the wall of the Philly Steak. Will be back again.

We woke in the morning to a beautiful morning. We got everything packed figuring out where things would ride the best. We took off and noticed a couple other issues, one of which was the battery. After a bit of riding around, we rode back to the Airbnb deciding to wait one extra day and pick up a battery the next day. Hopefully we will be on our way soon.

Cheers

2WANDRRs