Just got back from 5 days in Medellin, Colombia. Loved it! (cross posted from Latin America group)

Last edited Thu Mar 9, 2017, 08:46 PM - Edit history (1)

Beautiful city in a great climate-5,000ft, so 70's day/60's night....cheap prices like Costa Rica was 20 years ago, meals were $3 and up, $12 in a really nice bistro, 15 story hotel with flat screen, walk in shower with hot water & A/C was $26 a night.
They have lots of buses, have a Metro, and the 1hr bus ride from the airport was $3.

Loved seeing Fernando Botero's work in person:


They also have a church from 1682, La Iglesia de la Veracruz:


The Metropolitan Cathedral of Medellín, officially the Metropolitan Cathedral Basilica of the Immaculate Conception was pretty too:


They also have cable cars to get you above the city which lies in a valley floor in the Aburrá Valley, a central region of the Andes Mountains:


No visa needed, RT from Tampa via Miami was $471 on American but midweek Spirit can get u there and back with one bag for $373 from TPA via Ft Lauderdale. (their hub)
Peso was 2,000 to the dollar a few years ago, near 3,000 right now so very inexpensive.

Costa Rica which is 1/20 the size gets 2-3 million tourists a year, Colombia gets 400,000 US tourists and most those through Cartagena in cruise ships. So very unspoiled, saw maybe 2 gringos in 5 days. They have decriminalized up to 20g of pot and 1g of powder.
Pot probably sucks, the powder probably not so much. A girl next to me in a bar ordered some powder while we were talking and she paid 9,000p or about $3.

Not recommended for everyone due to high crime rate, you've got to be high speed and low drag and try and blend in, do some trip research and hopefully speak some spanish as no one spoke english. Although the murder rate IS higher in Jamaica, the Bahamas & the US Virgin Islands. But petty crime pretty heavy there.

Leaving was not as fun as hoped, they took me out of security screening at the airport for a back room full body X-ray...lol