El Poblado, El Bonito
Day 107
We arrived in Medellin at 9am at the large northern bus station. Since we have a lack of guidebook information I gave the tourist desk a go. Usually these desks have zero information and could careless about you, no so here. The friendly lady first pulled out a large binder with hotel and hostel listings in every budget. She had addresses and prices. Then folded out a map and marked the location of a few places for us. Wow, this was a great start and a big surprise for a city that isn’t really a tourist centre. We climbed into a taxi, picked Tamarindo hostel and drove off towards the Poblado neighbourhood of Medellin.
El Poblado is a more modern area of the city and definitely the upscale neighbourhood of Medellin. We were shocked to find beautiful tree lined streets with rivers running through green spaces. Clean streets and tons of greenspace made a beautiful first impression. The Tamarindo hostel is located in the centre of El Poblado on a quiet street and even though all they had was dorm beds we stayed. The hostel was friendly, quiet and spotlessly clean. After dropping off our bags we found a great cafe patio around the corner for breakfast. Sitting on the patio with huge green trees overhead and eating fabulous cheese pastry with a great coffee we could tell Medellin was going to be an enjoyable place.
We spent the rest of the day checking out the Poblado area of the city. We walked to an expensive and super modern looking mall looking for a guidebook, but no luck finding English. From there we walked on some paths in some beautiful parks that follow a river through the city. The park wasn’t just green space it contained funky lighting, benches and interesting landscaping. Definitely not your average city greenspace. Back in the centre of El Poblado filled with trendy shops, bars and restaurants it definitely isn’t the Colombia that most people picture. It was mostly a lazy day recovering from the overnight bus ride, some blog work, a good set lunch of trout and then afternoon beers from the small supermarket across from the bakery we had breakfast at. What a great deal this was, .70 cent beer from the market that we consumed on their own patio outside. This sure beat any bar.
We hit our bunk beds early as we were pretty wiped out from the lack of sleep on the bus. Tomorrow we planned on exploring more of the city, mainly the historic centre where some new striking modern architecture has recently been built. So far Medellin looked like one of the most livable cities we have visited.
Tags: Colombia, El Poblado, Medellin, medern architecture
Michael Coroneos
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