Sunday, February 10, 2008

Buenos Dias, Colombia!

Last week due to work, I had the opportunity to go and visit Medellin in Colombia, South America.

Colombia is one of those countries that have received a lot of press over the years - and they are not necessarily the good kind. For most people (including myself until I went there), the mention of the country alsost always conjure up a certain stereotype of the country - crime, drug, violence, and in one word: a dangerous place to be. Actually Medellin at one point was known for being a base for the most powerful international drug trafficking organisations.

It is true, certain parts of Colombia is still on the high caution list from Travel Advisories, both for Australian and US citizens (and I would imagine for most foreign nationals). Bogota (the captial of Colombia) and Medellin (the 2nd most populated city in Colombia) however, are relatively safe for travel at present. Of course one should exercise the normal precaution when travelling in a foreign country. If you insist of flashing your bling-bling around and act like a mindless tourists well then I think you will be in trouble in any country, even if you were the wrong part of town in NY!

So with that said, my biggest barrier was language. But I was well taken care of. I had my own travel companion/translator/guide - a colleague of mine who is an American-born Colombian. It definitely helped that she was there as I don't think I would have gotten very far with trying to point and "charade" my way around town.

Surprisingly (and to show a complete lack of geographical knowledge here), Medellin was more "east" on the globe than I thought. It was actually in the same time zone as the East Coast of US (ie. NY). I wasn't sure what to expect of this place and for those who know me, you know I am quite adventureous so I was full of anticipation and really wanting to know all about this town (yeah, I knew I had to work, but hey its my first trip to South America!!).

We arrived late into Medellin and it is a ride down the mountain from the airport to the hotel. During the 35 minute ride, my colleague had already briefed me on all the food I must try out (well I was very happy to hear food is high on the priority, hee hee).

As we decended from the hills, Medellin's came into view. My first glimpse of Medellin left me breathless - a milkway of light going for miles into the horizon. I didn't realise how big it was.


Medellin at night
Originally uploaded by
xmascarol

We had arranged to stay in a 2 bedroom apartment in the Affinity Hotel and that was a great arrangement for me as I ended up with a 24x7 translator and companion for the trip(Thanks a bunch, IV)!! The hotel was very nice, not to mention having a balcony with am amazing view.


The next impressive thing in Medellin - my room service breakfast. Since we arrived late at night, we figured the best thing to do was to order breakfast to the room. What we didn't realized was what that meant. The doorbell rang in the morning, and voila, there were 2 people standing outside of our door, one taking order and the other manning a fully stocked breakfast cart, complete with its own stove top. We get to pick from a variety of fresh tropical fruits, juices, pastries, cereals and we could also order omlette with whatever topping we wanted, straight from the cart. Then all we had to do was sit back (or in our case, we eventually got so comfortable with this arrangement, we go back to our rooms to get ourselve ready while they cook breakfast outside our door) and wait for the server to set our table on the dining table and bring the spread in. What's even more impressive - they were not expecting any tips. Later on we found out the breakfast was included in our room rates. Try to beat THAT one!!


Room Service anyone?

After breakfast we headed into the centre of Medellin, where the client's office was situated. Medellin is a very modern city, which means it came with normal modern city peak hour morning traffic. The roads were well maintained and dotted with yellow cabs and colourful buses. My colleague told me in an effort to reduce the number of vehicles on the road, the government had imposed rules that limit which cars can travel on the road during certain hours and days of the week. For example, cars with odd number plates can travel on alternate days of the week in comparison to cars with even number plates. This promotes the use of public transportation and carpooling.


Taxi and bus

[To be continued...]

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