Colombia Day 4: Cartagena to Medellín

After an awesome night of sleep (we got blankets! The A/C gets a little chilly at night) woke up nice and early and headed down to the hostel cafe for some breakfast. Enjoyed some toast with jelly and fruit- they were heartbreakingly out of avocado. 😢😢 Then headed up to the rooftop for some relaxing in the morning breeze til I realized it was already way too hot for me and headed back inside. Spent the morning relaxing and packing up for our 12:45 flight to Medellín.

The airport in Cartagena was small and super easy to get to our gate. The flight was super quick and pretty eventless with some beautiful storm clouds as we got to Medellín.

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The Medellín airport was teeny tiny and everything was super easy- got our luggage, quick bathroom stop, and then found a dude that offered us a ride to our hostel for $75 mil pesos. Which is exactly what the internet said it would be. The drive to Medellín was about 50 minutes squished in the back of a tiny car so not completely ideal but it worked. The drive was beautiful and I was amazed at how green everything was! Apparently they’re building a tunnel that will go through the mountain making the drive to the city only 15 minutes!

We got to our hostel and I’m still amazed at how cute and colorful it is! Seriously I love everything about it! It also seems super conducive to socializing, which is nice. The bummer is the rooftop bar because it’s pouring rain. Hopefully tomorrow we can hang out up there!

As soon as we got our room we headed out to a restaurant down the street that has traditional Colombian food. Which apparently means lots of fried things? I got a delicious soup with beans and sweet corn and maybe fried plantains and matchstick potatoes with a side of rice, avocado, and a little arepa. I loved that the menu had clearly marked vegetarian options! We also got a bottle of wine for a super good price- much cheaper than Cartagena. They also had a salsa that was super spicy and delicious! The food was a bit bland without it but once you added that heat it was awesome!

Then we headed to the market to go to the ATM and get some allergy medicine for one of the girls. The ATM processed my transaction but claimed technical difficulties so no cash came out. So I immediately checked my bank account and lo and behold they took out my money! So I went to a teller and i spoke no relevant spanish and he spoke no relevant English. Luckily the guy next to me spoke both well enough to help translate and they told me hopefully the money would be back in my account within 15 minutes. Sure enough it was! Phew!

Shopped at the Colombian version of Walmart/target with everything from fresh groceries to cell phones to barbies to fresh baked bread. And of course while we were there it started pouring! So we quickly walked the two blocks back to our hostel to get dry.

Back at the hostel Robyn and I did a quick tabata workout in our room and while everyone else was getting work done (I have been working all week via email!) I relaxed on our balcony listening to the thunderstorm and smelling the rain. It’s been super rainy this year in San Diego but thunderstorms are still a rarity and I love them soooo much!

after some downtime we headed to the sister hostel across the street for happy hour pre-bar crawl. Two for one vodka sodas (Gordon’s 🤢) and a free shot of aguardiente. Gross licorice taste. Camille would love it! We enjoyed the two for ones and our own sangria we brought for a few hours til the bar crawl left the hostel around 11.

So then we headed to the first bar on the crawl which was rad and had a tree in the middle and some awesome art! I got a grey goose and soda for $25 mil pesos ($8usd). At one of the clubs I got a water for $7 mil ($2.24 usd).

The next two bars on the crawl were legit clubs and I was wearing running clothes and just not feeling it and neither were the other girls. So we jumped in a cab and headed back to the hostel. Starving. They only had chips so we made do with those and passed out. Just one full day in Medellin so gotta make the most of it!

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