Medellin has experienced one of the most rapid and far-reaching transformations of any major city around the world. Once synonymous with the violence and corruption visited upon it by Pablo Escobar, it is now the city that most vividly projects the spirit, confidence - and often sheer joy - of a new Colombia.
Medellin has always had the advantage of its wonderful climate. Located towards the northern end of the central chain of the Andes it is high enough to avoid the heat of the lowlands, while the western chain helps shield it from clouds and rain coming off the ocean. The result is an eternal spring.
The city grew from small beginnings within mountainous Antioquia, one of the oldest provinces in colonial Spain’s ‘New Granada’. The beautiful colonial town of Santa Fe de Antioquia (well worth a visit) was the provincial capital until 1826 when Antioquia became a federal state within independent Colombia and Medellin became its capital.
The people of Antioquia were at that time labelled paisas or ‘countryfolk’ by other Colombians - with something of a sneer. But the paisas label has since evolved to mean much more thanks to their tireless approach to making money and getting ahead.
In the nineteenth century Medellin had grown busier, becoming a centre for the export of gold. Then, at the turn of the twentieth century, Colombia’s 1000 Days War brought the paisas flooding from the countryside into the city for safety. They brought their ‘just do it’ philosophy with them. Textiles became their thing and they established the city as a major centre for the clothing industry. Coffee soon followed, with booming exports to the USA. Another influx of paisas came in the late 1940s escaping further troubles. By the early 1970s the city’s population had risen to more than a million - and it continued rising as the city became overwhelmed with shanty areas, too few jobs, and poor transport. Against this background huge opportunities emerged for the export of cocaine to the USA, a trade developed by a succession of rival gangs culminating in the Medellin Cartel run by Pablo Escobar. Escobar became one of the world’s richest and most murderous individuals until his surrender in 1991 and death in 1993. While Escobar’s rise, huge riches, ghastly crimes, and populist politics as the ‘Robin Hood paisa’ make for compelling story-telling, he has been roundly rejected in his home city for many years. If he comes up in conversation the likely response is “Why do you want to talk about him? He’s been dead for thirty years. Let’s talk about Maluma.” Medellin has moved on. A long way on.
Major urban projects have made a huge difference. One of the biggest stimuluses to investment and promoting social equity has been the city’s investment in public transport, notably the Medellin Metro which opened in 1995 and the Metrocable cable car system linking the metro to hillside barrios (be sure to see the city from a cable car gondola when you come). Investment in civic spaces, parks, education centres, libraries and art galleries has boosted the city’s belief in itself and helped stimulate a wide-ranging boom in new construction. Your own first experience of this will likely be your hotel – with a mouth-watering choice of contemporary architecture on offer.
Comuna 13, a hillside neighbourhood, shows what this can mean. Formerly a no-go area, Comuna 13 is now a mind-expanding, arty, international, colourful, noisy, vibrant and friendly place that makes Brighton’s Lanes or Bristol’s Montpelier seem quiet and backward. A must.
You will also want to visit some of the quieter sites in Medellin: the excellent Museum of Modern Art of Medellin, the large Museum of Antioquia facing the Fernando Botero sculptures of the Plaza Botero (Medellin was Botero’s home town), or perhaps the Casa de la Memoria which remembers and reflects on Colombia’s years of violence and its victims.
Stepping onto a downtown street in the evening you will soon be among a swathe of fast-moving, fast-talking, best-dressing, latest-tech young professionals out to enjoy themselves and thrilled with the lives they can lead in this city. There are some spectacular bars to try and a huge range of restaurants for dinner – including a number that are world class.
Medellin is well worth as much time as you can give it. But you won’t want to miss the places around it. Historic Santa Fe de Antioquia, mentioned earlier, is very little changed in the last 200 years, and is a lovely place to escape to. You will want to explore one or more of the region’s coffee haciendas. The gaudy village of Guatape attracts locals out at the week-end, with the option of climbing 740 steps to the top of its enormous ‘El Penol’ rock.
Flowers would be a natural thing to expect in city of eternal spring, but this is Medellin. Here, growing and showing flowers is competitive and over-the-top. The annual Medellin Flower Fair every August is a ten-day extravaganza culminating in a big parade, the Desfile de Silleteros, where hundreds of growers march the streets carrying on their backs the biggest floral displays they can manage. It is huge fun: there is music, they dance, there are prizes, and there is plenty of laughter.