The Last Post

It's time to come clean - the majority of the posts in this blog were written about a week after the described events had actually transpired. In keeping with that precedent, I'll wrap up the final experiences of my trip from up here in Charlottesville, VA, where I recently began my first semester of law school.

So let's see...after the Lost City tour described below, I headed back to Santa Marta to nurse my various afflictions and mentally prepare myself for what I hoped would be another kind of superlative of my trip -- 8 more days in Medellin, Colombia. I hopped on a flight from Barranquilla (after yet another pre-dawn bus ride) to Medellin, touching down before the famous Feria de las Flores (Flower Festival) was to begin. For a little background, the Feria is an 8-day long (Aug 3-12) festival in Medellin, the largest of the city and the third largest festival overall in Colombia. They love it. Events carry on every day throughout the city, including lots of live music, an antique car parade, a horse procession, flower displays (duh) and lots of other cultural stuff. Additionally (and perhaps of more significance) the social atmosphere of the city is said to peak during this time, because of and leading to a major influx of tourism and very late nights for many.






This part of the trip was truly like a vacation. No more Spanish classes (although I spoke a LOT more of the language than in other cities, mostly due to the fantastic non-English-speaking patrons and owners of the hostel where I stayed -- Hostal Medellin), no mosquito bites, far fewer wild rabid dogs, just good times in a great city.


I could go on about this city. It has what could easily be described as a troubled past, and it's clear that its citizens have worked very hard to exorcise the ghosts of Pablo Escobar and the Medellin cartel from their city's image (and for that reason, I won't go much further into that topic here). The Paisas (as citizens of Medellin call themselves) were among the warmest, friendliest, and most fun people I met during my entire trip. Their city is clean, safe, and modern. It boasts Colombia's only metro system (which is a lot nicer than the Metro in DC, by the way), 5 or 6 universities (some for the uber-rich, some public) and a series of public-sponsored libraries situated in the "tough" parts of town that were a sight to see in their own right. Additionally, there's a major initiative underway to make the city "bilingual" - for example, all recorded announcements on the metro are first made in English, then in Spanish. To top it off, the weather is nearly perfect. It's called the "city of eternal spring" because the weather is so consistently pleasant.

I continued to be spoiled as one of the very few tourists around, which will probably not last for long. I saw my first South American soccer match, watching the champion team from Medellin called Nacional. The soccer stadium itself did get pretty out of control and was not the safest place in the world. Despite major security checks at the entrance, every time a player from the opposing team had a corner kick, 4 or 5 members of the SWAT team came out with large shields pointed toward the crowd to protect the kicker from malicious crowd-borne projectiles. Also, we were turned down a ride from a cab driver to the stadium because he was afraid he was going to get his windshield smashed in if he drove there. Luckily didn't see any violence - probably because the other team was pretty underrepresented.

For the next week, I lived the life. Met lots of great people and had a lot of fun. It was not easy to leave this place.








Sooner than I would have liked, it was time to leave. I ended up flying directly out of Bogotá to the States, and after one last overnight bus ride from Medellin to Bogotá (featuring a 3 AM rest-stop restaurant where they kept an ostrich in a pen in the back...why?!) my trip was quickly coming to a close.

I managed to schmooze my way to a first-class seat back to DC, a great way to ride back in style (and take advantage of the free drinks!)

And just like that, I'm back. Re-adjustment of course has been a bit of a challenge, but I certainly think I have very little to complain about and I wouldn't trade the experiences for the world. Thanks for reading!