e I crashed around 10:30 last night-I awoke really early. I was showered and ready to goat 6:30 am-not that I knew where I was going. All I knew is I had (A) 2:19 walking tour of Medillin scheduled, and (B) a pub crawl later on.
So at that obscenely early hour in a new city-I walked around-and nothing was open-I did find a Dunkin Donuts for breakfast, and had a dark coffee and crossaint. I then walked down the hill to look for the Metro-couldn't find it, and walked down the road looking at gardens, and buidlings. This is a very mountains city, and the air is cool and clean.After what seemed like an hour, I found an outdoor mall, and stopped, and had more breakfast. I also checked out my map, which is a checkered map with lots of squares indicating which district you are in. I figured with all the walking I did, I must have walked through at least 5 squares-I was wrong-only 2 (with a little bit in the second), so I didn't walk long at all.
I continued walking. I found a tourist information booth, and inquired about a tour of the countryside for Friday. Then I walked down a down a hill, and finally found the Metro. It was a clean but crowded train, and I took the line to what looked like Downtown. I walked amongst great scupltures, beautiful churches, and pedestrian malls.
Finally, I went on the walking tour. It was fascinating.
Juan, the tour guide told us
- Medillan, because of it's location in the mountains, was settled by the Jews and settlers from Europe after the Spanish Inqusition-because it would be hard to attack folks who are surrounded by mountains.
- Coal and coffee we're the main industries.
- The drug trade develeoped in the 1970's, and our tour guide grew up with it. As a matter of fact, he was shot going home from school twice because of the trade.
- The new leadership, invested in a subway system, new art downtown, and largley eradicted the trade. An artist named Fernando Botero made scupltures with exaggerated features (giant torsos), and donated many to the city.
The tour was roughly 4 hours long-then I went back to the hostel, took a nap, and went on the pub crawl, which once again I am way too old for.
i returned about midnight and went to bed.
