Things that were not immediately obvious to me

Editorial Note: In April, I took a month off in Medellin. For me, this meant an interesting and diverting month. For you, this means 30 days of posts about my vacation. I’ll try to make them somewhat amusing.

I’m amazed that Paisas ever get anything done at all. Medellin’s climate is perfectly conducive to massive laziness in two important ways.

Temperate

First of all, the air temperature is basically perfect all the time. Sure, late at night you might occasionally want a sweater or light jacket, and during the midday a little breeze and some shade might be nice, but, by and large, the temperature never makes you uncomfortable.

This is reflected in the architecture: Windows are very large, and central heating and/or air conditioning relatively uncommon. (They seem to be mostly employed in large public spaces in which artificial ventilation is mandatory in any case.)

In principle, you don’t need walls here; a roof is sufficient. (In practice, you see a lot of restaurants built along these lines.) So the climate wouldn’t have given the original settlers here a lot of impetus to build much of anything.

Humid

The second laziness-inducing climatological factor is the humidity. Medellin’s humidity isn’t the punishing variety you get, say, in New Jersey; in fact, if you’re just sitting around (or moving slowly) you probably wouldn’t even notice it. As soon as you begin to exert yourself, though, it’s buckets-o-sweat time.

So you’ve got a mild climate that doesn’t demand much of you coupled with a sneaky humidity that discourages all but minimal effort. (Also, the hilly terrain turns almost any activity into at least light exercise.) All in all, I’m surprised that Paisas aren’t the laziest people in the world.

For the record, they strike me as quite industrious.

Editorial Note: In April, I took a month off in Medellin. For me, this meant an interesting and diverting month. For you, this means 30 days of posts about my vacation. I’ll try to make them somewhat amusing.

In Medellin, I visited my first Hard Rock Cafe. (I did decline to purchase a T-shirt.) Now, most correspondents would have simply assumed that the place was a tourist trap and passed it by. I, however, am filled with love for my readers, and so elected to spend the time and money to verify that it was a tourist trap. (Also, it appeared directly in front of me coincidentally with the onset of hunger.)

It was pretty empty when I visited, which wasn’t surprising considering that the joint’s primary mission seems to be the introduction of the $10.00 cocktail to Medellin. I elected to drink a simple water, which turned into a bottled water due to my limited Spanish and the HRC’s untrammeled avarice.

The upside was a fairly reasonable steak, cooked to a proper medium-rareness. (Lots of places bump the “doneness” level by a notch; rare becomes medium-rare, medium-rare becomes medium, medium becomes medium-well, etc.) Not to be overlooked, the waitress was also cute, and tended to dance about the place in the most enchanting way.

Said waitress told me that the Spanish (or Medellin-specific) phrase for “medium rare” was “medio raw”, or a homophobe thereof. Note that I couldn’t independently verify this at the time of writing, so this could just have been a bit of tease-the-gringo fun. I suppose I’ll just have to get another steak elsewhere to check the information — truly my diligence knows no bounds.

The total bill came to 58,000 pesos, or about $29. This included $6 for an ice cream dessert (I’ve heard that ice cream is both very popular and absurdly overpriced here) and a 5,000 tip on account of waitress cuteness. I’m such a sucker. (Tipping is not much of a custom here.)

This puts the meat bill at just under 40,000 pesos. By coincidence, that was about what I’d spent the day before at a restaurant in the Oviedo mall. (The place was called Cafe le Gris, despite not seeming overtly froggy.) The mall place’s meat was vastly superior (two filet mignons, topped with mushrooms, served with potatoes, string fries, and some really tasty veggies), and you got real cloth napkins, as opposed to the HRC’s cheap paper approach.

Overall, I’d say that the Hard Rock Cafe was a bit more of a ripoff than I expected.

Editorial Note: In April, I took a month off in Medellin. For me, this meant an interesting and diverting month. For you, this means 30 days of posts about my vacation. I’ll try to make them somewhat amusing.

Topography

Medellin is really hilly. It’s built in a steep mountain river valley, which means that, as you move away from the river, you’re going to be walking uphill. Sharply uphill. For instance, here’ a little road I walk up when I visit the laundry to drop off or collect my shirts.

(Although you can’t really see it, there’s a pretty big creek running beside the road.)

Medellin Diet

In my opinion, Medellin is a great city to visit if you’d like to come back from your vacation a little healthier than when you started it. Here’s my three-part Medellin diet and exercise plan:

1. Get an apartment a bit away from everything
2. Walk everywhere
3. Eat meat

Simply walking to the grocery store becomes a nice little workout for your legs, and the 5,000ft altitude takes care of your cardio needs. If I could just figure out how to get a little upper-body work in for free, I’d be all set.

I arrived here feeling a little chubby, but the problem seems to be taking care of itself.

Treads

Here’s something interesting that you see on a lot of Medellin streets: a weird treaded pattern going down the center of the sidewalk. It took me a little while to work out what it’s for. Realization arrived during a thunderstorm: Heavy rains + steep hills + concrete == really slippery. These specialized treads have been added to the sidewalk so that you can walk around without cracking your head open. They work pretty well.

Editorial Note: In April, I took a month off in Medellin. For me, this meant an interesting and diverting month. For you, this means 30 days of posts about my vacation. I’ll try to make them somewhat amusing.

Medellin has two rainy seasons: September to December, and March to May. Actually, these are sometimes referred to as “monsoon” seasons. If you decide to wander around Medellin during this season without an umbrella, even if the sun is out when you depart, you may quickly find yourself a little on the damp side.

Medellin’s rainy season is different from that of California. In CA, storms move in and out over periods of days: It will be clear for a while, then rainy for a while, and each “while” will last somewhere between a day and several weeks. In Medellin, there are always storms around during the rainy season, and several of them may blow through in the course of a day.

I wouldn’t say that the skies ever exactly clear, but you can have sun, showers, drizzle, torrential downpours, and thunderstorms mixed together throughout a day, each appearing for 30 minutes to a few hours. On the one hand, it’s not monotonous, but on the other, it’s hard to make firm plans that involve exotic activities like “going outside”.

I was caught in a thunderstorm on my third day here, but my feet stayed warm and dry. Quite comfortable, in fact. And I can report that 5.11 pants do a remarkable job of keeping the contents of your pockets dry, even when they’re soaked themselves.

Editorial Note: In April, I took a month off in Medellin. For me, this meant an interesting and diverting month. For you, this means 30 days of posts about my vacation. I’ll try to make them somewhat amusing.

Colombians have an interesting take on the safety issue. On the one hand, when it comes to real, actual, physical security, they seem pretty cautious. Everything is gated and locked, and security guards are everywhere. (Interestingly, though, I can’t recall seeing a real cop yet … I assume they’re out there somewhere, but not in the tiny corner of Medellin that I’ve explored so far. It’s all private security. Yay free market.) On the other hand, when it comes to the nanny-statism of America, it’s like stepping back in time 30 or 40 years.

Drop

For some examples, let’s take a look around my apartment. Examine the window. I’d say it’s about 4′ by 5′, unscreened, and about 3′ off the floor. (There is an adorable little “safety bar” at 4′, which looks like it could support a good 5 or 10 pounds of weight. I think it was only added for the benefit of visiting gringos.) There’s absolutely nothing to stop you from going out the window except your own good sense.

Speaking of screens, let me pause for a moment to talk about a surprising aspect of Medellin (or the El Poblado section, anyway): The relative rarity of flying insects. I understand that other parts of the country are loaded with, e.g., mosquitos, but they’re not to be found here. There are lots of birds, but they don’t seem to come inside. As a result, screens are uncommon, even though open windows are the norm.

Anyway, back to the window and you. Here’s the drop … I’d say it’s about 8 or 9 stories, and definitely enough to ruin your day. I’d guess that there are very few Colombians with serious inner-ear or extreme silliness problems.

Railings

Danger also lurks indoors! Have a look at the stairs between the first and second levels. Notice anything missing? That’s right … no handrail. Come downstairs at night, feel groggy, stumble, and it’s an express ticket to head-trauma-ville. (Try to aim for the beanbags.)

It’s all quite refreshing.

Caveats

None of this is to say that the nanny-state is completely absent … there’re a lot of “no smoking” signs about, and there appears to be a helmet law in force. On balance, though, the effect is to suggest that the more real problems you have, the less time you waste on imaginary ones.

In closing, let me preemptively respond to a possible objection. You might think that I’m overgeneralizing from one small, prosperous enclave of Medellin. I’d point out that it’s not likely that people will grow less physically cautious, or that building codes will stiffen up, in less well-off areas.

Editorial Note: In April, I took a month off in Medellin. For me, this meant an interesting and diverting month. For you, this means 30 days of posts about my vacation. I’ll try to make them somewhat amusing.

Colombia’s government encourages tourism. Colombia will grant a tourist visa (up to 60 days) at the airport to any citizen of a country which appears on a very long list. Their customs form is short. (Albeit a little confusing: one of the questions asks whether the visitor is bringing any “goods of animal or plant origin”. I assumed they didn’t mean things made out of, say, cotton or leather, and checked “no”.)

Pat-Down

Still, Colombia does have some history with smuggling, and so customs checks people and luggage coming into the country. They x-ray the luggage, and do a peremptory little pat-down of the people.

What I found funny about the whole thing was that I was wearing cargo pants when I went through customs. And all my pockets were just crammed full of stuff. There’s some of it to the right.

Do you think the customs guy showed the slightest interest in what, exactly, all those pockets were stuffed with? Nope. Not a glimmer of interest. If I’d had $40,000 in $100s taped around my waist I’d have been screwed, but if I’d had a pound and a half of platinum in my pocket I’d have been (so to speak) golden. (Let’s not even get into gems. And as for drugs … I don’t want to play into hurtful stereotypes, but does “carrying coal to Newcastle” ring a bell?)

So, here’s my advice for anyone who wants to smuggle items into Colombia on his person: Pockets. Know them, use them.