Medellin, Colombia

After 6 days in Medellin, Colombia, we're making our first move South to Bogota, Colombia, where we'll stay with Kevin's brothers friend for a few days & explore Colombia's capital. As I write this, we sit on the 12 hour bus ride South, taking in the beautiful, green Colombian countryside, and reflecting on our first week in South America. It's been a wonderful & surreal time, and we know the trip will only continue to amaze and challenge us in different ways.

Medellin is a beautiful city with warm locals & beautiful sight seeing. The city was built in the valley of green mountains and has a metro that follows the main river. We stayed in Poblado near a plaza called Zona Rosa that has beautiful holiday lights hanging from the trees. The area is full of restaurants, bars, discotecas and local vendors, creating a fun energy that attracts both locals & visitors to enjoy a relaxing meal or to bring in the early morning hours with dancing, drinking & friends. We ended up staying at the Tiger Paw hostel where we made some great new friends with fellow travelers.

Pretty much every Colombian we've met has been incredibly warm, friendly and welcoming. We can feel their desire and urgency to share with the rest of the world that Colombia is so much more than its stereotypes of violence, drugs and danger. While those concerns may still be present, we gained a deep respect for the individual accountability each Colombian took in their desire to re-create the country's image and reputation, having pride in being Colombian and warmly welcoming visitors to their country. A local vendor selling jewelry in the plaza touched both of us when, while looking at his hand-made jewelry and speaking briefly with him, he stood up, got two hand-weaved braclets that had the colors of the Colombian flag, and gently tied them to our wrists saying it was a gift from himself to us, welcome to his country.

While we enjoyed both the company of fun, fellow travelers and warm, friendly locals, we also enjoyed exploring the city. We took a day trip up to a park at the top of Medellin, Parque Arvi, where we went zip lining in the rain and got to see an amazing view of the city from the cable cars. The zip lining was part of an extreme outdoor challenge where we harnessed in and we used ropes to climb, crawl, swing and balance across obstacles and zip line through the trees. It was awesome! After patiently waiting out a downpour of heavy rain we ended up having the adventure course to ourselves too! We meant to take pictures of this but forgot (something we're working on haha). We also visited Plaza Botero where some of Fernando Botero's sculptures are, and spent time in El Museo de Antioquia, which also had a large collection of Botero's work. There was a market in this area that we wandered around and got some groceries from. We visited the botanical garden and enjoyed their mariposas (butterflies) and also spent a relaxing afternoon at Pueblito Paisa, a tiny area at the top of a hill with colonial buildings, christmas decorations, a gorgeous view of the city and stores selling souveneirs and food.

We feel like so much as already happened and it's only been a week! We laugh at how this feeling will only become more amplified as we move weeks and months into the trip. So much ahead :) Each day is filled with wonder, curiousity, unanswered questions, and new thoughts, feelings, and people. We are loving the adventure & can't wait to continue forward.

We love & miss our family and friends, but are excited to have our first real blog entry to share! Thank you for reading & sharing this journey with us. We send our love & good wishes, and hope that as the holiday season becomes increasingly heightened, deadlines at work come up and finals are around the corner, you each take time breath, refresh and renew. In our short time here we learned that in Colombia they celebrate the entire month of December as a holiday in itself. We met a local girl out on Wednesday night and she said, "You know, I don't usually drink on weekdays, but it's December!" :)

May the joy of December find you wherever you may be,
Con Amor,
A & J