Mon 11th 1951 Not a bad day overall.
Got up a bit after 6 despite feeling shit. Pleasantly cool out. Got Metro over to Caribe - minor fuckup changing at San Antonio and it seemed the only way to "fix" it (I followed the crowd and ended up on the wrong direction platform heading S instead of N towards Nuqui) was to dash through a B train which was just about to depart, but I did make it.
Got ticket last-ish minute at terminal norte (20k), made it OK and it wasn't really that last minute. Bus was nominally 715 but it actually left 725ish. About 2h to La Piedra (incidentally it is prob called this or El Peñon, sometimes with further adjectives, I have been calling it El Peñol but that is one town near it - and I didn't visit that town btw), asked driver to let me down there but prob unnec.
Walked up the steps/access road to carpark. Mildly needing piss I stupidly paid 1.5k at a restaurant at bottom only to find there are free toilets at the top. Meh. 25k to go up, not too bad. Quite a nice walk up, I did also want to test my fitness and did it in under 15 minutes which I think wasn't too bad (and I did sidetrack to look at "shrine" part way up and was following other people a bit). Bit cloudy/misty but views still very nice.
Definitely started to get busier over time, hardly deserted when I got there 945ish but fairly quiet and I am glad I went early.
I treated myself to a michelada de mango - nice enough but insanely priced at 12k, no idea if this is "top of EP price" or if it would be that expensive anywhere else. Also had two seemingly pricey "chunky frustum" style ice cream things - a bit like the one we had on last day of boat trip in Sapzurro - at 10k each.
Milked it a bit up there but it wasn't too excessive and it was quite cool. I kept telling myself not to get worked up about rushing back for swimming, in the end I checked the INDER website from the top and indeed the pool "near" hostel is closed Mondays, so I am going to make an effort to go tomorrow 8am. Oh, when I came into hostel tonight chap on desk was all chatty, told me hot water should be on in shower (I had no idea there was supposed to be any), said they hadn't seen much of me and I confirmed checkout 11.
Fingers hurting so have a break.
2002 Was trying to sort out accom for tomorrow and do Duolingo but network seems to be done.
I am incidentally a bit sorry to be leaving Medellin (but I still have a maybe-swim to go), but as always that's kind of good. It does feel right to be leaving now though - I am towards end of trip and rightly or wrongly don't want to piss time away, the social scene here seems (maybe I'm just missing it) to have died since early 2020, I've got the two things I wanted to do done and as it's very much the kind of place I am likely to come back to, it's good to have left a few things (like maybe a daytrip to Santa Fe) for anothet visit. I quite like the city as a city, albeit it's still a smidge warm for me during the day (but not terrible), but without all the social stuff from 2020 it isn't the same.
View from top is cool and the amazingly fractal-ish lake with all the islands is strangely charming.
I walked down - interestingly on a different parallel staircase which feels a little subterranean and damp at points - and then down the other route to the road where I'd been dropped off and got a bus to Guatape (3k) no fuss. Guatape is attractive and colourful (though it's a bit grim on the shoreline, perhaps due to low water level in the lake) but at least the central bit seems massively touristy. I wandered a bit, saw cannabis beer on sale (but enquiries/sneaky menu reads before I came home showed all craft beers - not just this one - are like 20-25k for a 330ml bottle in the two bars I tried, so fuck that - when I can have a pint in BBC for 16kish this feels like a pisstake, and I'm seriously not that bothered about trying the cannabis beer, the taste might be interesting but that's all, I'm pretty sure it has no effect other than regular alcohol as otherwise I'm sure it would be illegal and if it *did* have an effect trying it before a 2h bus trip and then metro probably not ideal), was toying (despite pizza overdoes) with going to Luigi's as guidebook made it sound good and cheap but afaict it's no longer there, but I had a pretty decent casado-ish menu of the day at El Rosal for 20k+2k tip, and I used their toilet on general destroyer tactics basis.
I then meandered down to malecon and the whole boat trip thing felt decidedly unappealing and "where the fuck is it and where is everyone?" but a tout approached me and told me 20k and showed me some pictures and in the end he pointed me over to the muelle and I walked over myself across the dirty-ish exposed pseudo-sand and joined a tour (all the others seemingly colombians) which spent an hour on the lake and had various houses of celebrities I'd never heard of and ex-Pablo Escobar and his mates properties etc pointed out but it was kind of cool (and we got to see La Piedra from the lake and the cross which I think guide said marks the spot of the old church, and the nearby doctor's house who was murdered by one of his 27?? children for his inheritance but it turned out none of the children were registered officially so no one inherited anything, or something like that - tour was in Spanish and I got the gist but it wasn't easy with noise and driver's accent).
I then wandered round and asked about beer but didn't have one and got bus back. I bought a ticket and didn't give ID, turned out there's enough demand my ticket was for the next bus not the one waiting (only 5ish mins in it) but a young woman called Charlotte wanted to wait a bit so the guy who was checking tickets swapped mine with hers and I got on that bus (I asked if the fact it say Charlotte - no surname - on ticket would be an issue and guy said not, makes a change from my usual alias Steven British anyway) and semi-luckily got seat 19 which was up front in the passenger seat in the driver's cab. It was cool to see out of the front but it also lacked legroom and by end of 2h15mish journey my knee was hurting a bit. I also fell asleep a bit during the first hour, perhaps due to it being warm up there or just general tiredness. (If I had had beer, cannabis or otherwise, I would doubtless have blamed that, but the only alcohol I'd had all day was the michelada at 11ish and that wasn't very big, tbh I rather doubt I even got a full 330ml bottle of beer given the smallish plastic glass had big chunks of presumably mango in, which I did eat using the cocktail stick in the one huge chunk.)
Traffic bad-ish but we did get into bus terminal maybe 1800ish and I got metro back (had to top card up first) as I did on arrival. Would have been nice to try electric bus line O which goes direct between terminal norte and Floresta but I had noticed when eating phone battery had declined rapidly (bad luck? lots of photos? no idea) and it was like 10% at this point and it was getting dark and I wanted to get back so I didn't fancy hunting it out in terminal norte or risking ending up somewhere unknown at far end.
I had a tinto and a slice of marble (?) cake at Masapan - the place by Floresta metro I've been a few times - as a pseudo farewell. I spent ages in Vaquita dithering about buying snacks and/or soft drink for tonight but in the end I was strong and realised I wasn't hungry and still had a couple of bananas left and walked out without buying anything, then came back to hostel.
I will write about onward travel later once i've booked something, fingers also massively pins and needles from writing this. well, thumbs mainly.
2126 OK, finally booked something in Jardin. Got a private room in a small apartment for with luck COP135k inc taxes for three nights. Cheapest dorm was about 90k. Some dorms were 135k. I do slightly worry this will be bad for socialising but tbh a lot of the hostels seemed to have suspiciously large amounts of dorm availability for tomorrow; there may have been literally one or two beds sold in some of them, if that. And I couldn't pass up the private room with excellent reviews and it is possible I will be able to meet people somehow. As I say just because something is a hostel or a dorm doesn't automatically guarantee meeting people or even people *to* meet.
2231 OK, moving towards bed. Not packed as such but at a pinch I just need to shove everything in and make sure I don't leave anything behind. Vaguely edgy re swim tomorrow (is it gonna be cold? will I drown? etc) but ffs ignoring temperature it has gotta be less stressful than the sea swimming/snorkelling I've been mucking about with more recently.
There's some crap re asking for an access code for new accom when I'm "nearly there" but meh, half expected something like this and I do have a local SIM and can prob message from the bus etc.
Will send this now.
Got up a bit after 6 despite feeling shit. Pleasantly cool out. Got Metro over to Caribe - minor fuckup changing at San Antonio and it seemed the only way to "fix" it (I followed the crowd and ended up on the wrong direction platform heading S instead of N towards Nuqui) was to dash through a B train which was just about to depart, but I did make it.
Got ticket last-ish minute at terminal norte (20k), made it OK and it wasn't really that last minute. Bus was nominally 715 but it actually left 725ish. About 2h to La Piedra (incidentally it is prob called this or El Peñon, sometimes with further adjectives, I have been calling it El Peñol but that is one town near it - and I didn't visit that town btw), asked driver to let me down there but prob unnec.
Walked up the steps/access road to carpark. Mildly needing piss I stupidly paid 1.5k at a restaurant at bottom only to find there are free toilets at the top. Meh. 25k to go up, not too bad. Quite a nice walk up, I did also want to test my fitness and did it in under 15 minutes which I think wasn't too bad (and I did sidetrack to look at "shrine" part way up and was following other people a bit). Bit cloudy/misty but views still very nice.
Definitely started to get busier over time, hardly deserted when I got there 945ish but fairly quiet and I am glad I went early.
I treated myself to a michelada de mango - nice enough but insanely priced at 12k, no idea if this is "top of EP price" or if it would be that expensive anywhere else. Also had two seemingly pricey "chunky frustum" style ice cream things - a bit like the one we had on last day of boat trip in Sapzurro - at 10k each.
Milked it a bit up there but it wasn't too excessive and it was quite cool. I kept telling myself not to get worked up about rushing back for swimming, in the end I checked the INDER website from the top and indeed the pool "near" hostel is closed Mondays, so I am going to make an effort to go tomorrow 8am. Oh, when I came into hostel tonight chap on desk was all chatty, told me hot water should be on in shower (I had no idea there was supposed to be any), said they hadn't seen much of me and I confirmed checkout 11.
Fingers hurting so have a break.
2002 Was trying to sort out accom for tomorrow and do Duolingo but network seems to be done.
I am incidentally a bit sorry to be leaving Medellin (but I still have a maybe-swim to go), but as always that's kind of good. It does feel right to be leaving now though - I am towards end of trip and rightly or wrongly don't want to piss time away, the social scene here seems (maybe I'm just missing it) to have died since early 2020, I've got the two things I wanted to do done and as it's very much the kind of place I am likely to come back to, it's good to have left a few things (like maybe a daytrip to Santa Fe) for anothet visit. I quite like the city as a city, albeit it's still a smidge warm for me during the day (but not terrible), but without all the social stuff from 2020 it isn't the same.
View from top is cool and the amazingly fractal-ish lake with all the islands is strangely charming.
I walked down - interestingly on a different parallel staircase which feels a little subterranean and damp at points - and then down the other route to the road where I'd been dropped off and got a bus to Guatape (3k) no fuss. Guatape is attractive and colourful (though it's a bit grim on the shoreline, perhaps due to low water level in the lake) but at least the central bit seems massively touristy. I wandered a bit, saw cannabis beer on sale (but enquiries/sneaky menu reads before I came home showed all craft beers - not just this one - are like 20-25k for a 330ml bottle in the two bars I tried, so fuck that - when I can have a pint in BBC for 16kish this feels like a pisstake, and I'm seriously not that bothered about trying the cannabis beer, the taste might be interesting but that's all, I'm pretty sure it has no effect other than regular alcohol as otherwise I'm sure it would be illegal and if it *did* have an effect trying it before a 2h bus trip and then metro probably not ideal), was toying (despite pizza overdoes) with going to Luigi's as guidebook made it sound good and cheap but afaict it's no longer there, but I had a pretty decent casado-ish menu of the day at El Rosal for 20k+2k tip, and I used their toilet on general destroyer tactics basis.
I then meandered down to malecon and the whole boat trip thing felt decidedly unappealing and "where the fuck is it and where is everyone?" but a tout approached me and told me 20k and showed me some pictures and in the end he pointed me over to the muelle and I walked over myself across the dirty-ish exposed pseudo-sand and joined a tour (all the others seemingly colombians) which spent an hour on the lake and had various houses of celebrities I'd never heard of and ex-Pablo Escobar and his mates properties etc pointed out but it was kind of cool (and we got to see La Piedra from the lake and the cross which I think guide said marks the spot of the old church, and the nearby doctor's house who was murdered by one of his 27?? children for his inheritance but it turned out none of the children were registered officially so no one inherited anything, or something like that - tour was in Spanish and I got the gist but it wasn't easy with noise and driver's accent).
I then wandered round and asked about beer but didn't have one and got bus back. I bought a ticket and didn't give ID, turned out there's enough demand my ticket was for the next bus not the one waiting (only 5ish mins in it) but a young woman called Charlotte wanted to wait a bit so the guy who was checking tickets swapped mine with hers and I got on that bus (I asked if the fact it say Charlotte - no surname - on ticket would be an issue and guy said not, makes a change from my usual alias Steven British anyway) and semi-luckily got seat 19 which was up front in the passenger seat in the driver's cab. It was cool to see out of the front but it also lacked legroom and by end of 2h15mish journey my knee was hurting a bit. I also fell asleep a bit during the first hour, perhaps due to it being warm up there or just general tiredness. (If I had had beer, cannabis or otherwise, I would doubtless have blamed that, but the only alcohol I'd had all day was the michelada at 11ish and that wasn't very big, tbh I rather doubt I even got a full 330ml bottle of beer given the smallish plastic glass had big chunks of presumably mango in, which I did eat using the cocktail stick in the one huge chunk.)
Traffic bad-ish but we did get into bus terminal maybe 1800ish and I got metro back (had to top card up first) as I did on arrival. Would have been nice to try electric bus line O which goes direct between terminal norte and Floresta but I had noticed when eating phone battery had declined rapidly (bad luck? lots of photos? no idea) and it was like 10% at this point and it was getting dark and I wanted to get back so I didn't fancy hunting it out in terminal norte or risking ending up somewhere unknown at far end.
I had a tinto and a slice of marble (?) cake at Masapan - the place by Floresta metro I've been a few times - as a pseudo farewell. I spent ages in Vaquita dithering about buying snacks and/or soft drink for tonight but in the end I was strong and realised I wasn't hungry and still had a couple of bananas left and walked out without buying anything, then came back to hostel.
I will write about onward travel later once i've booked something, fingers also massively pins and needles from writing this. well, thumbs mainly.
2126 OK, finally booked something in Jardin. Got a private room in a small apartment for with luck COP135k inc taxes for three nights. Cheapest dorm was about 90k. Some dorms were 135k. I do slightly worry this will be bad for socialising but tbh a lot of the hostels seemed to have suspiciously large amounts of dorm availability for tomorrow; there may have been literally one or two beds sold in some of them, if that. And I couldn't pass up the private room with excellent reviews and it is possible I will be able to meet people somehow. As I say just because something is a hostel or a dorm doesn't automatically guarantee meeting people or even people *to* meet.
2231 OK, moving towards bed. Not packed as such but at a pinch I just need to shove everything in and make sure I don't leave anything behind. Vaguely edgy re swim tomorrow (is it gonna be cold? will I drown? etc) but ffs ignoring temperature it has gotta be less stressful than the sea swimming/snorkelling I've been mucking about with more recently.
There's some crap re asking for an access code for new accom when I'm "nearly there" but meh, half expected something like this and I do have a local SIM and can prob message from the bus etc.
Will send this now.
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