Yaroslav had been lobbying me, Trixie, and Willa to visit Colombia for awhile, but it was on a lot of “unsafe for female traveler” lists and I still had some Narcos-esque preconceived notions that I applied to the country as a whole. After speaking to Yaroslav’s friend who had lived there for 3 months, Medellin actually sounded pretty amazing, though. I researched it a bit more, and while some places in Colombia may not be the safest, Medellin is widely recognized as being extremely safe. Once convinced, I then persuaded Trixie and Willa to get onboard, and we purchased tickets and started getting excited.

July 4th (Wednesday)

We arrived around 2 pm, took a taxi to the Charlee Hotel, and just freshened up and took about an hour to relax and enjoy the view. I cannot recommend this hotel more highly. It’s rustic, urban, and modern all at the same time. The views from the top of the hotel, as well as from our hotel room, were utterly breathtaking. The dollar goes fairly far in Colombia, but el Poblado (Gringolandia) is tourist-heavy and prices at restaurants and stores take that into account. We ended up exploring the area a bit. It was more like a tropical resort than I expected with wonderfully breezy, dry heat. You’ll probably need some sunscreen or a hat since Medellin is known as the city of eternal spring, but the lack of humidity was a nice surprise.

We ended up signing up with VIT tours (a 10ish minute scenic walk from the Charlee Hotel) for a day tour to Pablo Escobar’s mansion to play paintball, a trip to Guatape, and a hike up Piedra del Penol. After working out all the details, we went back to the hotel and ate sushi on the roof. The sushi was decent, but it’s the view that draws people. You can see the entire city cradled by the mountains, with a sea of distinctive orange roofs in the daytime or lit up at night.

 

July 5th (Thursday)

We got up early and met our tour group at the VIT tour location where we had signed up the night before. It’s about a 2 hour drive to the house that we would be paintballing in. Most of the drive is in a legitimate bus, and then you transition to jeeps for the steeper ride up at the end. They let four people ride on top of each jeep. I pushed my way to the front and climbed up with two Englishmen and a Dane. Sounds like the beginning of a bad joke.

The ride up to the house was hilariously fun, especially since the tree branches and tree leaves created a bit of an obstacle course for those of us on top of the jeeps. While my English friends were knocking the branches down for each other, my initial reaction whenever I saw a branch or a leaf sticking out was to duck, which resulted in my Danish friend getting whacked in the face a few times. Ah, well. We all made it in one piece by the end.

The tour guide was actually fantastic. He used Pablo Escobar’s history as a hook to get everyone interested in the story and then taught us all of the other things Colombia is famous for, such as coffee, certain types of flowers, bananas, emeralds, etc. He spoke English fluently and the trip turned out to be educational for us as well as fun.

We then suited up for paintball with full gear and guns. I ended up only playing 3 games, and then Trixie, Willa, and I cheered from the sidelines. One of the players on the other team started shooting us at very close range, and was a bit of a jerk when we called him on it, but such is life. At least now we have war stories and battle scars.

After the paintballing session, we were loaded onto speedboats and taken through some lush scenery from the Pablo Escobar mansion to Guatape town. Guatape was one of my favorite experiences of the trip. It’s a colorful and charming little town with lots to discover. The tour guide took us to the best coffee place in town, where we grabbed lattes, and then we were free to roam for about an hour. The souvenir stores are cute, but even the residential areas are stunning, just because of the varied decorations and colors of the doors compared to the street walls. We wanted to stay longer, but didn’t want to get left behind, so we made our way back to the bus after an hour.

Our next stop was Piedra del Penol, a really massive rock with 675 steps. There are no elevators here, so channel your inner Nancy Sinatra and wear some strong boots. I mistakenly thought 675 steps wouldn’t be that bad, but they’re more steep than the average step. Prepare yourself for a stairmaster on steroids.

Two aching calves later, I made it to the top. We had split up while getting to the top and reunited one by one. The view from the top is absolutely glorious.

Once we had enough pictures, we hobbled back down the rock and hopped on the bus. It was late by the time we got back to Medellin, but we were so impressed that we went back to VIT and signed up for paragliding and the Comuna 13 tour for the next day.

One of the VIT tour guides was nice enough to drop us off at Restaurante Hatoviejo for our reservations. As promised by a local, the concierge, and TripAdvisor, the food was delicious, and I loved the variety in drinks. I tried the coffee, fruit-in-milk, and mint lemonade. All were top-notch.

When we were finished, we ubered back to the hotel, and noted how ridiculous it was to decided to do paragliding at the last moment. Trixie had been willing to watch us and not paraglide herself, but we finally peer pressured her into it by leaning on her fear of missing out.

 

July 6th (Friday)

We woke up early for our private paragliding experience, and once again met a tour guide at VIT. We drove for some time and finally arrived at the paragliding location, where we met the owner of the company, fully-suited up and armed with friends. Trixie was practically hyperventilating at this point.

Yaroslav was up first. We pulled out our phones as they started strapping him in to all kinds of stuff. We received succinct but clear instructions: when the wind picks up and the driver tells you to run, you run. Otherwise you run the risk of rolling down and off the mountain. Thanks for the image, guys. Trixie turned around and took a few deep breaths backwards. All attention came back to Yaroslav. He gave us a thumbs up sign, which we took as the signal to begin filming. He smirked, dropped his thumbs up, and attempted to saunter his way over to the launching area. Too bad all the apparatus makes it impossible to look cool and you just end up waddling.

The wind finally picked up and we all held our breath, someone snapping a picture and someone with a live video—and he was running! And he was–SPLOOT! Down. At least there was no rolling or falling from the mountain. Just a determined tromp back up to the launch area. Somewhat less enthusiastically, we began filming again. This time, he went right up in the air. To the left, and then to the right, and then he got higher and smaller, and it was suddenly my turn as the next driver approached us. More nervous than excited for the first time since thinking about this whole thing, I trotted over to go through the same process of being strapped in. There was velcro, there were ties, some adjustments here and there. I just hoped it would all do what it was supposed to do.

Determined not to go down, when the driver told me to run, I ran for my life, still running in air when we first lifted off. It was exhilarating, with stunning views no matter which way we swung. The greenery and the beautiful cityscapes were well-worth the cost of admission. When we all finally landed successfully, Trixie said the same thing–it was one of the best experiences of her life and she was glad we peer pressured her into it. Willa, however, gets motion sick sometimes and ended up vomiting over the side of the paraglider just a smidge. Hopefully didn’t land in any residential areas.

The tour guide took us to a restaurant with a view on the way down, before we made our way to Comuna 13.