Mi Tierra Querida

When I was 21 years old I had many jobs. I taught high school; I waited tables; I taught a Spanish class at the local college. One of my jobs was as an ESL teacher for adults. It was a free class held at one of the local high schools in Newark, Delaware.  

It was there I met Maritza. Maritza was a Colmbian woman from Medellín, Colombia, a place I had not really heard of when I met her. She was a bit older than me, but looked young and had a young spirit. She asked if I would be willing to do an intercambio and practice my Spanish with her while she practiced her English with me. I agreed. To be honest, I was not a very good ESL teacher and the exchange was a bit more lopsided to my advantage. So in the end we became friends.

Over the years, life happened. Martiza lived in the states longer. I moved to San Diego. She came out to visit – thinking maybe she’d stay. She went back to Delaware. She married to a sweet American man and they had a child. I moved to San Francisco. She became a teacher’s aide. Her child started school. But she always talked about her querida tierra, Medellín.

For me, till I met Maritza, Colombia had been on the no fly zone. I could hear my father’s voice reverberating in my head, “Colombia Jennifah? Are you kidding me? What are you going to do – join a drug cartel?” And while my adventurous spirit often called me to the very places that made my father’s blood pressure rise, I too was cautious of Colombia, especially Medillín – home to Pablo Escobar, the famous drug lord of my youth.

When I traveled for the better part of the year in 2005, my boyfriend at the time was still wary of Colombia and Venezuela and didn’t speak Spanish and my father was ready to have a heart attack, so we forwent the northern most countries in South America for the much “safer” Ecuador and Bolivia. In the end, we fear what we don’t know.

So last month, when thinking about where I wanted to spend time during my next trip, my mind wandered to Martiza. It’s been years since we’ve been able to connect in person. Life happens as I mentioned earlier and I no longer spend the kind of time in Delaware that lets me visit all of my friends each time I go. But when I decided to book my trip to Colombia, I knew that my first trip had to be to su querida tierra, Medellín.

I arrived last night at almost 11pm after a 12-hour layover in For Lauderdale. Luckily the beach was close to the airport and I made the most of my day, but by the time I landed, I was exhausted and could barely keep my eyes open as the taxi driver wove his way from the Medellin airport the 45 minutes down, down, down into the city of Medellín, which despite the seemingly constant downhill, still sits at 4,921 feet above sea level.

I opted for a hostel in Medellín and upon entering immediately remembered why I have steered clear of them in recent years when possible. It’s not that I don’t like hostels. I do, or at least I think I did at some point in my life. But for those of you that don’t know me that well, let me explain. I am a paradox embodied. My family, friends and colleagues, if asked, will all tell you that I am, for all intents and purposes, an extrovert. I love to run into people I know on the street. I over plan my days – though I am getting better at that and I love to talk. That said, I also hate crowds and have always despised the swapping of battle stories that happens at the expo of every marathon or triathlon in regard to how many each person has done, their worst training story, their worst injury etc.

The same holds true for travel. I love to travel. I love go out on my own, find my way, off the beaten path when I can travel. I like to get dirty. I love to learn whatever I can of the language. Eat what I can of the local food (considering I am vegetarian – this can be challenging). Meet the local people. Try – despite my big, bushy, blonde curls to blend in and not just be yet another American. That said, I see the irony in this. It does not escape me that to go to these places I have always had to look in said  Lonely Planet or Rough Guide and that even though know those guides are online, there isn’t much in the way of pioneering and discovery happening these days. That is unless you are really willing to put yourself into a situation where you are going to a place that has never seen a tourist. And finding those places can be a bit of a challenge.

my little room in the hostel

But I digress. . . I had been avoiding hostels. Avoiding the ubiquitous, “how long are traveling? Don’t you hate having to go back? Oh, I am doing at least 6 months, maybe longer. I could never go back.” “You absolutely must try ____. You haven’t been to ______ if you haven’t tried ______.” Yeah, I know I am terrible. I am likely going to you know where for being a terrible, judgmental hypocrite. But there you go. That’s why I avoid other travelers – not always of course – there are those that you meet that you know that you’ll know forever and I have those in my life too.

Today I began my exploration of Medellín with a short run around the neighborhood where I am staying, el poblado. What I didn’t know about el poblado, which was recommended by another friend who had lived in Colombia was that it’s a relatively “posh” neighborhood. It doesn’t scream wealthy as you walk – or in my case – ran around the streets, but it is a very hilly place. Actually, everywhere I went today made San Francisco’s hills seem like a joke. So after 35 minutes of huffing and puffing around the few small parks in this area and some main thoroughfares, I gave up on the run and the strange looks I was getting from the commuters en route to work.

Here are some things I didn’t know about Medellín until I got here – there are over 2 million people living in the city which is divided into 6 zones and 16 communes, which are then divided into 249 neighborhoods. So one aspect of visiting Medellin that surprised me was the sheer size of the city. After my run, I headed down to the Poblado metro station and took the metro north to Acevedo. The metro is unbelievable. It runs above ground so you can see your surroundings and for less than $.75, you can get all over the 147 square miles of the city.

Once in Acevedo, I transferred to a metrocable – which was part of the 75 cent ticket and took a gondola up the mountainside past many of the comunas and barrios of the city. It was interesting to watch the metropolitan city fade into fewer paved streets, more humble dwellings til they became what looked like squatters homes on the hillside. The L line lets me off in Santo Domingo where I paid an additional fee to get on a second cable car up the mountain into a lush forest, leaving Medellín a dot on the horizon.

The metro cable leaves you at the entrance to Parque Arvi which has over 50 nature trails. I was told it was good to go with a guide, but the last guide of the day had just left and I would have had to run to catch up with them. The woman at the tourist desk waved her hand toward a group of people and my skin prickled. “Do you have anything you can do on your own?” I asked.

“Well you can go to this area called the picnic. It’s not recommended many of the trails since they are not well marked and you could get lost easily.”

I briefly heard my dad in my head, shook it off and asked for directions.

“Just head right at the restaurant and then walk on the road for some time. You’ll see the trail. There is a river and some nice water falls.”

“Perfect.” I thought.

While I am sure that the guided tours would have been more spectacular, my few hours of exploration of the park on my own did not disappoint. I headed right at the restaurant and walked up (yes this too was all hills!) an isolated country road. After about 15 minutes, I saw a large building with some armed guards and ignoring the cones on the road, I walked past them toward the men. One of the men, police as it turned out, directed me to the trail I had just missed and I thanked them and headed down a dirt path. I walked down for a while, butterflies crossing my path and yellow birds wishing me good luck. The trail was empty. After about 15 minutes, I came to a fork in the road. I didn’t see a trail marker, but there was a wooden board with no sign on it.

My gut told me to go right, but a small scrawled note on the bottom of the sign in white out read “this way” with an arrow pointing to the left. “Left it is!”

I headed left and saw a few more similar wooden boards and decided that these people were either very kind to guide me to the river and water falls, or they wanted to kill me. Either way I was going to find out. I walked for a few miles, seeing only birds, trees and butterflies The sun snuck in and out of a thundercloud and sent strange rays down into the forest that reminded me of a horror movie. I laughed at the irony of the fact that hiking alone in the states always scared me, but for some reason in Colombia, what made me nervous was my father giving me an “I told you so” lecture should something not fatal happen to me.

Ahhh, so it is true that you can grow up and become an adult, but you never stop being your parents’ children.

Here’s the spoiler alert – I didn’t die. And actually nothing terrible happened at all. I did eventually find the river and the very small waterfalls after hitting a section of paved road and asking a traveler walking up in the opposite direction. Parque Arvi has these great areas for family picnics complete with what looks like metal beds to rest in from all the walking. 

 

And after 10 miles of walking, I was ready for a beer, so I wandered into a little hut restaurant and met Gloria, owner and cook by the side of the road. She recommended an apostle, a local beer, which tasted like malt but refreshed the palate in the way only a beer after a long hike could. 

She recommended I go back to Medellin via bus through Santa Elena to get a different, more local experience, rather than returning on the metro cable. “Plus it will save you 2000 pesos1” she smiled as she told me this (This is essentially 67 cents so yeah, probably not the reason to do it).

The ride back to Medellin made my earlier cable car experience feel like a kiddy ride, as we hurtled through the mountains at breakneck speed around curves designed to go 15 miles tops. Passengers – seemingly all local – held on for dear life and I resisted getting out my camera to photograph the countryside and small villages in favor of holding on so that I could stay mostly in my seat.

One thing that I love about places outside of the US is that people live in the street. The sun had dipped low in the horizon as we came out of Santa Elena and made our way back to the beginnings of Medellin and the streets were full of children, men, women alike. People were everywhere – they ate outside, kicked balls around, rode bikes, held hands, laughed and walked everywhere. Everywhere I looked there were motos, cars, buses, bicycles and laughter.

We ended our bus ride on a street I had not seen before, but from my estimates I could walk back to el poblado. Night had fallen, but it was only 6:00 in the evening and the streets in this neighborhood, that I later found out was Bombona, were full as well. I made my safety checks on the wallet and the phone having just recently learned my lesson and headed down calle 40. Every street seemed to be named calle 40 or 41, so I hoped that my map skills and my sense of direction would serve me well to get to the metro station at Parque Berrío. Part of me just wanted to stop for another beer, an arepa or join a group eating together at one of the street vendors, but I had had a full day and I figured better to end on a safe and positive note.

As I came off the metro in el poblado, I knew just which way to head to get “home” to my hostel. Indeed la tierra querida de mi amiga Maritza had treated me just like one would have expected a querida to do.