The Art of Medellin

Medellin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medellin) used to be a war torn city during the dark days of Colombia's past. It's where Pablo Escobar came from. recently though it's undergone a fantastic transfromation and the place is full of artistic installations (every new building has to incoperate an element of art). the beststuff though, by miles, are the Botero (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fernando_Botero) sculptures that are dotted around the main squares in the centre of the city. If he's not the best artist of all time, he's certainly one of the funniest.

The city itself reminded me of Liverpool for some reason. Loads of naff shops in the centre, a fair bit of hassle off the poor and the night life was amazing. Apparently there are more fake boobs and bum (yep, loads of fake bums!) than anywhere else (although I've heard this claim made abotu hundreds of cities). so many plastic women, who, in my opinion, just look plain weird.

Looks a bit like me no?

a fat hand for Richard Thanki!

Pretty interesting story behind these - they are of the Pajaro, a fat bird, which litters Botero's art. One could conceive of them as a pigeon, or more so a dove, a bird of peace. In 1996 a guerilla bomb blew one up, killing a fair few people. Instead of taking the damaged bird down and making a new one Botero asked for it to be left and as it stands and made another to go next to it. It remains as a monument to the stupidity of what went on in the past.

Other good art is this big thing outside the government offices...

This cool building on the way up the cable car which floats over the national park just up the hill from the city centre.

And this field of 30m poles that reside in a large plaza in the centre of town where all the druggies hang out.

I also enjoyed these chaps who walk around with a plethora of mobile phones strapped to them hawking minutes so people can phone their friends. Seems to me to be needlessly reinventing the phone box into a mobile high hassle version.

Mud Volcano!

So this was a fun day! The mud volcano just outside Cartagena is basically a 28metre high mountain of warm mud. You climb in and can stand up completely straight in mud, it's warmer near your feet and there are Colombians in there who massage you before you get out and walk round to the lake where Colombian women clean you (after making you strip off completely naked). it's rather hard to move around, being as you are in a frictionless puddle of mud so the chaps kind of push you round like you're your own little mud boat. At one point I grabbed the side and submerged myself completely under the gooey stuff. Pretty weird experience.

Here I am! looking pretty sexy no?

and this is it. 28 metres of solid mud which they've turned in to a well funny tourist attraction.

Lost City destroyed feet

Cuidad Perdida (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ciudad_Perdida) is rather famous, its kind of like a less commercialised, less developed Machu Picchu in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sierra_Nevada_de_Santa_Marta). You have to trek to get there, no other way, and there are a fair few companies that run slightly different trips (although they all tend to join up). The most popular is a 6 day trip from the beginning, to the city and then back to the start again. I read that the trek is 20km and the 6 day thing didnt appeal... seemed too easy, i wanted to do the longer and much faster paced, harder, 5 day loop. At about 60km all in it seemed more worthy of the time and money. Long trip though.
So to prepare I went out and got well drunk... started the trek dog tired!

These flowers are a strange thing, apparently the nectar from them can be harvested and is often thrown into people's face on buses and the like, rendering the recipient of the liquid confused and disorientated. People are often robbed whilst in this state and are unable to put up a fight, and are left with nothing but a hazy patch of memory.

Good to see people working to rebuild the environment.

This was about 3 hours into the first day, when all was rosy (although some large hills had been sweated over). Didnt expect to find a cheese vendor.

Really very pleasant on the outskirts of the jungle proper.

A traditional house.

A fine path to walk down no? Look how dry it is, look how wide, look defined! Little did we know...

I really love these tree, especailly from a distance. Green expanse punctuated by (to my colour blind mind) a grey tree.

The crystal clear water in a beautiful cooling jungle stream, through which you can see my feet... in fine condition.

I beat everyone at Gin Rummy (well Ricardo and Ginger anyway...). It's a very good game (KJ stands for "King Jack").

This is how far we've come as a species - watching South Park in the middle of the jungle off a little tiny screen, by candle light.

This is the Lost City proper and the start of the 3rd day. Things started well, with a leisurely (well not leisurely but comparatively leisurely) walk to the city up 1300 very steep steps.

Now I'm not too sure how they worked it out, seeing as the culture from the people that lived in this city are all gone now (bloody Spanish and an interesting story which I shan't recount here), but we were told that the way they choose a new Shaman (leader of the community) is pretty pretty good. They bascially locked two new born boys ina dark stone hut for the first 15 years of their life, during which time the residing Shaman teachs them wisdom, leadership and how to identify food/plants/herbs in the dark. At 15 years of age the two are then released and a choice is made by the villagers as to which one will be boss. The loser is then sacrificed with the winner having to drink their blood. The new apprentice Shaman is adjusted to life outside and eventaully takes over the village. His privileges include not having to work, sitting on a throne and having to copulate with any woman who is marry the night before her wedding ceremony.

This is the sacrificial stone.

A few years back a load of tourist got kidnapped by Paramilitaries, not the FARC but some other group. 8 years ago the whole area was no go for the unarmed, hence to keep the peace there is a constant military presence. The boys (their average age is about 20) spend 4 months solid sitting in the Lost City doing various menial jobs. They do also have a little water powered generator and satellite TV so I'm sure they survive okay (they knew about the champions league scores from the night before).

The gardener was cool and was dress like something from a horror film.

This is the main part of the city and the best kept. The rest is in amongst the trees, so although its pretty large it doesnt lend itself to photographs in the same way that Machu Pichu does.

After we left the Lost City all went a bit wrong. I had some soup which for some reason made me sick to the absolute bottom of my stomach, repeatedly, we left the main path to complete the loop and found out that our guide hadn't done the route for 5 years. We duly got completely lost, crossed some rivers... GOT WET FEET, and kept on climbing the wrong ridges which lead nowhere, and we then had to descend them again.

After a few hours of this, and at about 4pm (it gets dark at 6.30) we found the path. The guide told us it would take about an hour and half to get to the camp, I thought he might be under-egging it but we carried on anyway. I was sick a bit and then the rain started, and after an hour and half we got to the top of the ridge, only to be told we had to descend for about an hour and then climb for another. It was chucking it down, it went dark, we had to descend a brutal hill, which was about 100% mud. I abandoned hope of cleanliness and jumped down (good knows what horrors I rolled through), accompanied by Eddie, who at one point I was sure had broken his arm. The rest of group had sever difficulty, everyone fell (except Ziv), the group got splintered, we didn't have enough torches, people were coming down in the dark. The two girls, Nanou and Yoanna literally gave up and sat down half way down the hill and had to be coaxed to move further. It was pretty horrible. We eventually regrouped at the river at the bottom. Their were strong calls for us to give up and sleep next to the river, in the rain as the water rose, which had to be diplomatically negotiated around ("are you mental? we'll die!"), and we set off up the climb to camp. In the dark. In the rain. With only 4 torches. It was bad, but we kept spirits up by singing and being idiots. It was so muddy and steep and insects everywhere. Luckily no-one got seriously injured, and after about 2 hours we reached camp, pitch black, to be confronted by the family that lived there completely unprepared for us. Everyone had cuts and bruises. My feet looked like those of a dead man. We ate, hobbled around, got scared that we still had 2 days left and went to bed.

But when we woke, what a view! Almost, almost, made it worth while... Especially the toilet with no wall that looked over the jungle.

Good book mark in the visitors book eh?

This is where we'd stayed, the view above was just outside.

The very hospitable family that put us up, after we turned up basically without any warning. Apparently a few years back the president turned up on a helicopter and visited them. For the views, at least, I can understand why.

The next day was arguably worst. Everyone was carrying knocks and bruises and cuts and i could not get my feet even approaching clean and dry, they were starting to rot. Which the guide found very amusing.

But then we were in the jungle and some of the sights were wonderful. Mainly you cant see anything but trees but then things turn up that make you happy, or slightly less desperate to escape.

This massive snake skin could only have been shed a few minutes before our arrival. So we poked about in the bushes for a while looking for it. Probably not the wisest but it had clearly snaked it off as it heard (do snaked have ears? maybe it felt our footstep vibrations) us coming.

The last day things got a bit better. Everyone was so pissed off with being in teh jungle we went quickly, and although it was pure uphill the paths were better, dryer. Spirits were high(ish) and we made good progress.

As we broke out of the jungle into the semi-farm land the views back to what we'd crossed were pretty good, made us realize where we'd been.

I don't know why this young lady looks so unhappy - she's on a bloody mule! Easy street!

The end. Thank fook.

And sorry about these but look how fooked my feet were! Wore flip flops for the next week.

That's just not natural.

The group... before the horror. Left to right Ricardo and Ginger (who left after 2 days and missed the horror), Tomer, Ziv, Yoanna, Silviu, Ed (in front on Silviu), myself and Nanou. Good group people, great to meet you all.

and here are the survivors (minus Ed) at the end eating our food. there in teh background is our guide, Freddie, who despite getting lost on day three did some heroic shit to sort us out. running up and down hills, carrying other peoples bags, falling down hills, and especially cooking even after marathon days.