Medellin has a crazy history!
Between the final of century 19 and beginning of 20, roads, coffee production, golden extraction, art, music and literature, brought a very interesting cultural, political and economic reality to the city. For many decades, it was a big metropolis providing proud to its residents.
Due to the disorderly growth, Medellin suffered a civil war (1945, I guess). Later, from 70’s, the mob dominated everything over there and created many problems. Pablo Escobar and his “friends” made Medellin the cocaine commerce’s world capital and the city with the biggest rate of homicides in the world. Couldn’t be worse.
The city survived, started over with big constructions, good public transportation system, parks, museums, libraries, efficiency urban policies, arts, tourism and today is one of the safest cities in Latin American with lovely and friendly people living there.
Why am I sharing it? Because once there, walking around parks or over the fancy buildings from 19 century, you can feel the proud that the city has about itself due to this capacity of start over and renew itself leaving behind the sad part of its history. This is amazing!
By the way, here is a tip: nobody there is proud of Pablo Escobar, ok? You don’t need to talk about him there. If you want to start a conversation, you can talk about their famous coffee, safety, textile industry, etc. You also can talk about Fernando Botero, a great artist born and raised in Medellin! One day I may write a post about him. Meanwhile, I’ll leave you with a picture of Botero Square full of these cute chubby sculptures!
xoxo
P.S.: I’m not historian, teacher or whatever. All the information that I shared on this post and on the future ones are results of my travel searches. I have a bunch of notes and references. Searching, I learned about the places I’ve visited. And then, I organized all of these notes to create this blog. Mistakes, exaggeration, or chronological disorder need to be forgave here, please. Moreover, remember that you can share your experience as well. It is more than welcome!