D-day: Touch Down, Medellin

Two bad news hit me when I landed at the Medellin airport. 
 

First, Mandela was in a critical condition.  It's a shame that I don't know too much about this great man besides as a character in a motion picture "Invictus," but it was enough to respect him.  I wished he condition would improve.




The second bad news was that American Airline lost my checked in bag.  It took a while to file a claim and when I finally got out of the airport, the clock hit 10pm.  In other words, no bus to downtown.
 

As this trip was all about meeting new people and interacting with locals, I warmed up myself by asking random stranger to share a taxi ride downtown, as it was costly (60,000 COP).  I met two Irish law students, who just passed the first round of the Irish bar exam.



They were so lost - seemed quite unprepared for this trip as they were rushing for the trip right after their exam.  Even though our hostels were 1km apart, I decided to be dropped off at their hostel and walk to mine as I didn't want to pay extra for the separate drop off.
 

A BIG MISTAKE.  I thought the streets of Baltimore would have immunized me but the streets of major cities in Colombia after dark was as bad.  Almost every block was secured by high fence and barbed wires and streets were dead.  I practically jogged to my hostel.



I finally got to El Poblado district, the "Gang Nam" of Medellin, where my hostel is located.  Contrary to where I walked it was very crowded

Restaurants, bars, clubs, or whatever you need to fire up the Saturday night is here.  Probably due to the humidity and heat, all these places had open walls, and streets are extremely noisy.



While some are having apocalyptic parties, the others are working hard.  And honestly without the traffic control, it will become apocalypse.

 

A parking assistant.  Instead of parking meters, these assistants manage parked vehicles.

Having starved the whole day, I headed out after check-in at the hostel.

 

Even though El Poblado is a safe area, most stores kept their cashiers barricaded, especially if they sell alcohol.
 

 

 
And there, I had my first meal in Colombia: Empanada.  It is similar to deep fried potstickers, except dough was thicker and 10 times more greasy.

I came back to the hostel and hang out with other back packers.  There I met with a few Israelis.
 

They were retired military officers (another reason to dislike them) backpacking South America for 6 months.  Most of the time, they talked about all the Colombianas they hooked up and how desperately the females are looking for foreigner males to escape Colombia.  They showed me the text that Colombianas had sent.  Many of them included how much the Colombianas love and willing to marry these guys.

No judging but it's was a sad to see throughout my trip in Colombia that some male backpackers take advantage of Colombians, who are willing to hook up as a means of escaping from Colombia. 

I hate to generalize but I hoped not to run into another Israeli for the rest of my journey...