today we met up with our fantastic guide from yesterday and she took us on a tour of the city.  Medellín is in a valley, and the population is 2.5 million people.  the valley itself, which is made up of 10 cities, has a total of 4 million people.

if you drive here it feels like you’re driving with 4 million people, let me tell you.  the battle between the buses (which there are a phenomenal amount), taxis, cars, motorcycles and pedestrians is mind-boggling.  the lack of road rules or lack of rule observance makes driving, and riding, a truly a harrowing experience.  i’ve never seen anything quite like it. evidently there is no shortage of organs available for transplant here due to the amount of motorcycle accidents that happen daily.

we took the Metrocable (they call it a cable car, i’d call it a gondola) up to the top of the city, which provided quite the valley view.  the cable car was installed for the people of the mountain area, so they could get better transportation up and down the mountain. previously it took one hour for a bus to take people up the hill.

when our guide was in grammar school, this mountain area was under the rule of Pablo Escobar.  she shared with us some stories about what it was like in Medellín during that period. i feel very blessed that i haven’t personally had to live though something like that, i can’t even imagine what it was like. it seems that although he died in 1993, it’s only now the people are beginning to live more freely, peacefully and can breathe easier.

there is a lot of building happening in the city, which is kind of amazing when you see the big view, there isn’t a lot of space to build. houses are being sold and torn down and buildings are going up in their place.  a lot of very tall narrow apartment buildings, when you look out over the valley it’s a sea of structure.

there are improvements being made as well.  by the end of 2018 they’re trying to have all the buses run on natural gas, they are building water treatment plants at each end of the river and creating greenbelt areas.

other sites visited today were Cerro Nutibara y Pueblito Paisa, Botero Square Sculpture Park (pictured below) and the Jardin Botanico de Medellín.