19/05/2019 – Communa 13, Medellin, Colombia

We got woken by a very loud church band practice next door, it is Sunday so it usually means church and otherwise a pretty slow day in Colombia, a lot of things are shut. We had hostel breakfast and then sat in the lounge to do a bit of planning. We moved rooms today as someone had booked ours, into a little double with an en suite. We got up and walked down to the metro and went to San Javier station, where we grabbed a coffee. A lady started speaking to us in Spanish and was telling us how she lived in this area and how she wants to move to England, she was really friendly! We met our tour guide Leonard outside the station to begin our guided walking tour around Communa-13.

Our guide Leonard,

Communa-13 is the neighbourhood in Medellin that we went over in the cable car yesterday. It has a violent and difficult past (it used to be one of the most dangerous places in the world) but has been reformed with the cable car and some outdoor escalators that have improved social mobility and opportunities.

Outside Escalators Communa 13.

We got shown around the area and told about its history. It was a lively vibrant place, and it is clever how they have used tourists to inject money and jobs. We saw bullet holes in the walls, covered with beautiful commissioned graffiti.

Actual bullet holes in this wall.

Graffiti everywhere!

We saw houses made from wood and salvaged materials, as well as sturdy and proud bricks and mortar. We saw kids dancing and singing for money and we were smiled at and welcomed by the locals. We even went into the first home that had been transformed into bricks and mortar, and met the lady who had lived in the house throughout all the wars and violence, and still lives there today!

Inside the very first house in commune 13.

The guides rules were only to not pet the dogs as they might bite, and to not give money to the kids as apparently parents are sending the kids out to beg and the kids now don’t want to go to school as they can earn money from hustling the tourists. I did at one stage feel a child stand very close behind me and a hand brush up past the netting in my raincoat on one of the escalators (it was actually an armpit vent and not a pocket). Josh, on the other hand, got stopped by the dance group who had spotted his camera and asked him to take a load of photos for them. They took his instagram details and by the time we were home he had already been asked to send them over. Good opportunists if you ask me! Josh sent them over and then was asked to whatsapp and email them too!

Break Dancers.

Medellin has been voted as one of the most innovative cities in the world in recent years and it is because of this that the area has been able to be turned around so quickly. Our tour guide lives in Communa 13 and just a year older than me. The stories he spoke of, stuff that had been happening as recently as 2002, were so shocking and it is mad to think that while I was living carefree aged 12, the people my age here were suffering unimaginably and have seen so much violence in their lives. Our guide spoke of parents’ throats being filled with petrol and set alight alive in front of the kids by guerrilla groups hijacking their houses amidst war against police and military groups. If these walls could talk!

We went to a café in the area for a break from the rain, then we all got taxis a short way to Leonards dads bakery where we had sweet pastries.

Leonard serving us from his Dad's bakery.

Afterwards he took us a few doors down to his house to show us where he lives and we met his wife. He dropped us off at the bus stop down the road, which we caught to the metro, then the metro to our stop, ‘Prado’ and a 15 minute walk to the hostel. We went to the supermarket and got some groceries so we could cook fajitas in the hostel for dinner and started watching Narcos on Netflix, it is so good and so relevant for us now, really nice to recognise places and relate the history we had been told about earlier today.