This morning, after much discussion of plans, we set out to catch a train into downtown Medellín for a bus tour of the city. On the train ride, I took this picture out the window, of the Medellín river, and houses on the hillside:
We got off the train at the Universidad station, by the Universidad de Antioquia (w) (Antioquia (w) is the region, or "Department" of Colombia that includes Medellín) and the Parque de los Deseos (Park of Desires, or Wishes). There we met up with Vicky:
...and her guide dog Lola. Vicky is another friend from Terry's Hispanic Guide Dog users group.
We had a long wait for the tour bus to come rolling by. While we waited, I wandered around and took pictures. There was a planetarium:
...an interesting sculpture, called "Las Siameses":
...and this sculpture, which appears to be of the Moon:
Eventually, the bus came:
...and we were off on our tour. It was in Spanish, of course, but our guide knew some English and attempted to throw in some English narration... alas, with limited success.
Our first stop was at a sports complex... unfortunately, I never got its name. But I took pictures of the handball stadium:
...a display of national flags, presumably of nations that have participated in events at the complex:
...and a closeup picture of a map of the complex:
The next stop was the office building of Empresas Públicas de Medellín (Public Utilities of Medellín) - which was actually more interesting than it sounds. It's an "intelligent building," meaning that its heating, ventilation, air conditioning, lighting, etc., are controlled by an automated system. It also has several pretty yellow butterflies decorating its exterior:
..and this fountain out front:
The building also looks quite impressive at night, when it's lit up with green lights. I didn't get a picture of that,
but here's one I stole obtained from the Internet:
Next, we drove to the top of Cerro Nutibara, where we visited Pueblito Paisa. This is a tourist attraction that purports to be an example of small country villages in the Antioquian region - in fact Pueblito Paisa means "little country town." As tourist attractions go, it's rather cheesy, but we did find a good restaurant there. Since there were six of us, we ordered "Picada para seis," which turned out to be a huge platter of mixed steak, chicken, arepa (a flat corn cake, smaller and thicker than a tortilla), potato, yuca (cassava), morcilla (blood sausage), chorizo (another sausage), and plantain (like a banana, but starchier and not sweet). Even for six of us, it was still way too much food.
Here's a picture of Pueblita Paisa:
Note the bright colors. I'll have more to say about them on a future page. In the meantime, here's a picture of the view from the top of the hill:
You may have noticed in that picture, and in the earlier picture of the houses across the river, the prevalance of pink stone. We were told that Medellín is sometimes referred to as the "Pink City." It's also called "City of Eternal Spring," due to its climate.
After lunch, we got back on the bus. Actually, it was a different bus - the Turibus is one of those "hop on / hop off" tours, and we had hopped off when we stopped for lunch. The guide on the new bus didn't speak English at all, so I didn't get much from the rest of the tour. But as usual, I took pictures:
A little bit of home...
...and a little bit more
Christmas in October
Large shopping complex
At one point, we passed a small bus that might have been a school bus, and some of the kids noticed me looking out the tour bus window, and waved at me. I waved back.
After the tour was over, we took a taxi home. Terry and I had worn our jackets when we left the house that morning, but the day was warm, and we had both taken them off, so I put them in the taxi's hatchback. I also have a small canvas bag that I routinely carry on trips, to hold travel documents, my camera, and other stuff I might want to have with me, and I put that in the back as well.
You just know where this is going, don't you? When we got home and got out of the taxi, I forgot the bag and the jackets. When I remembered them, the taxi was halfway down the block. I took off running like mad after it, yelling "¡Señor! ¡Señor!" But it was no use - he was gone, and so were my things.
I was quite upset. The loss of the jackets was bad enough. And my money and passports weren't in the bag, and neither was my camera (it was in my pocket). But the worst thing was the loss of Trooper's paperwork. Colombia not only requires paperwork to get the dog into the country, it also requires paperwork to get the dog OUT of the country. I was afraid that without those papers, we might not be able to get Trooper home!
Eventually, though, I had an idea. The place where we had picked up the taxi to get home was a taxi stand where a lot of drivers congregate. Maybe, if I went back there, I could either find our driver, or someone who knew him. So I asked Andres - who fortunately was home at the time - if he would take me back there. He did, and Nati came with us. After asking around, we found a driver who remembered us, and knew the driver who had taken us. He called the driver, who came back, and ¡Gracias a Dios!, our things were still in the back of his cab.