After a longer than expected wait at the wonderfully well-appointed Bogota airport – complete with pet toilets – I was on my way to my new home for the next six weeks, Medellin.

Now we may as well deal with the elephant in the room right now. Yes it was the home of Pablo Escobar and yes it was around that time the most dangerous city on the planet. But things have changed beyond what many thought possible. Despite Netflix and others giving Escobar some loveable rogue notoriety and dope-washing his past to the point of Robin Hood status, I’m of the opinion that he deserves none of that. Anyone who would blow up a packed commercial passenger jet simply to try to assassinate a single person deserves nothing but our contempt. Yet obscenely there is a small Escobar industry in the city with tours and t-shirts. I really do wonder what the parents and kids of those many innocent people he murdered think of all that.

But onto more positive things… and here’s a question… what would be the best possible way for an exciting Colombian city to welcome you to their airport terminal? Errm… I dunno…. How about something related to music? The Colombians are always banging on about how good their music is… and you may as well give me some booze while you’re at it! …. BOOM! They only went and did it!!

As I gracefully descended the escalators to the baggage reclaim carousel, I could hear live salsa music getting louder and louder with a saxophone tune blasting out and reverberating around the concrete airport walls. Add to that a thudding bass drum, a crisp snare, and an infectious shaker, the party had clearly already started! Step forward a glamours marketing woman thrusting an oversized plastic shot glass in my hand ¿Quieres una bebida, señor?… thankfully my super-slick Spanish didn’t let me down “Si, Si, SI!!!” The concoction in question wasn’t much to write home about but as I stood awaiting my prodigal bag, swaying and foot tapping along with the rest of the mob, I new I’d arrived at my kind of town!!

Transfer to my accommodation was via bus and taxi and as the bus pulled back into the daylight out of the mahooosive tunnel that connects the airport to Medellin (the 2^nd longest tunnel in the whole of the Americas) I caught my first glimpse of my new home deep in the valley below. I real breathtaking and exciting sight.

Bags dropped, shower, quick change and up onto the roof terrace of my Air B and B. WOW! Drinking up the night skyline and chuckling inside to finally be here in beautiful 25 degree evening warmth [sorry to all freezing at home… yea I’m REALLY sorry…]

I’d deliberately chosen my location – Laureles – because it is one of the two main safe entertainment centres in the city. The other – Poblado – is where my school is located. It is also supposed to be the more Colombian of the two and a bit more chilled. Chilled it is not!

The minute I stepped out of my accommodation onto the main street, my whole body was hit with sensory overload. A hustle and bustle energy, the likes of which I have never encountered anywhere else in the world. Loud and frantic. The streets heaving with people of all ages, bar after open fronted bar blasting out all the latin styles – cumbia, reggaeton, dembow, tropical, boogaloo and salsa, always salsa. And when I say blasting, I mean blasting. To have a conversation on the footpath would be like shouting over the music in a nightclub. And everyone has their own music, I mean everyone. Obviously the bars, but also massive customised chrome and neon decorated party busses with 30 or 40 heaving inside, street food vendors with their pumped up speakers, handicraft sellers, off licences, corner shops, takeaways all bellowing their music straight inside your head.

I just had to sit down on one of the roadside bars and soak it all up, shaking my head in disbelief, laughing inside and out loud while I drunk my ice cold £1 bottle of beer… you heard me right.

And over two nights in a completely out of character move I managed to soak up the beer with actual food. A heartwarming local dish of: beans, plantain, chorizo, pork rinds, avocado, rice, pancakes and cheese – yes all of this, on night one. Whilst night two involved a super friendly street food vendor sitting me down at his cart, introducing me to his mum and feeding my face with delicious ribs, rice and vegetables.

Now apologies that there is a distinct lack of photos in this posting that’s because a) my old i-phone camera just can’t seem to handle neon lights well so not many came out and b) I was having far too much of a good time to think about the blog!

The following day I did a bit of exploring in the neighbourhood, a wholly different beast in the daytime. In the evening I pulled back from the mind explosion of the main drag and found some quieter bars in the back streets including a lovely tiny place where I got chatting to some friendly locals. Genuinely nice people with the patience to tolerate my barely passable tourist Spanish. So far the Colombians have welcomed me with open arms and I look forward to getting to know their points of view more as my Spanish improves (hopefully!).

On my last day in Laureles I walked to a nearby park and topped up my Cultural Capital by taking a taxi to the Museum of Modern Art. On reflection, my first few days in Medellin couldn’t have been any better. I have connected with a few locals and was fortunate enough to be located in the best place I have ever experienced in the world for number, variety and concentration of cool bars/restaurants/cafés. No wonder it was voted the coolest neighbourhood in the world in 2023 in a survey conducted by Time Out magazine.

Next stop Poblado and my first day at school, gulp!