Day two of my quick trip to Colombia took place in Medellín, the Colombia’s second largest city after Bogota.

Medellín (Spanish pronunciation: [meðeˈʝin]), officially the Municipality of Medellín (Spanish: Municipio de Medellín), is the second-largest city in Colombia and the capital of the department of Antioquia. It is located in the Aburrá Valley, a central region of the Andes Mountains in South America. According to the National Administrative Department of Statistics, the city has an estimated population of 2.5 million as of 2017.

I started the day off with a graffiti tour of one of the city’s most notorious neighborhoods, Comuna 13. During the reign of Pablo Escobar in the 80’s and 90’s , this neighborhood was full of paramilitary and guerrillas loyal to the drug lord.

In 2002, the most pivotal event in the cities history took place in Comuna 13. The Colombian military carried out “Operation Orion” in the neighborhood.

The Operation Orion was a military operation carried out between the 16 and the 17 of October of 2002 by members of the Military Forces of Colombia and the National Police of Colombia with support from the Air Force of Colombia , in Comuna 13, zone 4 , Commune 13 San Javier of the city of Medellín . The operation sought to put an end to the presence of groups of Urban Militias of the guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the National Liberation Army(ELN) and the People’s Armed Commandos (CAP).

Since the events of 2002, the city of Medellin and more importantly the residents of Comuna 13 have turned the neighborhood around through art, music and community events. Hip hop has become the voice of peace in the Comuna. The city has moved public transit into the area and installed escalators to get up and down the hillside neighborhood.

While there is still violence in Comuna 13, the murder rate of the neighborhood and the city itself has dropped dramatically since the era of Pablo Escobar.

Our tour guide was a hip hop artist that lives in Comuna 13, he spoke with passion in Spanish through our translator Diego.

The graffiti around the Comuna all has some sort of meaning. There are a handful of artists that are allowed to create the art on the walls and buildings around the area. This ensures quality art, as well as a nice mix of styles from both male and female artists.

Tour guide joked that his favourite part of the tour was a visit to a famous popsicle maker in Medellin, apparently her popsicles have been entered in contests and she’s been on television numerous times. I figured for 1000 pesos, it was worthwhile to give it a try.

The verdict? Awesome.

We spent another hour or so walking around the neighborhood and looking at all of the murals, and it was really uplifting to see people and government coming together to better the lives of the poorest people.

The rain started to fall and the tour ended in the early afternoon. A quick walk back to the metro and it was time to ride the cable cars up and down the mountains surrounding the city.

I have a ton more photos to go through, so I may do a part 2 post on Comuna 13.

Now onto the rest of Medellín.

What the city has done the last 15 years to transform itself has been remarkable, and it all started with a state-of-the-art transit system. The system itself reminded me of Hong Kong’s with its light trains and gondola’s. Just like Hong Kong, the system was remarkably clean, thanks to a no food and drink rule while you ride. The city invested heavily in making the system accessible to the poorest neighborhoods in the hills by installing the gondola cable cars. A trip down to the city center that use to take hours for residents, now takes minutes.

I met some new friends on the tour through both Guatapé and Medellín and we decided to head out to dinner together and then go and take a salsa lesson. This is way outside of my confort zone, as I dance about as well as you can expect a tall white dude to.

I cannot believe how terrible I am at counting to 7 with my feet. There may be videos and/or pictures of my dancing skills, but it has been promised to me that they will never see the light of day.

I cannot wait to come back to Medellín and I’d have no problem bringing Caellum and Theresa here, it feels safe and alive.

Well done Colombia.