I feel like I've been over-blogging lately, but I didn't bring a journal and there are still things I want to write down so I don't forget, so I'm going to blog them. This post has videos, though, so if you are experiencing blog fatigue and feel unsure about whether this one's going to be worth reading, just scroll down to the videos. If those are meh, just skip the rest of the post - no hard feelings.
Sunday, September 4
After such a full day on Saturday, I wanted to relax on Sunday. I slept in, and then used the internet/Google Maps to help me find some top coffee places. One of them -- the top rated one -- was waaaaay off in another neighborhood so I opted for the one within walking distance, Cafe Revolucion. It was a beautiful sunny day. I got an iced latte and a chicken panini to enjoy while I read Wild by Cheryl Strayed and everything was delicious. During this time at the cafe, it occurred to me that it might be nice to have some kind of short but meaningful intention/affirmation/prayer type thing to refer to when I need some motivation or inspiration during my travels -- something to put my mind and heart back in the place where it needs to be for me to draw meaningful insight from these experiences and evolve with greater strides into the version of myself that has the most to offer the world around me.
Any ideas? Maybe I'll start by googling "travel quotes" and see if anything resonates.
I'm forgetting what I did all afternoon, but at some point in the early evening, I was making my way down Avenida 33 toward Pueblito Paisa (an old, old tiny little plaza on top of a big hill where the views are supposed to be beautiful and there are lots of places to just sit and relax surrounded by lots of greenery). I passed by a group of guys and one of them said something to me, and I figured it was just some random cat-call-y thing, so I just kinda gave one of those "oh, you" smiles and head shakes and kept walking. However, one of the guys got on his bike and caught up to me, and said he wanted me to come back and hang out with them, and didn't I want to get to know them? (All of this was in Spanish, btw) I said "oh, thank you, but I'm actually just going to Pueblito Paisa - maybe I'll see you all on my way back, though," and then he offered to come with me. I figured that would be fine -- he didn't seem like a dangerous person at all, and it was a chance for me to connect with a local, which I want to do more of. So Victor (that's his name) and I walked up the hill to Pueblito Paisa, and I loved it. It was beautiful, quiet, and serene, and the views were truly spectacular. This video was taken with my iPhone, and it's not the best quality, but hopefully you get the idea.
There was some blog I'd read that said to skip Pueblito Paisa because it's overrated, and go hang out in Parque Poblado instead. I am so glad I did both, because I 100% disagree with that assessment. Then again, the blog was geared toward telling people how to live like a local, and I guess in that regard, it makes sense. But the thing is, being a local somewhere does not mean you're doing the coolest things the city has to offer; in fact, I'm pretty sure it's the opposite. From now on, I'm not going to worry about "living like a local" and I'm going to make an effort to see the tourist-y things, as lame as that may sound, because those are actually the things that can tell me about a place's history and what makes this city different than other cities. When you "live like a local" you just do the same things you'd do back home -- you make coffee, you go to work, you go to a bar after work, you come home and have dinner and watch TV. Why would you do that routine while you're traveling? I get that it's helpful to know where local people hang out as opposed to heavily tourist-populated areas, especially when you want to meet and engage with locals. I suppose I'm just feeling a bit skeptical of the attitude I had before, which was that in order to have more "authentic'" experiences traveling and to get a true feel for a place, to get a sense of what it would be like to live there, I need to just do what local people would do and skip the tourist spots. I don't think that anymore. I'm still going to make an effort to meet and spend time with local people wherever I go, but I also think that among people who have limited time to soak up a city, tourist destinations are popular for good reason most of the time. Obviously, when I lived in Seattle, I didn't hang out at the Space Needle or Pike Place Market, but I would absolutely recommend those places to people who hadn't been there yet. I think as long as seeing these touristy places doesn't get in the way of meeting non-tourists/backpackers, it's totally fine.
Anyhow, after Pueblito Paisa, Victor invited me to have a beer with him at a bar on the same block as the AirBNB, which I accepted. It seemed that he knew every other person that walked by, and he introduced me to each of his friends. We talked about music for a bit, and he asked me to write down on a piece of paper some of the bands or artists I liked. I wrote down ones I thought he'd recognize: Frank Sinatra, Ray Charles, Marvin Gaye, Bon Jovi, AC/DC, Amy Winehouse. He took the piece of paper to the back of the bar, and the next five songs they played were Livin on a Prayer, It's My Life, Highway to Hell, Back in Black, and Rehab, and we sang along to all of them. It was a very sweet gesture. I'm just surprised at how well-known American music is in other parts of the world, but I'm grateful to be able to use it as a way to connect with someone.
Monday, September 5
Today I had two destinations I wanted to get to:
1) Pergamino, the #1 coffee place in Medellin that was too intimidatingly far away for me to try to find on Sunday
2) La Esquina de la Ricura, located in Plaza Minorista, which was mentioned in two separate blogs/websites for having the best Sancocho de Bagre (fish soup)
Since I have all the time in the world, I decided to just walk to Pergamino, which would take a little over an hour (or two, if I realistically take into consideration all the wrong turns that are bound to happen). The walking route took me along high-traffic streets and several blocks' worth of auto/motorcycle repair shops, which made for very gas-fumey air and not the scenery I was hoping for. However, I found it! And it turns out that Pergamino is super close to Parque Lleras, so everything in that area was beautiful and inviting -- adorable cafes, cute boutiques -- THAT is the kind of neighborhood I wanted to walk around in for an hour. Needless to say, my latte was the yummiest, and so was the Argentinian-pie-crusty style empanada that I had with it.
After Pergamino, I made my way down to the Poblado Metro station and used my pre-loaded Metro card to board. I knew I needed to get to the Industriales stop, and then transfer to the L1 bus, and then take that to the Minorista stop for Plaza Minorista. I almost did it flawlessly -- I just missed the Industriales stop the first time (it came up so fast!) so I had to turn around and backtrack one stop to get to the transfer station. Anyway (I can't believe I'm giving details about my bus transfers, so sorry everybody -- just because it was a proud moment of conquering public transportation for me does not mean it makes for riveting storytelling), I made it to Plaza Minorista, and that place is CRAZY TOWN. It is like an enormous, five-story warehouse where you can buy wholesale produce, used clothing, housewares, meats, plants, and even animals (see video below). There are very small restaurants in there as well, but I couldn't find La Esquina de la Ricura for the life of me. I had no idea whether I even got close. That place was a fascinating, high-energy, mad house maze and it defeated me.
I took the bus back to the Industriales stop, which I believed I remembered Jesus saying was the closest to our AirBNB. From there, I made a series of educated (and lucky) guesses about how to get back to the AirBNB, and just in time -- I got caught in a thunderstorm for the last 10 minutes or so.
Still curious about Sancocha de Bangre, I looked up seafood restaurants nearby and found a place on Google Maps called La Isla, only about a 20-minute walk away. I got to where it SHOULD have been, but it was not there. No sign of it. So I opted for tacos at a Mexican place instead and I have zero regrets about that. (But that should come as no surprise. Does anyone ever regret getting tacos?) I also ordered a drink called "The Mexican" which I thought was a cocktail but it was three different things served in three different shot glasses: lemon juice, tequila, and sangrita (NOT sangria... as I thought originally). I drank them all, but I'm sure I was missing some special method for what order to do it. I asked the server and he seemed to say the order was lemon juice, then tequila, then chase with sangrita, so I did that, but I missed whatever special effect that combination is supposed to have on one's tastebuds. Oh well. Margarita next time.
After dinner, I went back to the supermarket and bought two enormous avocados and a dozen eggs at the grocery store so that for the next several mornings I can do that "bake an egg inside an avocado" thing for breakfast. It doesn't work very well with the small avocados we have back home, but I have really high hopes for these ones. They are the size of mangos. BIG mangos. It's going to be amazing. (Does it seem like I talk about food a lot? I just realized how often food drives a lot of my experiences here.)
Daniela invited me to join her to go to the Museo de Arte Moderno (modern art museum) tomorrow morning, yay! I'm looking forward to getting to know her better and practicing some conversational Spanish. I'm up to 40% fluent according to Duolingo, but there are so many reasons why that is just not accurate at all. If people had Spanish subtitles next to them when they talked, I might be able to function at a 40% fluency level, since I do pretty well with translating written phrases and sentences; I just have a hard time understanding and processing the spoken words as quickly as people say them. I wonder what it will feel like when I get to 100%. At this rate I am definitely going to be 100% Duolingo-fluent by the time I leave Bolivia (the last Spanish-speaking country of the trip), but there's no way I will actually be fluent. I will still add that 100% fluent status to LinkedIn, obviously, but you and I will know the truth.