New Year's Eve Party Barge

Lumbering old barge with a bar, kitchen, bedrooms,bathroom, slide and jacuzzi - a perfect party venue!

Feliz Año Nuevo!

Forget champagne, wine or cocktails here - the only booze worth drinking is rum or beer. As it was New Year, we risked the 'fire water' called aguardiente, a white spirit distilled from sugar cane. You can have it with or without anis (aniseed), so we had it with, for digestive and medicinal purposes only. Another good drink is 'canelazo', cold or hot rum with water, sugar, lime and cinnamon.

Pablo Escobar´s house

Pablo Escobar, billionaire drugs baron, head of the most powerful cartel in the world, lived in this house on the lake when he was getting out of town. His trademark technique for dealing with authorities was "plata o plomo" meaning "cash or lead" which he said to any judge who refused his bribes. Note the lookout tower on the left where guards kept a 24-hour vigil. It was eventually bombed by his enemies / vigilante group / the CIA. This is all that remains of his holiday pad, reputedly his favourite.

Lake and town of Guatape

Guatape is a pretty lakeside town where visitors from Medellin come to spend weekends pleasure-boating and enjoying watersports.

La Penol rock

Filling up Dave´s speedboat ready for a whizz round the lake. The rock in the background is called La Penol which is the name of the neighbouring town, but the rock is in fact situated in the town of Guatape. An indignant local man decided to climb up it and paint Guatape on it so everyone would know. He was arrested before he could finish the job so only the 'G' and a bit of the 'U' remain. It looks like the GIs have been in town.

The zócalos of Guatapé

The zócalos have a practical use because the concrete reinforces the lower half of the building helping prevent wear and tear. Jesús Porras, a well travelled guatapeño, brought the idea of embellishing them with sculpures depicting everyday scenes back from Spain.

Town of Guatapé

A town with pretty colonial houses, a plaza and a red and white Greco-Roman church. It´s famous for its brightly painted skirting boards called zócalos which adorn the houses.

Guatapé

Evening cocktail cruise on landlords´s homebuilt boat

Anita´s intro to the area

Just arrived at a very scenic area east of Medellin where we´ve come to spend New Year in a house on the shores of the lake.

Mango's

One of the famous acts in Mango's is this dwarf dance - 2 midgets doing rap - they brought the house down.

The local Shakira-style Colombian dancers were sensational.

Parque de Botero

Fernando Botero, famous Medellin sculptor, takes his figures from Columbian society - drug barons, smug priests, autocratic matrons, dictators and prostitutes - and inflates them to ludicrous proportions in giant bronze. This plaza exhibits many of his pieces.

Mango's NIghtclub

The most famous nightclub in Medellín, we went there on our last night to see a spectacular show of dancers. It was like a huge country and western saloon with various stages and people dancing everywhere. It was great fun!

Medellin´s Metrocable

A symbol of the city´s renaissance, Medellin´s Metrocable is the first cable car in the world designed as a public transport system. This area was one of the most notorious slums in Latin America where drug trafficker Escobar´s army of assassins hung out. We rode the train and then the cable car to the top for a few pesos and were really impressed with how clean and efficient it was. It´s de-ghettoized the whole neighbourhood and people can now walk freely around in safety. However, we did see 2 young street vendors, in broad daylight, get out a wrap of cocaine, put some on the back of each other's hand and just snort it right there in front of us.

Our first day in Colombia

We had no idea what to expect but were pleasantly surprised when we arrived at our dear friend Dave´s penthouse apartment with panoramic views all over the buzzy, mountainous city of Medellín. It is known as the City of Eternal Spring.