Fact file
The once-notorious Colombian city of Medellin has been transformed into a hotspot of creativity, writes Stanley Stewart.
Twenty-five years ago, Time magazine dubbed Colombia’s Medellin ‘‘the most dangerous city on Earth’’. Drug lords lived like princes, judges and policeman were regularly assassinated, paramilitaries invaded neighbourhoods and ordinary people disappeared overnight without trace.
Even 10 years ago, Medellin was a ‘‘bad-ass town’’. Violence reigned, civil society had been destroyed and noone seemed to know how to put Medellin back together again.
Fast-forward to the present and Medellin is a delightful place of lawabiding entrepreneurial folk. With an economy that is among the fastestgrowing on the continent, it is one of the great success stories of Latin America.
In 2013, Medellin was hailed as ‘‘the most innovative city in the world’’ by the Urban Land Institute, brimming with creative ideas for urban living, like the Ecoarbol, a treelike structure that acts as an air-purifier, and the spectacular Orquideorama for growing orchids. In Barefoot Park, passers-by are encouraged to discard their shoes to wriggle their toes in pebbles, mud and soft grass before soaking their feet in pools of water.
I asked my guide, Julian, what had happened, how Medellin had gone from gangs and gunfire to Zen-like experiences for bare feet.
‘‘Public transport,’’ he said. It was a moment before I realised he was serious. ‘‘Don’t laugh,’’ he chided me. ‘‘The metro was the beginning of all the good stuff. It was like a bridge to a different world. We suddenly realised that things could change. It was the beginning of a revolution in Medellin.’’
Traditionally, Colombia’s second city had a reputation as a savvy and entrepreneurial place. But in the 1980s and 1990s those business smarts made Medellin the leading supplier for America’s cocaine habit.
At the head of its drug operations was Pablo Escobar, king of the cocaine lords, who was eventually gunned down by American-funded paramilitaries on a Medellin rooftop in 1993. It was also one of the front lines in the battle between the government and Farc, Colombia’s guerrilla movement. Medellin became the world’s murder capital.
So many people in this city have suffered, and Julian was one of them. His father was left close to death in a shooting when Julian was 8. Several of his closest friends never made it to adulthood. There were moments when he talked of his own experiences, of the friends he had lost, when he needed to stop and compose himself. Tears were never far away.
Medellin’s pain has its own monument – the Casa de la Memoria, the House of Memories. On the interactive walls are digital timelines with documents, newspaper reports, and film clips.
Most moving of all are the dignified video testimonies of people’s experiences, of years spent searching for lost sons and husbands, of time spent fighting for the return of a box of ashes. It was the sheer scale of the suffering that eventually drove ordinary people to reclaim their city from the guerrillas and the drug lords.
Medellin’s transformation, of course, is part of a larger national revival. After decades of civil war, Colombia has been born again.
Young people who went overseas for education and work during the bad years have come home in droves, bearing an international sophistication and an entrepreneurial energy.
But in Medellin – where public projects helped instil a sense of pride and where ordinary private individuals simply turned their backs on the old ways – the renaissance has been more dramatic than anywhere else in the country.
Today, Medellin feels reborn. It helps that the setting is gorgeous. The city lies in a long valley between two Andean mountain ridges. Capital of Antioquia province, a fertile region famous for its coffee plantations and its flower farms, for its orchids and butterflies, it is known as the City of Eternal Spring for its idyllic climate.
Everywhere you turn there seem to be new things happening. I was wowed by the wide modern esplanades of the Parque de los Desos, the Park of
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Staying there:
Most people base themselves in the leafy Parque Lleras area of El Poblado, an upscale residential district south of the city centre with a number of good hotels, restaurants and bars. The funky Charlee (thecharlee.com) has double rooms from around $250.
Patio del Mundo (patiodelmundo.com) is a charming new boutique property – stylish, light and friendly.
Eating there:
Visit Mondongos (mondongos.com.co) at No 38 Calle 10 for its bandeja paisa: a regional dish of beans, fried pork, maize buns, plantain and black pudding.
Alambique is a fabulous rooftop bar and restaurant at No 106 Carrera 41 – vegetation, salvaged materials, serious trendsetters, stunning food and a cocktail list to confuse and delight.
Doing there:
For the hottest dance moves, check out eleslabon (prendido0.wixsite.com).
Wishes, like an upgrade of London’s South Bank Centre with cafes and restaurants, lively concert halls and an interactive museum, the city’s university, a modern library, and an open-air cinema.
In the Museo de Arte Moderno de Medellin I headed for the new galleries of Colombian artists. In the botanical garden I followed boardwalks through tropical rainforest laced with orchids and bamboo, into secret corners of birdsong and green shadows.
At the metro, Julian was gratified by how impressed I was by the modernity and the cleanliness. He said the system had been rated as one of the best in the world.
‘‘I know it must seem strange, but when the metro was constructed in 1994 it was the first positive thing that had happened in this city for decades,’’ Julian said. ‘‘It gave us confidence.
‘‘With this metro, we suddenly realised things could be different, that progress and change were possible. In 1994, we needed to be shown that.
‘‘And suddenly it was easier to get