I arrived after a day of traveling non-stop to the main bus terminal of Medellin (pronounced Med-eh-jean with a slight softness to the J) exhausted and ready for sleep. Due to the poor road conditions, try as I may, there was just no way to get any sleep on that bus. When we arrived it was already quite dark. First thing to do… Find a hostel for the night!!!
I know, I know… one of my odd quirks about traveling is that I’m quite the procrastinator when it comes to actually booking anything ahead of time, including places to sleep! While for the most part, it’s never actually a problem, on this particular night I was really kicking myself that I didn’t have a place already picked out! But to give myself a teeny bit of credit, I really wasn’t expecting or planning for the trip there to be quite as long as it was to begin with.
In any event, luckily there was still an information booth open at the bus terminal, which by the way was quite large and modern. It took up several stories in fact, and after stopping to get some cash at the ATM (since I’d spent more than I planned to on the way down, paying twice for a bus ticket and all) I went to the info center and looked through their book for hostels nearby. I quickly found a couple and since the person at the info station said they weren’t far, I opted to walk…
It’s really quite a good thing that the reputation of Colombia isn’t at all what the reality is, since in my pursuit to find the hostels I was literally wandering around random neighborhoods in the dark by myself with very few others around except random people passing by and a few drunks… Basically what I came to find out after wandering around was that the first hostel that I was trying to find was actually no longer where it was advertised to be. Imagine that…. And funny quick story, at one point because I was so tired of walking in circles, trying to find the hostel that no longer existed, I went to a street that was pretty busy, hailed a cab, and when I showed him the address he said “no, no that’s just down the street, you can walk!” and refused to take me as a passenger!! This was of course before I realized that the address was incorrect to begin with…
So there I was, randomly wandering the streets in some random area of Medellin, when I finally came across a guy that was dressed in some sort of security outfit. He looked as if he was just getting off work so I flagged him down and asked if he knew of any hostels in the area. Thank goodness he did!!! And he was so happy to inform me that it was in walking distance… YAY… MORE walking!!! I was overjoyed! 😉 But Thank Goodness he at least knew which direction to point me in. Angels come in so many different forms:) With his guidance I was able to finally find a hostel. However… my night apparently wasn’t over yet as the hostel did not have ANY availability for the night!! YAY!!! (hopefully the sarcasm is coming through as I was SERIOUSLY done with this night!!!)
Thankfully again however, the hostel reception guy was able to contact a sister facility and they did have space available. The only clincher was that once again, I had to walk there… At least during the time that he was calling the other hostel I was able to take off my pack for a few seconds and just chill. Several minutes later though I was back “on the road” and walked about 20 minutes to the other hostel, which was conveniently located just a couple blocks back from the main street of Medellin!
After settling in the hostel, I joined the street for some food then passed out for some much needed rest!
On to Medellin Activities & Pictures
Ramblintraveler 