Medellin Week Two

Coming to you live from a bar watching the men’s Canadian soccer team lose to the wafflemakers.

Life comes at your fast here so there is a ton to catch up on.

I had some other crazy stuff happen to me in the past week, again, only half of which can be discussed. Let’s dive in.

I’ve been paying mostly with card here, only using cash when they don’t take card, so I only have to make the treacherous walk from my house to the atm like once a week.

Last Wednesday I took some money out from the ATM and headed to a restaurant for dinner. When the bill came to pay, I realized my card was not in my wallet. Uh oh. I left it in the ATM slot. F***.

Normally when I lose my card/wallet it’s while being intoxicated and/or unlucky. This was completely my own doing which the only reason I was pissed off. I expected to lose my wallet at some point so I have a plethora of back-up bank cards and ID’s. I just didn’t expect it to happen after 5 days of being in the country and for it to be by own fault. Whatever, let’s figure it out. I look at my bank app and see that someone tried using the card at a bar in a sketchy area that I wasn’t too far from. I head there and grab a seat and start eyeing the other tables to see if anyone has my card. No luck. Then I start approaching each table and asking if they saw a very distinctive looking green card. Still no luck. Then I go to the waitress and ask if anyone came in trying to use a green card. She thought for a second, and she suddenly perked up and told me to speak to the manager. The manager told me someone came in and tried using it. It was the police. Classic. Turns out, the manager knew the policeman personally, so he called him for me and he came and for like 30$ I bribed my way back to my card. Feeling like the luckiest guy in Colombia, I headed back home to avoid risking ruining this great moment.

The next day, I went out with Nathan to the sketchier part of the city called Parque Lleras. We paid cover to go to a high end bar in the area and when we walked in, it took less than a second to realize the kind of place we walked into. We were the only guys there surrounded by 30-40 gorgeous Colombian girls dressed to the 9’s. All prostitutes. Damn.

To avoid looking like b****es we grabbed a couple drinks while fending off the advances of the bombshell money girls. Next bar, was the same. So was the bar after that, and after that.

We called it a night and when I got home I realized I was wallet-less. Someone must have picked it because I was feeling for it every few minutes well into the night. I tried recounting my steps, checking my banking app to see if someone tried to use it, but lightning doesn’t strike twice in the same place. Let alone two days in a row.

On Friday Nate and I both set up dates so we did our own things that night. Girls in Colombia are super flakey. It’s not just me, everyone I talk to things the same. I figured out that to best assure you don’t end up getting stood up is to set up 4-5 dates for the night, of which you can be almost sure 2-3 will cancel. And then you just pick which one you actually want to go out with.

The Saturday we woke up and headed off to what the locals call the Pablo Escobar tour. We had a guide come pick us up and the first stop was the “jail” that Pablo built for himself when we was apprehended. At the time he was arrested, the jail he was in was referred to as Club Medellin. And it’s clear why, this place was a mansion with sports facilities, a personal chef, and tons and tons of cash. One of the interesting things about this place was that it was positioned high up in the mountains so that you could have an unobstructed view of the airport. That way, with a telescope, Pablo was able to see all the planes that landed so he could continue running his operation or know to escape when we saw American planes landing.

Our tour guide named Fabio was an absolute beauty. We had a good 5 hours to spend with him so we got to know each other super well and he taught us not only about Pablo Escobar’s life, but also Colombia, the politics, the cartel, and his personal life.

After the jail, we went to the cemetery where he was buried along with his family. The OG Drug Cartel Queen aka Black Widow was buried in the same cemetery - Griselda Blanco.

The last part of the tour was where I could imagine most vividly the scenes of the events that took place there. This was a visit to the house where Escobar was killed. He was hiding out here and a police officer recognized him through his window. A fleet of police cars and helicopters arrived at the scene and open fired on the house. He tried escaping through the back but realized quickly he was surrounded everywhere and only had his main hitman with him as backup. The story is that he was shot dead by police in the house pictured below. But the autopsy revealed that he had a bullet hole right under his ear, which is where he said it is the best to shoot yourself to commit suicide because it's soft tissue and the quickest way to the brain. This is pretty convincing evidence that he killed himself when he realized there was no way out as one of his famous sayings: "I would rather be in the grave in Colombia than in a jail cell in the United States".

I knew nothing about the Escobar story coming here. Apparently the Narcos movie is very accurate if you watched that. But this tour is a must-do if you ever go to Medellin. For being the most notorious drug leader in history, some of the things that stand out are his kindness towards his community and even his victims. As well

Saturday night rolled along and I was having serious FOMO (fear of missing out) from not being at the Bad Bunny concert in Medellin that Dan and Daraab were at that night. The whole city collapsed. Traffic was mayhem with people going to the concert, there was no vacant Airbnb, hotel room, or hostel dorm available in the city because everyone flew from all over South America to see this concert. Easily the biggest regret of our trip is missing this even though I don't like concerts.

We went out that night but the lines were so long everywhere and the good clubs were filled to the brim with people coming back to the concert so we ended back in prostitute central where we met some American guys and kicked it with them the whole night.

The next day we had a tour around noon to visit a Colombian coffee farm on the outskirts of the city. I don't like coffee. I don't know anything about coffee nor did I want to, but I felt like I had to do it because if I still can't enjoy coffee in the coffee center of the world, then I'll know for sure that it's not for me. At the start of the tour we actually thought it was a great idea because we were hungover from the night before and needed a pick-me-up. The problem is that they pumped us with 5 cups of coffee over the course of the tour and with my tolerance being so low, I could not sit still or take in any of the information being presented to me. They also made us dress up as coffee farmers and go pick coffee beans. So I pretty much paid money to do their job for them.

So what is my verdict on coffee after having some of the supposed best in the world? Still sucks in my opinion. And if you drink enough, you can actually feel your soul escaping your body.

The Sunday night I was prepared to stay in to heal my body, but Nathan, leaving Tuesday, insisted we go out. We were joined by Dan and Daraab so we had a final boys night out with Nate.

The next day was the last one that I was going to see Nate because he had an early flight Tuesday morning. As someone, who had never worked remotely from another country and frankly, not well versed in the art of travelling, I asked him what his perspective of this lifestyle.

He had a good insight into the fact that the two weeks he was here he met new people, had new experiences, and saw new things almost everyday which made time move a lot slower than life back home. The decisions that seem mundane back home like what should I eat today, where should I go for a walk are filled with a lot more potential than back home like the opportunity to see a new place or meet new people. Something I think he knew but didn't say was that the openness to new experience kicked into overdrive while he was here. Every day he wanted to try a new meal and when we went out we wanted to try different clubs. When he's in Toronto, the questions of what do I eat or where do we do out have many different possible answers, but we all usually end up getting similar meals or going out to a bar or club we've already been to a million times.

All this makes time seem to flow a lot slower and allows you to appreciate the smaller things and I think that at the end of the day this is what Nathan was getting at. He was doing similar things that he did back home like work, eat, go for walks, party, etc. But he took the time to appreciate the little things that most of us consider as everyday things, which made his days seem a lot richer than normal. Another phrase for this is being more present.

It doesn't take a keen eye to notice that people here live their lives this way normally. They live a lot simpler lives but appreciate every little thing and that leads them to being a lot happier in the long run than guy who lives in a penthouse and spends his week working 12 hour days and waiting for the weekend.

To make a short point even longer, I'm not saying throw away all your possessions and go live in a straw hut. Just take time to appreciate the little things.

My buddy Jack is coming to Medellin tomorrow and getting his own place for a week. I reckon some crazy stuff is going to go down this next week.

Stay tuned

-MS