Day 176 : Medellin

I am sooooo exhausted after spending the whole day walking, probably over 10km! 

Palacio de La Cultura

We first visited Palacio de La Cultura, a really grand and interesting building architecture in the heart of the city, housing some art and photo exhibits, before heading over to Plaza Botero (remember the big fat bird sculpture in Boat Quay?  It is sculpted by Botero, a Colombian!).  

In this square, housed many outdoor exhibits of Botero's sculptures, all in his distinct voluminous style.

Plaza Botero

Posing in front one of the many Botero sculptures at the square!

Next to Plaza Botero was the Antioquia Musuem.  Taking advantage of the free admission during this festive period, we went in to view the various local art exhibits, and as well as a gallery filled with Botero's painting and artworks.  The reasons behind his distinct art style was summarised in this quote, which I found rather amusing :

"I fatten my characters to give them sensuality.  I'm not interested in fat people for the sake of fat people". 

Death of Pablo Escobar

It was also through his paintinags that I learnt about Pablo Escobar, a notorious druglord whom striked fear in everyone's hearts and was subsequently killed by the police in the mid 90s, thus restoring peace to the country.

We walked next to the Botanical Gardens, which had an interesting design orchirdarium (the national flower of Colombia is also orchirds!), where we took a short break from our walking as well as to get lunch nearby, before heading off to Cerro Nutibara.

Orchirdarium

Lake at Botanical Garden

Pueblita Paisa

 Cerro Nutibara is a hill (yes, more climbing!) located in the city centre, which houses a place called "Pueblita Paisa" - a mock design of a typical Antioquian village in Colombia.  We were extremely exhausted by the time we got to the top, but the view of the city from here is wonderful! 

Traditional barber store

Kelly admiring view

Thinking that we were not able to walk anymore, we managed to drag our feet towards Barefoot Park to take a rest as well as to wait for one of Kelly's friend to join us to walk the river to see the Xmas lights up. 

We also ended up taking a trial ride on the Metroplus, a new bus line which had just commenced operations in the city about a week ago.

Kelly, I & Sergio

The Xmas lights up was quite similar in style to the one in Cali, which was located next to the river. 

However the ones in Medellin also had huge structures hanging in mid-air in the middle of the river, which does not look easy to get it mounted in the first place!  Huge crowds here though!

Xmas lights up

Xmas lights up

After walking a little further, we decided to call it a night and head home to rest our exhausted feet!