We woke up and headed down for free breakfast in the restaurant on the main floor, for 8am. I ordered a sourdough toast with avocado and a boiled egg, and Jives got eggs benedict. Both meals came with fruit and coffee.

We then headed out to the metro, walking down the steep 45 minute incline to the metro station. At the station we added 40,000 pesos to our metro pass and took the blue line to San Javier which is the closest stop to Comuna 13. From San Javier you can see the cable cars travelling further up the mountain. We turned left out of the station and passed a lot of vendors that wanted to sell us a tour or cab ride up to the escalators. 

A tour is probably really great of Comuna 13, so that you can learn a lot more about the history here. Here is my very very basic understanding of Comuna 13. Back in the 80’s and 90’s Comuna 13 was the most dangerous place in Medellin and the breeding ground of crime. The area was built up very haphazardly with buildings in a maze like manor, which made it super easy for criminals to hide from police. Even though the majority of the residents in Comuna 13 were not part of organized crime, they had to live with it. It became unsafe for police to even pursue criminals in the area. In 2002 the major/ government sent in the military to clean out the area in a raid. Many people were killed, injured and arrested, while locals were caught in the middle. 

What followed was an investment in the infrastructure of Comuna 13, to serve as a sort of pay back for years of brutality. 

The community seems super vibrant today and relatively safe.. Although it’s hard to tell when you only visit the “tourist” area. 

We turned left out of the metro and down the street past many vendors. We stopped in a grocery store to buy water for 1000 pesos (.33c). We followed Google Maps directions and got led down a rough road, but found a much safer way of walking back to the metro later. I will share the route with anyone that would like, if you are planning to walk to Comuna 13 yourself. The walk took about 20 minutes and we reached the base of the most touristy part of Comuna 13 and definitely the most touristy thing we had done thus far in Colombia. 

There were lots of vendors selling trinkets, drinks, weed brownies etc… such a colourful area full of street art . There were colourful flags hanging over the street in the Colombia colours, red, yellow and blue. 

We wound our way up the narrow streets, looking at all the art, locals and the impossible way in which buildings were stacked up on top of one another. We finally made it to a little court yard sort of place with lovely street art. I paid a lady 1000 pesos to use her washroom off of her kitchen in the smallest home I had ever seen. The whole house was the size of my small kitchen. What an experience! Another bathroom story to add to my ever growing collection. 

We walked one last flight of stairs before arriving at the base of the escalators. There are 8-10 escalators that traverse the incredibly steep “roadway”, there are also stairs along the sides of the escalators for those who enjoy leg pain, but I was in a certain amount of stomach pain myself, so I opted for the escalators.

Each “level” of escalators had cafes, people selling trinkets, drinks etc and lots of lovely street art. At the very top level there was a somewhat level roadway and a lovely lookout point over Comuna 13. We stayed here for quite awhile as Jives filmed a rap take and I tried to feel less nauseous. There was a lady selling mangos, kids playing soccer and a wonderful breeze that set me right for long enough to descend back down to the main roadway. 

I would have liked to see more of Comuna 13 and explore more street art, but my body was yelling “no” too loudly to ignore. We made our way back to the hotel, stopping at a grocery store to get water and bananas. 

We took the metro (train) back to our station and then took the bus for the first time in Medellin, up the hill to our hotel. After walking an hour in the heat up a steep incline, we were eager to avoid this again. Bus #1133iiA took us pretty close to our hotel (wow Colombia buses are confusing) and then we walked about 5 minutes to the hotel from the stop. We spent the remainder of the evening in our room or on the balcony drinking water and eating bananas.