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Our last day in Medellin and I will miss it – I quite like this city and could certainly spend more time here!
Following breakfast we take a walk a little further into El Poblado district. Within a few blocks there are streets lined with disco, after disco and bar; guess we found the party district! Everything was closed at this early daytime hour except for a couple of restaurants serving breakfast and a Juan Valdez Cafe. We stopped to try the coffee and it was excellent.
Back to the hotel – it was pool time, the morning clouds were giving way to the sun. Packed and ready to go, we spent the last 2 hours of our stay at the beautiful Dann Carlton at the pool. We checked out at 2pm and our transfer was ready to take us to the Medellin International Airport near Rionegro. We did pretty good time and arrived about 3 hours early for our flight. Better to be here than in a traffic jam on the highway, and one never knows in Medellin!
We found a great little restaurant called Beer, and had a late lunch. The time flew and before we knew it, it was 7pm and our Avianca flight was taking off. We landed a little more than an hour later and were greeted by warm tropical air as we deplaned.
By 8:30 pm we were checking in to our hotel, the Ibis. Someone reviewed it as the “IKEA” hotel and they are not far off the mark. It is quite new, nice, clean and minimalist in decor. The only downside is that there is no balcony and no floor to ceiling windows, so for me to see the ocean view, I have to stand on a chair! 😂
We grabbed a quick bite to eat before the restaurant closed and went to sleep. Looking forward to seeing what Cartagena looks like in the daytime!
Jan 15th.
We awoke to clear blue skies, and the wind that was raging last night seems to have calmed. We opted to take the buffet breakfast and then walked to the old walled city. It was only about 10:30am and the temperatures were already reaching around 25C. We though we may catch a bus, however it was only a short 2 km so we decided to carry on walking.
We wandered a bit of the old town and the heat was getting to us so we flagged down a taxi to show us around. The driver was hilarious and toured us throughout the old city. What a gorgeous place.
Enroute back to our hotel we stopped at a local grocery for necessary provisions; water, snacks, beer and wine. At the hotel, we procured two wine glasses and an extra chair (only one in the room) and sat just outside our room where there is a beautiful window with an awesome view of the water and the city. This is now officially “our balcony”! We watched the sun set as we happily sipped our wine. Ahhhhh, life is good!