Bye Bye Medellin, I'm gonna miss you so

The rest of our trip in Medellin was just amazing. Sorry picture loving folks, you'll have to wait for a later post, but hopefully the wordy types will be satisfied. Weekends in Medellin are divina. People get dressed up even nicer than their everyday garb and head out to the Poblado neighborhood for shots, music and dancing. Friday we had a relaxing day and checked out the cemetary and the view from a small mountain in the middle of the city. Medellin is narrow and long and its cool to see the whole thing spilling out of the valley up into the surrounding mountains.

After a bit of rest we got ready for our big Friday night. We had tickets to see Bomba Estereo, an electric Cumbia band from Bogota. They are pretty well known in this part of the world, but the concert was in a tiny place called El Deck which is more of a bar than a place to have concerts, but they managed to squeeze in way more people than any fire code would have allowed. Oh wait, what fire code?

El Deck is a really cool place, with a nice outside and inside bar, and shiny cds making wall art outside. We actually ran into one of Rox's sister's friends and running into people in a new place always makes me sorta excited.

We also had our first celebrety moment brought to you by Juliasabroadblog.blogspot.com. This guy came up to me before Bomba went on and said, Hey! I recognize you from your blog! Ever the skeptic I was amazing at how long I had been out of the game for and thought this guy was using some crazy new pick up line. Um, ok, thanks, I responded thinking all the while that it was crazy that blogging had replaced the, I think I've met you before, pick up line.

Turns out he really has read our blog. As Josh explained to me later, he has all Medellin web content sent to his inbox and our blog ended up in there! So...shout out to that guy...thanks for reading! Sorry I thought you were trying to pick me up!

The concert was amazing. You all should really check out the band if you've never listened to them before. The Cumbia outside of Argentina doesn't make your ears want to bleed, it actually makes you want to dance!!! And dance we did. We were literally soaked through by the time we left the place and thouroughly enjoyed ourselves.

The next day we were tired but headed out to Piedra de Peñol. It is litterally a giant stone, I'll have to post photos later so you can visualize it better (or click the above link), but the stone sits on top of a mountain and is over a thousand steps in the air high and two times as wide at places. Once you slowly climb to the top the view is something out of the land before time, or maybe the Hobbit. The resevoir below is dotted with little islands. Some are covered only in trees, some with houses, and sail boat and jet skis break up the serene surface and many inlets while others remain isolated and in perfection. We had a beer and then hiked up to the highest point on the man made structure and enjoyed the quiet and the view for quite a while. It was really incredible. Afterwards we headed to the town below where all the bottoms of all the buildings are decorated with colorful bas relief pictures of flowers, horses, la piedra, ect. We had a nice lunch near the water, and I finally got to order the fish that Rox had gotten in Santa Fe, and we headed back to Medellin full and tired from our upwards and downwards hikes. That night we made it as far as Pizza 1969 Gourmet where I filled my not even very hungry belly with amazing and creative pizza and then we rolled ourselves into bed.

The next morning we awoke early to a feast. Roxi's parents had made pan de yuka in the shape of horse shoes, arepas filled willed juicy pulled beef amazingness, fresh fruit, fresh juice, all the black coffee a girl could ever need and one more morning with their amazing family. It was way better than the pancake breakfast we had made them the morning before, but its not our fault Colombian breakfasts are so awesome. Being with Rox's family was an amazing experiance I'll never forget. They welcomed us into their home and made us feel at home at all times. It was the next best thing to being with my own family after so long away from a mom or dad. Anyway, if you haven't gotten it by now they were amazing.

We spent our last hours watching Frisbee and then headed to the bus station for the last long ride. We were super sad to say goodbye to Roxi, but the promise of the beach lurks ever closer in the background urging us onwards and fowards. By dark we had entered to cold mountainy area where one finds Bogota...