A journal from the valley
A journal about moving to the other side of the world and carrying on with the same work. Housing, paperwork, coffee, the mountains above the city, and the things nobody tells you in advance.
My time in Medellín
The pavements here are not flat. Tree roots lift them into waves, and between two slabs there is often a two finger step that nobody has marked. A pavement the roots have broken through.
Note · 11 September 2026
September
2026
11 entries · 7 places · 7 dishes
11 September · Note
The plug is the American type: two flat pins, often with no earth. Most sockets grip so poorly that the plug works its way out on its own, helped along by the weight of the cable.
10 September · Article
The last digit of your number plate keeps the car off the streets one day a week, from five in the morning to eight in the evening, across the whole valley. Plus the licence that expires after six months, a fine over six hundred thousand pesos, and road death figures that make me uneasy.
10 September · Article · La Candelaria, Medellín
Three hundred thousand people in six communes have had water every other day since late August. The city broke its temperature records in May, Ideam expects a strong El Niño into March, and the grid operator warns that power may not stretch through December. What the rule says, why it landed on the hillsides, and what it means for a trip.
10 September · Note
Every fridge I have seen here tilts slightly backwards. To a European eye it looks like badly assembled furniture, and the first thing I did was try to level it.
10 September · Article · La Casa del Alimento, Medellín
A Colombian lunch is not one dish, it is a whole set for one price. Two mains, two desserts, two coffees and a lemonade came to 146,000 pesos. And in that restaurant's yard, beef hangs drying.
10 September · Article · Conquistadores, Medellín
A garbage truck with a slogan saying this city is a little silver cup. Who runs it, where the waste goes, why the landfill has eight years left, and how the people who open bags on the street come to be paid out of the water bill.
I was here · Food · 10 September
Medellín · Kolumbie · 1495 m a.s.l.
8 photos
10 September · Article · Comuna 8, Villa Hermosa, Medellín
A house with almost no windows, hot rice pudding with cheese, and a slope full of lights right up to the ridge. And the only thing that made me uneasy was not what someone who has read about comuna 8 online would expect.
9 September · Note
Tinto here is a small black coffee. It travels the streets in thermos flasks, arrives in a cup the size of a thimble and costs a few hundred pesos.
9 September · Note
Underglow, coloured lights in the grille, lettering across the whole rear window. Accessories that would fail an inspection at home are ordinary equipment here.
8 September · Article · El Poblado, Medellín
The district where Medellín was founded in 1616 and where almost everybody who flies into the city now sleeps. Provenza with lights in the trees, the singer Karol G's restaurant, a road sign saying tourist zone, and a bill that sums it all up.
8 September · Note
Pedestrians have right of way at a crossing, it is written into the law. In traffic they do not, and the police do not pursue it. You cross by waiting for a gap and moving briskly.
I was here · Town · 6 September
Colombia · 1925 m a.s.l.
A small town on the shore of the reservoir, two hours east of Medellín. It is known for its zócalos, painted reliefs in a band along the base of the facades, and for the colourful houses that grew up…
18 photos
I was here · Viewpoint · 6 September
Guatapé · Colombia · 2135 m a.s.l.
A single lump of rock, two hundred metres high, standing in a green landscape full of water.
18 photos
I was here · Neighbourhood · 5 September
Medellín · Colombia
The eastern slope above the centre. Comuna 8 is called Villa Hermosa, and it takes in a band of neighbourhoods that runs from the edge of the centre right up to the contour line where the forest…
62 photos
I was here · Neighbourhood · 5 September
Medellín · Colombia · 1495 m a.s.l.
The original Medellín. Comuna 10, La Candelaria, what everybody here calls el centro and what a visitor staying in El Poblado is usually talked out of before they even set off.
34 photos
I was here · Neighbourhood · 2 September
Medellín · Colombia · 1495 m a.s.l.
Comuna 11, Laureles-Estadio. The neighbourhood Medellín recommends to itself: greenery, cafés, markets, and rents that still make sense.
31 photos
I was here · Park · 1 September
Medellín · Colombia · 1490 m a.s.l.
A park where you walk barefoot, and it means it. It is called the Barefoot Park and that is not an exaggeration: there are areas of sand, of water and of bamboo precisely so that you take your shoes…
10 photos
August
2026
14 places · 17 dishes
I was here · Neighbourhood · 31 August
Medellín · Colombia · 1495 m a.s.l.
The neighbourhood I live in, and one you will not find in any guidebook. Conquistadores is a wedge between three axes: Avenida Bolivariana to the northwest, the Medellín river with Avenida Regional to…
16 photos
I was here · Nature · 30 August
Medellín · Colombia · 2400 m a.s.l.
You get to the forest from Medellín by metro, and it gets interesting before you even arrive. North on the metro, change to a cable car, and then change again.
26 photos
I was here · Town · 28 August
Colombia · 1750 m a.s.l.
Three hours from Medellín and you are in a different country. On the way southwest, Antioquia climbs and drops along the ridges for so long that you lose track of where you are.
101 photos
I was here · Café · 28 August
Jardín · Colombia
A café above the town where hummingbirds fly half a metre from your head. It is a viewpoint and a place to sit at the same time.
9 photos
I was here · Farm · 28 August
Jardín · Colombia
A family coffee farm where you walk the whole road from the bush to the cup. The owner took us round himself and it shows: he does not talk about coffee like a guide, he talks about it like someone…
29 photos
I was here · Where I slept · 28 August
Jardín · Colombia
A local hotel, not a chain, and that difference is exactly why two nights make sense. A painted house, wood, a courtyard, plants everywhere.
1 photo
I was here · Shopping · 27 August
Obchodní centrum Amsterdam Plaza · Colombia · 1751 m a.s.l.
A genuinely beautiful, modern shopping centre in El Poblado, one of the best neighbourhoods in Medellín. The surroundings are wonderful, full of green, with the mountains behind.
15 photos
I was here · Neighbourhood · 27 August
Medellín · Colombia
A neighbourhood on the southeastern slope of the valley, where a foreigner in Medellín almost certainly ends up.
67 photos
I was here · Shopping · 27 August
Obchodní dům El Tesoro · Colombia
A large shopping centre high above the city, at the top end of El Poblado. Because of the slope, the upper floors look out across the whole valley, and that is why you go, even when you do not need to…
11 photos
I was here · Café · 26 August
Medellín · Colombia · 1495 m a.s.l.
I am sitting by the window with a coffee, a lemon dessert and a kombucha in front of me, and I do not feel like getting up. The coffee is genuinely good.
23 photos
I was here · Food · 26 August
Medellín · Colombia
I walked in with contempt for chains and walked out a convert. Crepes & Waffles is an institution in Colombia.
2 photos
I was here · Neighbourhood · 24 August
Medellín · Colombia · 1600 m a.s.l.
A neighbourhood on the western slope above the city, officially San Javier. Today one of the most visited places in Medellín and at the same time the one with the hardest past of any district here.
15 photos
I was here · City · 23 August
Colombia · 2200 m a.s.l.
Half an hour beyond El Retiro, a bit higher, a good deal bigger and alive in a completely different way. I called it a village on the way and that was nonsense.
11 photos
I was here · Town · 23 August
Colombia · 2175 m a.s.l.
I went for one afternoon and left knowing I would come back. It is an hour by car from Medellín and the road climbs the whole way. When you get out the air is suddenly cooler and somehow cleaner.
5 photos
Prices in pesos, from an ordinary place.
Every neighbourhood has its own page.
La Casa del AlimentoMedellín · Kolumbie · 1495 m a.s.l.Definitely goGuatapéColombia · 1925 m a.s.l.Worth a stopA small town on the shore of the reservoir, two hours east of Medellín. It is known for its zócalos, painted reliefs in a band along the base of the facades, and for the colourful houses…Piedra del PeñolGuatapé · Colombia · 2135 m a.s.l.Worth a stopA single lump of rock, two hundred metres high, standing in a green landscape full of water.The places I want to see, and the ones I have ticked off.
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