Accomplishments and an Outing with My Medellin Landlord

Saturday, Sept. 2, 2017--Bogota

I awoke this morning knowing I had to make some decisions.  I have been dreading going to Medellin by bus for weeks now.  It is an 11-hour trip twisting and winding through the mountains.  I knew that flying would be better and that flights are generally reasonable here, so I researched.  Previously, I had looked at VivaColombia, the low-cost airline, but I couldn't understand their pricing "by the piece."  For instance, did I need to pay for check-in at the counter?  I figured I would have a boarding pass delivered to my phone, but I was going to have to pay to check a suitcase and for a carry-on bag, so did that mean I had to pay to go to the counter to check the one and get the approval tag for the other? 

Therefore, I went to kayak.com to see what "mainstream" airlines had to offer.  I knew that Kayak mainly sends people elsewhere operating somewhat like an online concierge service.  But I was surprised to see it references online companies which buy book through the mainline companies.  Through kiwi.com, I got a ticket on Avianca Airlines with a free checked bag and a free carry-on bag for $60.  The flight will be 1 hour vs. 11 hours on the bus!!  (It seems to work like a company buying an air ticket for an employee.  Kiwi bought a ticket on their own credit card with my name as the flier.  The ticket has an e-ticket number, a reservation number, and a copy of the credit card used.  I had to go to a print shop nearby thanks to all the university students and get my ticket printed.  I will submit it at the counter to get my boarding passes.  I had checked a few weeks ago, and this same ticket was $79 direct form Avianca, so apparently Kiwi gets a bulk discount.)

I also researched getting to the airport here and getting from the airport in Medellin and wrote notes.  I only have to walk about 1 1/2 blocks from my apartment here, and I can get a bus directly to the airport for less than $1.  Unfortunately, the airport in Medellin is about 28 miles out of the city, so the best way will be for me to take a shuttle bus into town to a specific location (San Diego) for about $5 and then take a taxi for about $2 more to get to my apartment.  So, I will get from apartment to apartment for about $68 by flying.  If I hadn't flown, I would have spent about of $22.  So I am paying $46 to save me 10 of the 11 hours I would have been on a bus.  Plus, I am leaving in daylight and getting there in daylight.  I couldn't have done that with the bus.

With that business out of the way, I headed out to see some more sights.  My first stop was the Museo de Arte Moderno de Bogota (MAMBO).  It's a small museum, but it was interesting.  There were a number of films to watch.  I really enjoyed two of them--one about an Amazonian tribe whose territory is constantly under threat from miners and one about a sympathetic fisherman who, after catching his fish, would hold it in his arms against his body and pet it until it died.  But there were also paintings, sculptures, weavings, etc.

From there, I headed to the Museo National de Colombia.  It is housed in an old prison.  I've been to at least one other museum in a similar building.  The multistory wings make a good layout for displays.  There are all kinds of exhibits--archaeological, historical, paintings, photographs, music, cinema, etc.  Much of what I saw, however, was similar to what I have seen at other museums here in Bogota or in other cities I've visited in Colombia. 

The best part of the day came when I left the museum.  Earlier when I was doing my planning to get to Medellin, I was texting back and forth with Luis, the man who owns the apartment I have rented there.  He actually lives here in Bogota for the moment and suggested we meet.  We made an appointment to meet in front of the National Museum at 14:00.  We walked to a nearby cafe to talk, but really couldn't accomplish much because of the loud music.  While finishing our coffees, we talked as well as we could, mainly about details I needed to know related to getting to his apartment and meeting his friend who will be there for my arrival, then we walked down the street. 

Luis speaks English well with a nice accent and is very interesting.  He works for the government distributing aid to families in need.  He said it is quite difficult, because not everyone who would like aid can get it, and that creates a sense of injustice on the part of those who don't--especially if they feel like those getting the aid don't deserve it because of having participated in the armed struggle against the government before the peace treaty was signed.  We talked about that, we talked about how he misses living in Medellin, we talked about where I will go after Medellin including how to get there and which of a choice of towns in the region would be the best for me to stay, etc. 

Luis was headed downtown to meet his girlfriend to eat at late lunch, and as I tagged along for the conversation, he decided to show me something special--Merlin Libreria.  It's the kind of used bookstore that you see in films occasionally--the kind with books on shelves and stacked on the floors, with room-after-room stuffed with books, and with multiple floors like that.  I could just imagine walking up to the owner and asking for a particular book and he would go up a floor, go into a room, go over to 4 stacks of books on the floor, go to one particular stack, and reach into the middle of the stack and pull out just the book I had requested.  We went to the room where they have English and French language books which is where Luis and I discovered our common love of well written books.  I was showing him some I had read and thought were great, and he was showing me some he had read and thought were great.  Every time I mentioned a particular book, he would take out his phone and make a note of it.  The one author he insists that I must read that I haven't is Umberto Eco and especially his books The Name of the Rose and Foucault's Pendulum.

Unfortunately, he had to meet his girlfriend, so we had to part.  But that short visit of maybe 1 hour or a little more was the highlight of my day.  I walked further into town planning to see some of the area that was blocked off yesterday, but it was so crowded with people enjoying the nice day that I eventually thought I should wait and go back tomorrow or Monday.  There is too much I want to see in that area to have done it all today anyway.  I returned to the apartment where I have been doing some more research.  I still need to look for a flight ticket to my next stop after Medellin (to save myself from an 8-hour bus trip) and to find places to stay in my next 2-3 places I will visit (since I have no reservations beyond Medellin).