Day 46: Medellin

Monday, May 13th, 2019.

Todays plan:

“Exotic fruits of Medellin experience

At 10:30 hrs meet at SOUTH ticket booth of MINORISTA MetroPlus bus stop. Duration: 2.5 hours
Real City Tours, Guide Diana Esquivel

Are you a foodie who is captivated by the endless amount of incredible fruits available in Colombia? Have you been curious to savour some of them? Make your way to the tour meeting point and come with us on a stroll through one of Medellin’s prominent markets and let your senses guide you.

Look, touch and taste your way through the various market aisles and experience first-hand what makes Colombia number one in fruit biodiversity. Join us to learn about various fruits and savour each bite!”

We get up and have breakfast at Dandre breakfast and cafe. It is highly recommended by TripAdvisor and close to selina. It is very good.

From there we go with an Uber to South Booth of Minorista Metroplus station. Metroplus is something like a fast bus. The Uber ride is less the 10.000 pesos (3 eur). Since the taxi/uber drivers mostly donot speak English it is easier to put a point on a map for pickup and drop off and let them navigate with Google (what they all do, nevertheless the circle helpless around a lot). Anyway, it is much more safe to pay via Uber without taking out money or credit card.

We immediately find Diana with her announced red “Real City Tours” shirt for the “Exotic fruits of Medellin experience”. There is already a family of people from New York – mother, father, son living in Medellin teaching English, daughter with husband, there. We start the tour and enter Minorista market. There is everything here, and as Diana says, cheaper than outside.

Diana goes right to the veggies, everybody gets a metal spoon and Diana starts with tree tomatoes, guava over herbs and witchcraft sellers to Borojo, Peach palm, west Indian log (stinky feet), prickly pear, dragon fruit, Cape gooseberry (super cheap), avocado, Spanish lime, guavasteen, mangosteen, three types of passionfruits. Everytime she checks the fruits offered, selects some masterpieces, cuts them with a knife, explains while showing a card with english/Spanish name and the region in Colombia, where the fruit grows, what it is used for, … .

Tree tomato

Inbetween she talks about history, politics, mentality and most funny of all, her trip to soo cold Europe and the bus drivers there, not waiting for missing latinas. We overrun planned time by hours, but enjoy the tour very much. At the end we all get a juice of our choice, I try Borojo, as it is endemic to Colombia and you get it only as juice. Tasty. Since I am late, I take the next yellow cab to my “free city walking tour”. First Taxi driver with taxameter. it is 9.000, less then 3 eur.

I booked the tour with guruwalk, a Medellin historico tour available in spanish and english. They meet close to Alpujarra Metro station. A lot of tours meet there, it needs a time until we find Maurizio, with him is Natali, who does the tour in English. She is really in love with Medellin and tells us a lot how Medeloin has changed in the past Escobar and FARC time, how the metro was used to change mentality and how medellin develops.