Arriving in Medellin to 18 degrees and rain was a bit of a shock after being in Cartagena, nonetheless it was quite nice to escape the heat and mosquitoes. The Avianca plane we were on was by far the nicest so far and better than what we'd had for long haul! We only found out once we had landed that we were at the international airport, which is 44km from the centre of Medellin - we were expecting to arrive at the national one which is 1km away! We took a collectivo (shared taxi) which dropped us in San Diego and then another taxi so it didn't work out too expensive. Our hostel is in El Poblado, one of the wealthiest and most touristy neighbourhoods of Medellin so also one of the safest. It had brightened up by the time we left the hostel so instead of going to museums we headed to the Botanical Gardens which had good reviews. There is a metro system in Medellin which makes getting around a bit easier! Just by the metro stop were hundreds of people gathered round watching something, we didn't have a clue what was going on but the road was blocked off and then we saw some vintage cars driving through as part of a display. This happened to finish just as we arrived so the metro station was extremely busy! The train runs over ground so we had a good view of the city, there are a lot of nice buildings and interesting architecture and hills scattered with houses in the distance. It looked quite nice as far as big cities go! The gardens were really busy as well, we realised that there was a festival going on so they had a plant exhibition, part of the Feria de las Flores which is currently in Medellin - this explains the mass crowds on the metro and at the gardens! The grounds themselves weren't that impressive in comparison to the botanical gardens in Rio, but it was pleasant to walk around and there was a nice lake with lilies and little tortoises. Nathan wasn't too enthused about the flower displays but I thought they were quite good.

In the evening we went to Parque Lleras just down the road from our hostel, a lively area with loads of music, bars and restaurants. It was definitely the liveliest place we had been so far, perhaps partly because of the festival. The roads around the bars were blocked off to traffic so people were in the streets, it was a really good atmosphere so we tried out a few different bars and had a delicious authentic burger with bacon and cheese (for the equivalent of £3) from one of the restaurants. Nathan has found his favourite beer, Águila, although he always gets offered light which he looks slightly offended by!