So I have been in Medellin for the last week. As far as I could tell it´s a fairly affluent city although, like every city I´ve visited in latin america the outskirts are surrounded by awful slums. Medellin used to be Colombia´s coke trafficking capital and was one of the most dangerous places in Colombia. Security has improved here in recent years and it´s now reportedly one of the safest cities in South America... and instead of drugs it is now famous for it´s surgically enhanced woman! With good reason as well. Everywhere you turn there are women young and old with giant round silicone filled breasts! It´s really quite strange to me especially as most of these girls are incredibly beautiful already. But it seems to have become part of the culture. Having giant boobs is the ideal and going under the knife to get them is far from taboo. In fact it seems to be quite the opposite. Girls are extremely proud of them and have them on show at all times! The one good thing about all this flesh on display is there seems to be less cat calling in the street from guys... I suppose because they´re so used to seeing it! In my opinion there´s something else that Medellin should now be famous for... men with bad hair! For every woman with fake boobs there are two men sporting mullets!

So apart from fake boobs, cocaine and mullets there is another reason Medellin is a popular place to visit - its annual flower festival. On the final day of the festival campasinos from the surrounding countryside come to Medellin to parade the streets with baskets of flowers on their backs. The week running up to this parade there are events, live music and parties. Flowers are as good a reason as any for a Rumba in this country it would seem! I was lucky to arrive right at the start and spent the week taking in the party atmosphere. I went to a lot of events during the week with some of my boat friends and new friends I made in the hostel. Strangely though I saw very few flowers! I did see a lot of live music though which was great as I´ve hardly seen any since I left London. One evening there was a huge outdoor concert in a square near where I was staying. We saw a famous salsa band from Puerto Rico. I don´t remember their name but they were amazing and we danced the night away Colombian style. I´ve already been introduced to the friendliness of Colombians but my time in Medellin took it to another level. Everywhere we went people said welcome to Colombia or welcome to Medellin. We actually had people cross the street to come and say welcome and thank you for visiting Colombia. Whenever we went out in the evening we were always taken in by a group of locals who invited us to have a dance, a drink and a laugh with them.People are so aware of the bad reputation that Colombia has and are really happy to have to opportunity to demonstrate to foreigners that they´re not all drug dealers and criminals. All the young people I spoke to hate the fact that their country is associated with cocaine and violence. It´s understandable. One evening we went out to see some more live salsa in the street near our hostel. A group of girls and guys in a bar asked us to join them. The girls instantly took me in, gave me shots of rum, showed me some dance moves, paid me lots of compliments and called me latina! It was amazing. That sort of thing doesn´t happen where I´m from... groups of girls can be intimidating to a loan girl that they don´t know. But there was no b****y competitiveness. They made me feel so welcome.

So needless to say it was hard to tear myself away from Medellin. But the festival came to an end. It was a bit of an anticlimax for me because the flower parade on the last day was so crowded with people I couldn´t see a thing! But it was cool to see so many people out to see a few old country folk with flowers on their backs!

So I´m officially in love with Colombia! I think everyone who´s been to Colombia says this but it´s the people who make it. They`re super friendly and they sure as hell know how to party!

Next stop Bogota!

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