Between finding tires for the bikes, repairing damaged bits, sightseeing, and riding, we ended up spending an entire week in Medellin.
Coming from a wealthy country that Canada is, I cannot overlook the one issue common to all central and south american cities we have visited so far: the huge gap between the rich and the poor. Medellin is no exception, and it's always sad to see. On the bright side, it is a fun place to be and I think one can easily get stuck here for several weeks.
We stayed in the El Poblado neighborhood, which is an upscale and trendy area of the city. Although a bit pricy, it is safe, has many restaurants and a good bar scene. Our priority in Medellin was to get some overdue maintenance done on the bikes, so we took care of that over the first two days there. Finding moto parts in central and south America can be challenging, as the vast majority of the motorcycles are much smaller than ours. Fortunately, Medellin and its surrounding suburbs having a population of 3.5M, there are several ''large'' bike dealerships, and conveniently most of them are in El Poblado, where we stayed. Mihai and I got new tires and an oil change, whereas Josh dropped off his bike at the local BMW shop, in order to iron out a few minor issues related to his crash two weeks ago.
With the bikes running like new again, we were on a mission to find a fabricator, as the side cases on Josh's and my bikes needed some repairs. One of the Josh's side cases got banged up in his crash three weeks ago, whereas one of mines had a cracked mounting point, due to vibration. Once again, we got lucky. We were referred to King Aluminum, a fab shop specialized in motorcycle accessories. The guys there were cool, and they fixed our issues at a very reasonable rate.
One the bike stuff settled, we spent a few days sightseeing the city and the surrounding areas.
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| Panorama of Medellin by day... |
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| ...and by night. |
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| Common sight in Medellin: street performers trying to make a coin at red lights by performing their tricks. |
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| Riding on Medellin's modern subway. |
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| Capoeira training |
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| Josh and one of the guys at KIng Aluminum, where we got our side cases fixed. |
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| My side case, strengthened with a plate of aluminum from the inside. Cost: 12$ for both boxes. |
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| While waiting at King Aluminum, this kid put a stunt show for us on his dirtbike. He's one crazy mofo. |
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| Unfortunately, he ended up getting busted by the cops for wheeling through a red light. |
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| MotoShop in Medellin, where I got new tires and an oil change. Very friendly guys. |
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| Andreas from KTM Medellin. Great guy, gave us good advice about where to go riding around Medellin. |
Random stuff:
It is a modern city. Particularly worth mentioning is the state of the art metro network.
Great climate and very scenic location. The surrounding countryside is beautiful as well, with many great roads that are a lot of fun to ride on a motorcycle.
In general, people have been very kind and helpful, especially the guys in the motorcycle shops we dealt with: KTM Medellin, BMW Ruta 40, and Moto Shop.
It does live up to its reputation of the city of beautiful women. This place definetely stands out in comparison to all other central and south american cities we have visited so far. To me it seems that a lot of it has to do with the fact that the ladies here seem to put an above average effort to look elegant.
We stayed at 3 different places in one week, all within a range of 300 m from each other. The first hostel had a triple room with the best beds so far. We got there tired from a long day of riding, and were quite primed to get some good sleep in those comfy beds. Well, it didn't turn out quite as we were hoping: the room was above the hostel's bar, and a party started passed midnight, only to finish sometime passed 3 am. I am a hard sleeper, so it didn't bother me much, but Mihai and Josh barely got any sleep, even with earplugs in.
The next day, we moved to a nearby hotel, which had a really nice and big triple room for us. It was nice to scatter all of our stuff and still have plenty of space to walk around (it is rarely the case). We stayed there for 2 nights and decided to move, since they had no parking for the bikes, and no social scene neither.
The last hostel we moved to was just right. Nice rooms, good social scene (terasse, rooftop pool, bar and pool table), and secure parking for the motorcycles. It got loud at times, but all in all it is a very good spot. If ever in Medellin, I recommend staying at the Casa Kiwi hostel in El Pobaldo.
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| Our second place in Hotel Paradiso. BIG room by latin american standards. |
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| Moving to hour final lodging, hostel Casa Kiwi. We filled up this cab all the way to the roof with our crap. |
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