Medellín, Antioquia, Colombia

Years ago, when visiting Paris with a photographer I was dating, I noticed that my photos weren't really doing the city justice - especially compared to my companion's. I realized to really capture it, I needed to ditch the lenses and switch to my good camera - a notebook and pen. In that spirit, here's a postcard of Medellín, inked down into paper.

The Rio Medellin snakes down the center of the city. A small river, wrapped in concrete, canyon-carving days long past. All around it rise the remains of its millennial crawl, hillsides clawing thousands of feet into the sky.

It’s Spring here. Always. A year-round comfortable that means no heaters and no air conditioning. Just a constant fresh breeze blowing in over the mountains.

All the way up the canyon walls, and all the way down, there are people. Two million of us, living in red-roofed buildings. Eating, talking, loving and living. A city.

The Food Walk anywhere in town, and you’ll cross a major street stacked with restaurants. Traditional Colombian fare is simple, wholesome, and generous.

Order a plate of bandeja paisa (“typical platter”) and you’ll find yourself presented with five plates and a bowl: beans, huge slices of avocados, a fried banana, an unfried banana, rice, eggs, green tomato slices, a potato, ground beef, fried pork belly, and arepa, a sort of unleavened corn biscuit. One order is enough for two people, but folks here are can to pack one away no problem. An acquired talent.

Past the typical cuisine, there’s a penchant for hamburgers and hotdogs. One strip I passed went hamburger, hamburger, hot dog, hamburger, hot dog.

You’d think this would add up to a kind of hell for a vegetarian like me - but there’s a catch. Walk just off the main street, and you’ll find all sorts of interesting, delicious food waiting. Everywhere, the ingredients are local and fresh, the food’s creative (bread in particular is a talent) and I’ve had nothing that wasn’t top notch.

I came here worried, but next to Thailand, it’s the best eating I’ve had anywhere in the world.

The People Are just so nice. They’re the kindest, most generous folks I’ve met anywhere. Everyone is happy to talk, help out a neighbor or a stranger. I watched a traffic warden on the street hold the door of a stranger’s car, then close it after they’d gotten in.

Here, confronted with my still-rough-edged Spanish, people do something I’ve never experienced before. They stop what they’re doing, move closer, and lean in. One more time?, they ask, determined to understand.

But despite that kindness and ease of connection, people also generally keep to themselves. Unlike Mexico, you don’t need to acknowledge every single person you pass on the way to the store. Folks are soft-spoken, with a quiet confidence and a perpetual edge of curiosity.

The place too oozes style. But distinctive, Colombiano. It’s a place that loves art, music. A place where poets are revered instead of mocked, and where great walls of graffiti are left alone instead of painted over or tagged. Sculpture is a particular love - Medellin boasts more public sculptures per kilometer than any other city on Earth.

The City It’s a tantalizing mix of familar and foreign. Urban. Dense. Full of life and movement. From the Southern tourist haven of Poblado up the hillsides of the North, things are always happening. Salsa careens off the buildings late at night. The churchbells echo on Sunday mornings.

All day and much of the night, buses will take you all over town. Two raised metro lines can get you anywhere in the city in 15 minutes, and cable cars stretch up the hillisides.

It’s an active city. Estadio, near the center, is home to a government-built fitness complex larger than many college campuses. Every sporting and fitness activity you can dream of is there, and it’s free to use.

A sprawling botanical garden anchors the northern valley, again open to the public, and connected directly to the metro.

Downtown, the plazas are filled with art (several plazas themselves are art installations), and in neighborhood after neighborhood, unique, architectural libraries connected to parks anchor the area.

But cities like this don’t happen by accident.

The Culture The most common tropes about the culture in Medellín come from the stories they tell about themselves. Stories of Paisa, the Juan Valdez coffee-growing entrepreneurial spirit that underlies the region’s mythos. Paisa people are said to be quiet, kind, lovers of music and poetry. Entrepreneurial and hard working.

All of that is true. But there’s something else. The people here are able to encounter a difficult thing without looking away.

Up on the mountainsides, there is still poverty. Lots of it. A 20-minute metro and cable ride from the glimmering glass towers of Poblado, you can be walking down dirt streets with tin roofs held down by rocks.

But the fact that you can even get there is notable.

Medellín isn’t defined by its recent history, but it does serve as an excellent illustration - nothing tells you about a culture more than their actions.

In the late 80’s, the drug trade here was terrible. The city was deadly violent, and the government appeared powerless to stop it. Finally, after years of picking away at the security net, the government killed the drug kingpin, and were left with a badly beaten city.

In that aftermath, it created an identity and built it with intention. Libraries. Public transportation. Access to public spaces, education, health and the arts were to be the cornerstones of what the city would be rebuilt around.

It wasn’t easy, and it isn’t done, but the city I live in today exemplifies those values.

And the truth is, if they weren’t also the values of the people of Medellín, none of those things would have come to pass. Traveling across the city, I don’t get the sense that anyone in Medellin is looking away from the folks living in poverty on the hillsides. They’re working, steady progress, day by day.

It’s election time soon. One of the candidates has a slogan:

Strong hands. Big heart.

I couldn’t have said it better.

Live well, -Steven

p.s. The best thing I saw all week was also the most human thing I've read in months. This staggering piece by Kristi Coulter on leaving the party, AA, and connection.