Memories of Pablo in Medellin

Cocaine kingpin Pablo Escobar has left an indelible in his home town of Medellin, a lively and modern city of two million nestled in a big green valley in Colombia's northwest.

There's no escaping it: Pablo was a serious gangster. His activities in the cocaine trade and gang war against the rival cartel based in the southern city of Cali resulted in a terror campaign that saw hundreds of bombings and a giant death toll inflicted on his home town. Only in 1993 when he was gunned down by the CIA (although conspiracy theories abound), did the city lose its mantle as the world's most murderous city and become safe for foreigners to visit.

El Poblado -  financial and entertainment district

But at the same time, Pablo has left an incredible legacy. Needing to launder the billions of dollars he made annually from the cocaine trade, he invested heavily in Medellin's infrastructure - building schools, hospitals, roads and even a flash metro system that puts Sydney's CityRail to shame. Sleek, modern and air-conditioned, the metro zips passengers along Medellin's central north-south axis in style.

Like Pablo Escobar, many things about Medellin simply don't add up. It is an incredibly diverse city - at one end is the chic financial centre and Zona Rosa, or entertainment district, full of modern high rise apartment towers, banks, and shaded streets lined with sidewalk cafes, bars and nightclubs. Further along the valley is a stark contrast, where rows and rows of shabbily built brick shoeboxes line the steep hillsides.

One of the many things I liked about Medellin is that it is so well-planned. A relatively large population is well-contained within quite a reasonable area, with lots of medium-density housing built along key transport corridors (Sydney planners take note!). In many ways it is as modern as any European or US city - without the urban sprawl.

On another note, even though clearly not everyone lives in a nice house or apartment, the cityscape as a whole is an impressive site because the buildings are all built with attractive terracotta bricks, rather than the ugly grey cinderblocks used in other Latin American cities, so even the most basic of neighbourhoods are relatively easy on the eye.

Another strange thing about Medellin is that while it is in a developing country, it has an ultra-modern cable car that connects with the metro system, rising up its steep hills and over some of the poorer barrios. It sort of reminded me of a chair lift in the ski slopes - the capsules are suspended on cables and stop at a platform at the bottom of the hill, and move around in a circle, giving you a few seconds to jump in one before it turns around and heads back up again.

The view from these babies was amazing - its so rare that you get to travel above residential areas and it provided the perfect opportunity to stickybeak into people's houses, shops and schools. You could watch groups of kids playing football on concrete pitches and see right into rooftop coutyards that are haphazardly attached to most houses, where people hang their laundry, hang out and store all manner of junk.

Once you reach the top it isn't over - you can change for another cable car that takes you even further up the hill. It is sad to see the quality of life deteriorating as you ascend, as the suburbs become more and more like slums, but from here you can see the whole of Medellin in all of its contrasts. The view is absolutely priceless.

Rich and poor - Medellin's slums with financial district behind

To our surprise, the ride kept on going past the top of the hill and into a dense pine forest behind the city. When we alighted we realised we were in the middle of a big new national park boasting a network of walking trails, restaurants and even horse rides. We really weren't dressed to go on a hike, so we selected a short walk through the forest and prayed that the city's incessent rain hadn't created too much mud.

Natural beauty and smart planning aside, perhaps Medelllin's best asset is its amazingly friendly people, or Paisas as they are known. Normally you would expect city people to be a bit more uptight and aloof than country folk, but we did not find this with Paisas at all. Many stopped to chat to us in the street, and one kind group even offered us a lift home in the driving rain from a hotdog stand we had visited for a midnight snack.

Earlier that day we grabbed a cheap set menu lunch at a diner in a small laneway in the centre of town. The place was all set up with benches and individual seating, and the majority of the (male) clientele were in there alone. The Colombian set menu is the best and cheapest way to fill yourself up, and is even better value than fast food joints.

You are served a soup, made of varying ingredients - on this occasion it was tripe, the entrails of which I studiously avoided, but the soup itself was really tasty. Then you pick between a slab of beef, pork or chicken (or fish if you pay extra) which comes with a mountain of carbohydrates - rice, beans, fried bananas and even chips sometimes. For good measure, it is garnished with a limp-looking side salad. The price? $US2.

The street hustlers - porno salesman covering face!

The day we visited central Medellin, we were walking around with two Dutch guys, who were around the same height as Adam. The three of them attracted a lot of attention everywhere we went - stares, giggles, comments - I don't think anybody had ever seen a group of people that tall! After lunch we were hanging out in the laneway, watching men gamble on dice and other games in these mini-casinos that are set up all over town. Instantly we were surrounded by Colombians, keen to have a chat and laugh.

Very quickly though it became apparent that they had other motives - one old man, who was raucously drunk (at 3pm) started trying to sell us drugs, while another started trying to flog Adam copies of porno movies and prostitutes - when he thought I wasn't listening!