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Short Stay in Medellin, Colombia

Bolivia and Ecuador plus Medellin, Colombia, hotels, Restaurants 2 Responses »

Jun 022014

Unfortunately, I didn’t get many pictures for this part of the trip. I’ll chalk it up to good conversation and not really “playing tourist.” Despite that, I got a fantastic intro to Medellin!

It was nearly 3pm by the time my taxi safely delivered me to my hotel, the Four Points Medellin. The taxi fare was fixed from the airport, so there was no need to negotiate or anything. So far, I was enjoying Medellin – all the people I encountered were quite pleasant, and the city seemed quite green, clean, and fairly orderly.

Got to the check-in counter, where I had to wait more than ten minutes to check in due to just two other customers in front of me. Then, ran into part one of the problem – neither of the front desk workers were willing to (or were unable to) speak any English at all. I finally got my point across to them: I wanted to check in, I was an SPG platinum member, and would prefer an upgraded room or suite with one bed. Unfortunately, the hotel was completely sold out, and the only room they could give me on my cash and points rate was a basic room with two beds. Ugh. After discussing for a bit they told me to go up and use that room, and they would see in an hour what they could do.

Got to the room, and it was clean and comfortable enough, with plenty of outlets/etc, and the air conditioning worked quite well and the room was a comfortable temperature. More importantly, the speed of the WiFi was quite good, and I had no trouble doing a high-bandwidth teleconference for work. After about an hour they called back, and they had indeed found me another room. Would I like a room with a patio and a king bed? Absolutely…and they sent staff up to get my bags and do the move for me. Quite a nice touch, although still not a single word of English was spoken by anyone.

The view of the patio in the upgraded room:

Unfortunately, I got stuck on several work calls in a row, and it was after 5pm when I was finally able to venture out and explore. First stop was a quick trip to the mall/grocery store around the corner to stock up on water and a few basics. It was a very modern well-stocked store that would have been at home anywhere in North America – I was incredibly impressed.

After I got back to the room, I managed to get in touch with Judd, a member of FlyerTalk who I’d been getting some advice from on things to do. Unfortunately it was really to late to go explore the city, but he was walking over to my hotel, and there was a good place to get a beer within walking distance. Count me in! He’s an Australian who’s been working in Medellin for a couple of years, and had some fantastic insights into the city. I love meetings like this, because you get a much deeper appreciation in a much shorter time when someone who knows the city well offers to show you around.

Found a nice quite place for a beer maybe a 10-15 minute walk from the hotel, or two…or three. I forgot that Australians consider drinking a competitive sport! By this point we were quite hungry, and it had started to rain, so we hopped in a cab to find somewhere to eat. I’ve forgotten the names of all the places we went, but hopefully Judd will chime in and I can update this post. We ended up for dinner at a brewpub type place, that had hundreds of bottled beers on the menu, along with their own homebrews which were really quite good. Add in a quite good burger and it was the perfect end to to a long day. No, I didn’t get to go out and play tourist, but with work running way longer than planned, I still feel I got a nice intro to the city…and can’t wait to go back!

After a good night’s sleep I was up early for a short run around the neighbourhood, and it was nice seeing the city come to life. Check-out of the hotel was slow and inefficient, just as check-in had been, but the staff were incredibly friendly and tried hard. They just seemed very new and unsure of how to handle some rather basic procedures.

Mid-morning Judd and his wife picked me up at the hotel, and offered me a ride to the airport…with a stop at a local restaurant for breakfast on the way. It was absolutely delicious, good local food (including chicharrón – YUM) and supposedly the President (I believe it is?) stops by here when he’s in Medellin as well. Good, local, non-pretentious cooking…and it was the absolute perfect ending to a short into to the city.

I’m incredibly grateful to Judd and his wife not only for showing me around, but also for the lift to the airport. Their generosity made this short stop so, so much more than it would have been otherwise, where I would have been at the whims of TripAdvisor etc! Soon after a late breakfast they dropped me at the airport, and it was off for the next stage of the adventure!

Libreville, Gabon

Airports, Democratic Republic of Congo, Gabon, hotels, New Years 2013-2014, Restaurants No Responses »

Jan 102014

I already posted about the Le Meridien I stayed at in Libreville. I arrived there a bit after midnight after a long delay, and was supposed to have one full day in Libreville, plus the next day until around mid-afternoon. Unfortunately, not really enough time to get out of the city, so I focused on seeing as much of the city as possible. As it turned out, I had three full days there due to some unfortunate circumstances, so I definitely would have had time to get out had I known. Oh well!

December 29: This was to be my one full day in Libreville, so decided to walk as much as possible before melting in the heat. The centre of the city was only about 1.5 miles from the hotel, so I figured it would be a decent walk to see some stuff. After all, it was 85F but cloudy so how bad could it be?

A view of the Le Meridien from the road:

About halfway to the city, I found oil! Big oil!

A little further down the beach, an interesting statue:

Park bench on the beach:

After absolutely melting, I arrived at the cafe I’d been looking for a hot sweaty mess. Oh well, I was rewarded with pain au chocolate, pain au raisin, and espresso. Life was grand!

After refueling, I continued the hot hot hot walk. Next up was the Cathedral of St Marie:

…the first of many places I was to see on the trip where Pope John Paul II had visited.

Walking another 15 minutes or so, I came upon the restaurant where I was considering dinner that night, a place that did local food called L’Odika. They had reservations, and the menu looked good, so I reserved for later that night. Lovely outdoor setting in the gardens:

I’d been told by colleagues that the Port was one of the most interesting things to see, but unfortunately it’s completely under construction, part of a huge hotel / mall / marina / port complex scheduled to be finished in a few years. So, unfortunately, it was a bit of a mess at the moment:

I was roasting at this point, so decided to seek refuge in what I think is one of the most fascinating parts of any city: the local markets and supermarkets. They really tell a lot about the place, and Libreville was home to the largest Casino supermarket I’ve ever seen!

Walked all the way back to the hotel through some back streets, but was too hot to take any pics along the way. Eventually got back and cooled off for a while before grabbing a taxi to L’Odika for dinner. Only took a pic of the first course, a delicious carpaccio of capitain fish. Yum!

December 30: little bit more than a half day, so I took another route through the city, and along the beach, to grab pastries and coffee at the same cafe. A view out onto the ocean:

Was reading my e-mail on my phone at breakfast, when a friend texted me: “Is what’s going on in Kinshasa going to affect you?” Now, keep in mind, I had an afternoon flight to Kinshasa. I quickly started googling, and the news wasn’t good. Armed “terrorists” (the government’s words) had tried to take control of the state tv station and airport, and dozens were killed. Kinshasa airport was closed, and it appeared flights were being diverted. My flight, however, showed on time still. The funny thing is, my first thought wasn’t “shit, it’s not safe to go there now,” it was “how am I going to salvage my trip.” I swear, if ASKY was going to operate my flight, I was going to go!

I hightailed it back to the hotel to call my travel agent, who had the semi-reassuring words: “it looks like your ticket has been changed. Your flight is not going to Brazenville.” Um, do you mean Brazzaville? “Yes, that place.” Ok, so they were going to still operate the flight, just to Brazzaville instead. Hmmm, I would be missing my stop in Kinshasa, but at least it wouldn’t throw off my entire trip. Decided to quickly check out, get to the airport early, and pray.

Took the airport shuttle to the airport, but checkin for ASKY airlines was nowhere to be found. Asked several dozen official-looking people, and they all heard the flight had been canceled. Hmmm. Kept asking around, and eventually one very helpful lady told me she knew where the ASKY office was, so let’s go ask them what’s going on. Upstairs, bang on their door, no answer. So, she just walked right in…where we found ASKY’s airport manager hiding from the public. Yes, the flight is canceled. No, we don’t have any others for three days, yes, you’re out of luck, GO AWAY.

Just as we walked out, the manager of “Trans Congo Airlines” walked by, and he had a flight at midnight to Brazzaville. Um, yeah, I don’t think I want to fly something called Trans-Congo at midnight and hope I get where I really wasn’t planning to go in the first place. Back to the hotel to plan options, and fortunately when I told them earlier my flight was uncertain they’d held the room for me. Great!

Planned and planned, and everyone was right. There was just nothing at all I was finding. Nothing today for sure, and nothing to either city on tomorrow the 31st either. I was stuck in Libreville another two nights it looked like. Rebooked myself to Brazzaville on January 1 instead, turning two nights in Gabon into four. Called it a night, and got some sleep.

Woke up early on the 31st, and went back to the grocery store to stock up on supplies, including the champagne from the previous picture. I was going to have a decent New Years Eve even if it was just me! Hung around by the pool much of the day, which was nice and relaxing. An amazing final sunset of the year from the pool:

To bed a little after midnight, since I’d have to be up around 7am to hopefully catch my flight to Brazzaville, and get my trip back on track as much as possible!