Blog 5 - 30/10 - 02/11/2025
Medellin, It’s true has a dark history. The city was subject to the terror of Pablo Escobar, that most people are aware of. As well as Guerilla groups controlling many of the comunas as a stronghold up in the hillsides. During the 90’s and early 2000’s parts of Medellin was a very dangerous place to be. However, in recent years this city has seen a rejuvenation on an incredible scale. The city has become a place celebrating its culture, a place of art and music. Now attracting young and old travellers from all over the world, the city has a vibe like nowhere else I have experienced. A very chilled out attitude to life, this city is certainly one of those that sucks you in. However, this is still Colombia. The minority, as in any city across the world still have a presence here and theft and crime are not unusual. In this post I’ll explain the incident and the lead up to it.
Arrival in the city
I arrived on a bus from Armenia, which was the worst bus ride I think I’ve ever had. Allow me to set the scene. I bought my ticket in the bus station and was shown to the bus, the driver then pointed to the seat, gesturing that this one was mine. Right behind the driver. The bus was small, more of a minibus which I was a little surprised at, but oh well. Now then, the bus was only locals and I. For anyone who has been to Latin America or in this case maybe I shouldn’t generalise so much, but Colombians are not the tallest people in the world. Feeling about 3 foot taller than the next person on the bus, my heart sank when I first laid eyes on my seat. By far the least leg room out of any seat on this bus.
I took my seat, and when I say that I had no leg room, this is not being dramatic. I had to sit fully upright just to get my legs in. I knew this was going to be long. Sitting at a 90-degree angle with my knees still pressed into the seat in front of me. I was so uncomfortable. Meanwhile, matey boy next to me, had decided to manspread even though he had all the room in the world to his other side. Can you tell I’m still annoyed hahaa. I spotted that the front seat next to the driver was free. I thought I’ll wait until we get out the city then I’ll ask if I can sit there, but my dreams were crushed. In the middle of nowhere, the bus pulled to the side of the main road and picked up a girl who sat in the front seat.
Now then, I caught this girl turning round to look at me multiple times throughout the journey. I’m not sure if she was looking at me because I’m a gringo, or maybe she was interested in me, I think she was actually trying to rub it in, and she could see how uncomfortable I was. After 3 and a half hours of this we finally stopped for a short break. Basically, falling out of the bus as my left knee had given up on me, I had 10 minutes to walk some life back into my calves and feet. I won’t lie, I was giving it everything I could to try and sell that I was in a lot of pain, and maybe a nice soul would offer to swap. Giving it the old stretch with a few groans thrown in here and there. Alas my efforts were to no avail, and fair enough, I wouldn’t and certainly didn’t want to be sat in that seat.
Finally reaching the bus terminal in Medellin, in such a rush to get off the bus, I left my water bottle onboard, which I didn’t realise for a few days. I jumped in an uber to the hostel, where I dumped my bags, went straight to the rooftop bar and met up with Aiden! Grateful for a cold beer, we caught up on activities we’d been up to. The night continued and we headed out with a few people from the hostel to La House, a club I would come to know well.
Halloween
The next day me and Adien met up to see what we were going to do that day. We made plans to meet up with Tom and Sharon in a different suburb. They were heading soon and we’d meet them there. Well, it was only when we arrived that we realised what was going on here. Aiden and I looked at each other at the same time and said to each other “are we crashing a date?” Yep, turns out we were, oops sorry guys! We drank the afternoon away.
Okay, now things get serious. Tonight was Halloween, after much deliberation Aiden and I decided we would go as the classic and family favourite, bedsheet ghosts – Los Fantasmas. Cutting a few eye holes and a breathing hole, big enough to get the neck of a beer bottle through and we were set! There were some pretty good costumes around, but, and I’m not being biased here, they had nothing on us! Apparently not everyone agreed… we entered a costume contest and didn’t even make top 3. I think the contest was rigged.
Now then going clubbing with a bedsheet over our heads sounds like a great idea at the time, it was so annoying! I could barely see and omg so sweaty. Still though, worth it for the laughs.
The night took a wrong turn when Aiden went out for a cigarette and realised that he no longer had his phone…
The following day/night
I caught up with Aiden and offered him my laptop and my phone so he could get in contact with his friends and family.
We parted ways in the afternoon, Sharon and I went into the town centre after bailing on a 3 and a half hour walking tour, far far too hungover for that. We went to the main sights and called it a day. Went back to the hostel, this time going to the roof top pool and drank the afternoon away there instead (a theme is emerging here).
It seemed a few people in the group were moving on over the next few days, so we went out for our third night in a row. This was the night of the incident.
The Incidient
I’d met some Americans during the day at the pool, and they had invited me to go out with them to a club. So along with the Americans, Liam from Liverpool and Jean from Switzerland we hit the club. The Americans had a VIP table… very American, and the bottles of booze were flowing. I always get really bored of VIP tables, so Liam, Jean and I went downstairs to the main dance floor and proceeded to make friends with the locals.
Once we’d decided we’d had enough we left to rejoin Aiden and a few others. The story gets a bit hazy from here, my memory starts to fail me. In the Uber on the way back to Provenza (the main club area near our hostel) I was given the aux and played the best reggaeton songs I knew, this uber ride was actually so funny, but I’m not sure what happened next we got dropped off in front of a nice looking bar, so we went in, had another couple of beers and a glass of wine… where the hell did that come from. We took a photo with a group of locals in the bar and then I took charge and wanted to leave to meet up with the others. Saying we needed to leave quickly we all downed our wine. This was the fatal blow, from here I have no memory until we get to the incident, which is also a bit of a blur.
I thought we were all walking to the same place together, and chatting to the other guys the morning after, we were, and then all of a sudden I took off, went alone to find my other friends. From memory and retracing my steps, I was very close, so clearly thought it would be okay for me to walk alone, this along with the fact that I’d been in this area the past 2 nights was enough for me to drop my guard. I was walking with my phone out, probably stumbling my way along the street, looking like and I was, the easiest target in Medellin. Someone came from behind me, snatched my phone and ran off down a side street. Remember, the details of this story might not be accurate, but this is what I believe to be true. Feeling like Superman, I ran after the thief, and man I was so close to catching him, when out of nowhere, two other guys came from behind me and tripped me up. My right knee took most of the blow, along with my right elbow and left hand. Now on the floor, the 2 guys began kicking me, not that hard, I only had a minor bruise the next day. They then stole my wallet from my pocket and took my side bag which contained some cash – not much.
A gap in my memory now brings us to me meeting a local girl, I’m not sure if she saw what happened or just saw the damage that had been done to my body. She came over and spoke with me in English, I said I wanted to report it to the police, so she took me to the 2 nearest officers, I’m not sure what was said as they spoke in Spanish, and well, I was still very drunk. From my perspective the officers didn’t seem to care too much. Another gap in my memory brings me to getting into a cab with this girl as she said she wanted me to go to hospital. My memory is back now, I said that sounds like a good idea. So, we get in a taxi, and it was quite a long journey or so it felt. I remember being very tired at this point, the adrenaline had worn off. Things then started to be a bit weird. In the taxi, this girl took my hand, I believed she was checking my wounds, but then she kissed the backside of my hand. Then she proceeded to rest her head on my chest. Feeling very uncomfortable at this I was glad we soon reached the hospital.
Now at the hospital, she continued to do the talking on my behalf. She came back and asked for my passport number. Ha well, I don’t know… I had a picture of it on my phone. I made one up which closely resembled my own, who knows I might have actually got it right. Then came the question of how I was going to pay, again ha I don’t know, I don’t have any money. With that, we left. It was now broad daylight now, and I needed to figure out how the hell I was going to get back home. Outside the hospital was a taxi, I rummaged through my pockets and to my surprise I found a 50,000 peso note. Not really caring how much it was going to cost I got in the taxi and got dropped off back at the hostel.
Now safely back at the hostel, I stumbled into to the reception area. Probably looking like an absolute state, clothes torn, blood everywhere and well, looking generally rough. The lovely Sophia on reception came running to me, sat me down, grabbed the first aid kit and began cleaning the wounds. She put a bandage over them and off I went to bed.
The Aftermath
I met up with Aiden the next morning, just by chance, seeing as neither of us had anyway of contacting each other. We sat in the communal area of the hostel drinking some coffee talking about what had happened, both wishing we could snap our fingers, be back in the UK for a couple hours, a cup of tea and some time to sort our things out is all we needed. Mia was there as well, now back from her trip. She had the joy of watching both Aiden and I try to figure out how the hell we were going to get our lives back together – slightly dramatic.
We took turns on my laptop for some time, before decided to go buy replacement phones. I bought the cheapest shittiest Samsung brick I could find, and it truly is the cheapest shittiest brick. Aiden having had an I phone before spent about 4x more than me to get a replacement. Now the frustrations of 2FA come in. Everything and I mean everything needs a text message to your phone to log in. Because of this, I couldn’t report my cards stolen, or even get access to my banks. So, I really had no money.
Dad and Sister to the rescue. I remembered that Western Union can be used to collect cash, so I asked my dad if he could send me some money to go and collect. He kindly sent me a lot of money and that would see me through until I can sort my own cards again. Bryony, facilitated a phone call with EE for me. A very dodgy but working solution as I could hear the man on the phone some of the time, bryony would message me what he wanted when it was clear I couldn’t hear. I was then able to transfer the call to bryony, which must’ve seemed so dodgy. As bryony was already there to take up the call. We managed to get a pay as you go sim to her house with my original number. A few days later, with Bryony on a call reading the 2FA numbers to me, I was able to get access to my apps again.
Unfortunately, I then came down with a fever. Bedridden for 2 days. Luck really wasn’t with me. The hostel arranged a phone call with a doctor, again the lovely Sophia helped translate, and I was able to get a prescription that same day.
No then, I write this 2 weeks later. Still, I don’t have any bank cards and still with a lingering cold. As you’ll see in the next chapter I decided to stay in Medellin, to recover and have some fun with the group of friends I made. Postponing stuff being sent to me.
After which I travelled back to Bogota by bus, I had read (Chat GPT) that all international mail goes via Bogota, so to get my stuff the quickest and most securely, I asked Bryony to post the new sim and bank cards to Bogota. It turns out that you’re not allowed to post bank cards. Urggh will my bad luck ever end. I was able to order a replacement revolut card to the hostel I’m in now (the same one I stayed in the first time round in Bogota), but Monzo don’t post to Colombia, apparently no, my bad luck has not ended. I will have to wait until I am in Ecuador or Peru for this. Oh and to add this, I was actually smart enough to leave another bank card in my bag, which when I got it out the next day realised, with a heart breaking moment, it had expired in 2023…
So now I have some boring days ahead of me in a city which I did everything I want to do the first-time round, and oh the weather is awful. Today is has rained non-stop.
Anyway, enough feeling sorry for myself because actually, my spirits are very high at the moment and despite everything, I have laughed my way through it, with some really good friends around me.