Last weekend I made a trip to Santa Fé de Antioquia, as I had heard that it was a nice town to visit. It is pretty easy to get there from Medellín, you can get a variety of buses from the Terminal Norte, which is next to the Metro Station – Caribe.

When in the Terminal there are a variety of buses that go to Santa Fé de Antioquia, there are busetas that carry around 10 people and these cost 10,000 pesos or you can go on a regular sized bus and pay 9,000 pesos. I just took the first bus that was available and that was with Transportes Gómez Hernández with the buseta option.

The trip was pretty quick taxing just over an hour. When we got to the town we realised that the temperature was quite a few degrees higher that Medellín, meaning that it was an urgent priority to bus some shorts to replace the jeans that we had come in.

After doing this it was time to find the hotel, as it was a special weekend I had splurged on a fancy hotel – the Hotel Mariscal Robledo. It it really nice and has a colonial theme, with many antiques around to create a great atmosphere. They also have two pools and many plants and trees around to create a great atmosphere.

The town is literally that, a small town, but the buildings have a beautiful variety of colors and are in reasonably good condition so that walking aimlessly around the streets is a pleasure.

There is not a huge amount to do in the town, with the main attractions being the churches and a few houses of historically important people in Colombia. I was a ‘bad’ tourist on this trip and didn’t make too much of an effort to see the sights, being more content to walk around the streets and the main plaza, sampling the local drinks and sweets.

The sweet toothed people will definitely have plenty of options, with many varieties of arequipe (caramel-condensed milk) and other sweets made from tamarind.

One attraction that many go to see is the Puente del Occidente. This is a bridge crossing a river about 10 minutes from the town and is quite picturesque as you can see in the picture. I don’t recommend that you go there by bicycle like we did. The trip there is quite easy as it is 90% downhill, and you won’t need to pedal at all. This of course means that the trip back is gruelling, and if you are not super fit you will probably find yourself pushing the bike up many of the hills.

Puente del Occidente - Santa Fé de Antioquia

The hot weather in Santa Fé de Antioquia may make you a bit lazy, so you may find yourself relaxing a lot and doing a lot of reading or sleeping, or perhaps lazing in the pool. There is nothing wrong with this of course, and I definitely enjoyed  spending a lot of time doing nothing greatly productive. For this reason it is one place where you are probably better off spending a bit on accommodation, as you will be there a fair bit.

To get back to Medellín it was pretty easy also, the bus terminal is two blocks from the main plaza and we were able to get on a bus in 40 minutes time.

This restaurant chain is perhaps one of the most famous chains in Colombia. The chain started in the 1980s and has risen to great popularity over the years. In my discussions with my Colombian friends, the appeal of the chain has waned a bit in recent years, but there are still queues to get in to many of the restaurants. They have a philosophy of giving opportunities to many female employees; I’m not sure if they only exclusively employ women, but they prefer to give opportunities to women in the kitchens who wouldn’t normally have many opportunities.

This is some general information about the restaurant, but personally I am not a fan. I’m not sure how it was in the past, but I’ve been three times to three different locations, and each time I felt like I was eating not in a restaurant, but in a food court. There are really too many tables in their restaurants and the result is the noise level is higher than ideal, and the level of privacy with your personal conversations is low. It definitely doesn’t achieve the higher classy feel, and it doesn’t achieve a warm homely feel either. It has a strong feel of ‘I am eating in a shopping mall’.

As for the food, I’ve tried a few different crepes and they were ok. Definitely nothing amazing, but they were not horrible. I’m not sure how true they are to French style, but I imagine that a French crepe fan would not be impressed with the authenticity.

The other main speciality that they have (apart from crepes) is the panne cook. Basically it is a round loaf of bread with the middle hollowed out and a filling of a stew or other type of mixture is put in the middle. I tried a filling of Peruvian chicken that tasted, again, ok but not amazing.

The chain keeps expanding and I think they have recently put a restaurant somewhere in the US and Brazil, so there are obviously people that enjoy the place. But I was definitely left with the feeling that it was ok, but definitely didn’t inspire me.

The selection of sweets in the display window

This restaurant is one of four places that are side by side and seem to have the same offerings of atmosphere, style and food. In saying that, these places are all great and have delicious food and sweets. The places are very old and traditional (I think close to 200 years old) and a great place to stop if you are hungry and in La Candelaria.

The location is near the Plaza de Bolívar in Bogotá in Calle 11 # 6 – 50 (specifically for La puerta falsa), tourist central downtown Bogotá. In the windows each of the places has an amazing assortment of sweets, with a few tarts in there for good measure. Most of the sweets contain nuts and arequipe (caramelized sweetened condensed milk), but there are a few different varieties.

These places are more for a lunch or afternoon snack, but a couple of the four have more substantial options if you are looking for more food.

The more common dishes to eat are Tamal, one of the breadlike products such as almojábana or just go for one of the sweets in the window. To accompany your selection you are most likely to order a hot chocolate or coffee, but there is also beer, juice and a few other options to drink.

I am a big fan of the homely atmosphere, as the stone building, oldish wooden chairs and ancient style building give you the feeling that not a whole lot has changed over the years. That, and the amazing selection of sweets definitely have me won over. If you have a sweet tooth you will probably have a hard time deciding on just one sweet!

People tell me that ajiaco specifically comes from Bogotá, one of the few types of food that the capital can really claim to have invented.

It is a thick soup, made predominantly with potatoes, both pureed and some in larger chunks. I am told that there are a few different varieties of potatoes in the soup. There is also shredded chicken in there, half a cob of corn, and sometimes other root vegetables or other meats. The dish also comes with a side of avocado, and you will be given capers and cream to mix into the dish and give it a bit of flavor.

As with most Colombian cooking, the dish relies on the natural flavors found in the ingredients rather than adding a whole lot of spices to have extra taste. As such, you may find the taste a little bland, but it has a very homely of potatoes and chicken, which suits the cold Bogotá climate well. If you are really searching for more flavor, your only real option is to ask for more capers, but theses are an acquired taste.

This is a very pleasant dish, you are unlikely to find it in international five star restaurants but it is good honest food.

I’m sure that many of you have bought something from Ebay, or if you haven’t then I’m sure that you know someone who has. Unfortunately Ebay doesn’t exist in Colombia for whatever reason, but there is an alternative – Mercado Libre (www.mercadolibre.com.co).

On Ebay you can find items to purchase via both auction and with a fixed price, but on Mercado Libre the items only have a fixed price. This has advantages and disadvantages, but the main thing it means is that the price that you see is the price you get – there is no waiting around for the auction to finish, timing your bids at the last moment to try and win the item.

My first experience with Mercado Libre was purchasing a Kindle E-reader from Amazon. You can buy these from Amazon and get them delivered to Colombia, but you’ll have to pay a $50 delivery charge and wait for the item to get posted to Colombia – which could take weeks knowing the postal system here. If you’re like me and you have limited faith in the postal system here and you want your product not in 4 weeks but now, Mercado Libre is a great alternative.

I wanted to buy a Kindle Touch, which retails for $99 in the USA, so with an additional $50 for postage I was looking at a total cost of $149 or around 287,000 pesos. I left this xmas gift purchase a bit late to wait for Amazon to post it to me so my only choice was to look on Mercado Libre’s site for people selling in Colombia.

To my surprise there were a number of different vendors in all major cities in Colombia. I had a look at the different advertisements for sellers in Bogotá and chose the lowest priced offer, which also happened to give some bonus eBooks with the package. The price was 323,000 pesos and that was ok for me so I clicked on “buy” and up came an automatic email giving the sellers details.

The seller called me a few hours later and we discussed the best way to pay. As banks charge you for making most kinds of transactions here, the best method was to do a bank transfer via the ATM, as we both had accounts with Bancolombia. Doing the transfer this way ensured no bank fee.

The seller confirmed the transfer during the day and that night delivered the Kindle to my apartment, in the box and new as expected. So after this experience I am very satisfied with Mercado Libre and I would definitely use them again.

To celebrate the end of the year, one of Bogotá’s long serving bands – Ciegosordomudos – gave a special concert in La Hamburguesería in Calle 85. What made this conciert special was the fact that the band invited several of their friends to help them out with the songs. I only knew a few of the guests – those who were artists in other rock bands – but there were also plenty of stars from the TV and theater that were well-known to the Colombians in the audience.

The set included 18 songs, with each song requiring the participation of at least 1 guest to either sing or play an instrument. The band played all their hits, with the guests having varying degrees of success in performing their role in the song.

My favorite performances were of CSM’s version of Hendrix’s “Foxy Lady”, which featured a larger than life overweight costeño singing his lungs out and seriously rocking out with the band; and a song with the lead singer of the now inactive Bogotano band Pornomotora who definitely knows how to get the crowd going… it made me wonder why the band isn’t around anymore.

Overall it was a great gig with the guests adding great energy and generally gelling well with the band to add to the songs.

As for the venue, it is not like your typical dark rock gig venue that smells like stale beer. This is for the middle class and above, with beer prices being 7,600 pesos each after 11pm. I didn’t like the room set up, with the whole place having tables apart from a small area near the bar at the side of the stage. To get a table anywhere near the stage you had to reserve or get to the gig very early, with the idea being that you try some of their famous hamburgers.

The place was quite full around 11pm when the band started to play and this made is quite difficult to get any service for drinks, which was quite annoying. At this time also they restricted the beer menu, only selling their promotion of the night and stopping the sale of others like Club Colombia and Bogotá Beer Company. My recommendation then is to get there early or to reserve a table so that you are not squashed to the side with the other latecomers.

The next day Suramericana informed Manuel that everything was good with the insurance approval from their side, and that they could draw up the official contracts. Manuel wanted to make some changes to the clauses in the contract, and as he didn’t go to the offices of Suramericana until the afternoon the contract wasn’t ready until the following day.

At this point another issue arose. Normally the person who is the guarantor for the income – me – is the person who signs the contract and assumes the associated risk. I guess to have more security he wanted to have both of us sign the contract. This was a problem as my wife had returned to Bogotá to finalize the process of selling her apartment. So what to do?

My wife then had to print out an emailed copy of the contract and sign it. She then had to go to the notaries office and get all pages of the document notarized, scan the document and email it back to Suramericana, in addition to posting the original document to Medellín. This process was not cheap, and added an extra 50,000 pesos to the cost of renting the apartment.

I’m not sure if it was Suramericana or Manuel, but my wife completed this process in the morning, but the contract wasn’t ready for me to sign until the following day. So the next day I had to go to the Suramericana offices with Manuel and sign the contract with him.

So, finally I had the right to move into the apartment, a full two weeks after starting the search. But perhaps I should have expected the things to take their time, given the time of year and the fact that these types of processes always take longer than one expects.

The apartment was pretty empty, as I barely had any furniture, but now it was time to go shopping to get some of the basics.

Renting an apartment in Medellín – Part 7

Tuesday the 10th came and it was time to go to the offices of Suramericana. It was pretty difficult to find the offices, as instead of being nice logical square blocks, the streets in that area of Laureles are a mess of diagonal, transversal and circular streets that is incredibly confusing. I eventually got there, but had to ask for directions several times.

I got to the office and had to sit with a woman to complete a form with the same details that we had already completed in the initial application. It seemed kind of pointless to do this again but maybe they wanted to confirm that they were correct, as I was telling her the details instead of maybe someone else filling out the form for me.

After completing the forms the woman went away and registered the details in her system and then came back with copies of the documents for me. The process was therefore completed in that office of Suramericana, but I had to go to a different office of Suramericana – in Alpujarra – to get my fingerprints registered.

I only had around an hour left before the cut off time of 3pm that day, so I thought that it was better to get a taxi rather than waste another day of travelling around the city. The offices are quite close to the metro station of Alpujarra but I did save time by not walking.

The offices of Suramericana are huge in this part of town and they have a variety of services, everything from fixing cars, to health insurance and also insuring rental contracts. I asked around and eventually found the office where I had to sign some more contracts. After that there was an electronic registration of my fingerprints, and after around 20 minutes I was finished with the paperwork for Suramericana.

Renting an apartment in Medellín – Part 6

Renting an apartment in Medellín – Part 8

The 6th was the last day of apartment hunting, with the idea to apply for four in total and hope that at least one of the options would come through. I saw two in the morning that were listed with Maxibienes, one that was a bit crap and another that was newly refurbished and had a great view to the north from the 8th floor. I got the application form from the agent and called my wife to organize the paperwork for the two apartments – one with Jiménez and the other with Maxibienes.

We spent a good three hours organizing everything for the applications including filling out forms, getting fingerprints, organizing photocopies of scores of documents and ordering everything to make it easy for someone to make sense of it all. Eventually the guy from Maxibienes came to us to collect the documents from us, and we delivered the other package to the offices of Jiménez Asociados in Floresta.

So after this we had two applications with Suramericana insurers (Jiménez Asociados and Manuel) that didn’t require our friend to sign the contract. We also had two applications with Boliviano insurers (La Inmobilaria La 80 and Maxibienes) that both required our friend to sign the contract for us.

In the afternoon my wife spoke to Suramericana insurers to say that I would have to go to their offices to complete some forms on the Tuesday (as the Monday was a public holiday). They also said that we would have to pay a bond/deposit of four times the monthly rent, but that in paying this we were effectively ‘approved’ for the apartment.

As we were effectively approved for both apartments we had to choose which one we wanted. While the one in Santa Lucía was quite good, the apartment near the stadium had the perfect location for me – close to the metro and the stadium. As Mauricio was such a genuine guy I felt bad rejecting him, but I’m sure that I will speak to him again in the future.

Renting an apartment in Medellín – Part 5

Renting an apartment in Medellín – Part 7

On the 5th we again went looking at apartments and kept the process going with the Manuel’s apartment and also with the Inmobilaria La 80 to try and finalise all the details before our friend could sign the contract on the following Tuesday if necessary.

I also tried to see some more apartments with limited luck. One of them called me to say that the apartment had just been rented to another person who had signed and finalized the contract. With another apartment, the real estate agency called to say that they couldn’t make it at the appointed time, and we changed the time to later in the day. They called again, close to the appointment time saying they were lost and they asked me for directions…. I told them not to bother.

I did see one apartment that I liked last thing in the afternoon, with Jiménez Asociados in Santa Lucía. I had previously looked at that area and thought that most of it was a bit run down, but Mauricio – the agent – had assured me that this apartment was different. He was correct, it was one street away from the main street of Santa Lucía, but it didn’t have the same run down feel. The apartment was quite good, and I told Mauricio that I would call him the day after to discuss how to apply for the apartment.

Renting an apartment in Medellín – Part 4

Renting an apartment in Medellín – Part 6