New Year's Eve

Long ago during our visit to Cali we were told that all the major cities compete in the game 'Who has the best Christmas Lights?'. While the caleños we spoke with are very proud of their city and really were enjoying their lights this year they did state that over the past few years Cali had pooey lights, Bogotá usually wasn't shabby, but that Medellín had been kicking butt for the past few years. This sentiment had been spoken by a few other people so therefore we decided we really wanted to see them.

First there were precautions we had to make. We had decided that the neighborhood we were staying in was decidedly sketchy so we wanted to get comfortable with our surroundings and know how to find our way back before we wandered out in the dark. This means it took a few days before we decided we were ready to head out to see the lights. However we were comforted by a conversation we had with a cabbie. He told us that there were lots of people afoot in the evenings to see the lights and even drove us down a street crowded with families enjoying the colorful show. So on New Year's Eve we had a few sips of rum and coke (I was against it from the start) and making sure we still had our wits about us we headed out.

The first thing that happened was that I was quickly removed from my pedestal of 'Wow, people in Medellín are really nice!' when a cab pulled over and when I told him where we were going his face quickly turned sour and he yelled something at me -that even though I didn't know what it was there was no doubt that it was very mean- and quickly sped away. I was pretty devastated as I've had a hard time really liking it here in Colombia and I was maybe on an upswing. Without getting too into it (there is always personal conversations we can have later) Mark was reminded of something someone said to us not too long ago (maybe even his cousin?) it went something like 'Colombia is a really beautiful country. It's just Colombians that are the problem.'

But anyway we evenutally snagged a taxi with a strange jerry-curled man blasting techno (I sometimes wonder if they are putting on this shit music because they think Americans like it) and headed up to Pueblito Paisa. Essentially a fake typical country town kinda remiscent of the villages in Busch Gardens, situated on top of a hill to give you great views of the city all around you.

This is really just a smidgeon of the city. It spreads 360 degrees around you and up into the mountains.

We had been up there earlier in the daytime to get a bird's eye view and were returning in the dark (don't worry, lots o' people) to see the lights along the Rio Medellín, before walking down and along the lights on the river.

So we walked around the pueblito for the second time that day in awe of how many people were really still around and snagged some photos of the lights from above.
Afterwards we walked down to the river and the lights truly were amazing. Giant trees glowed green with different types of 'decorations' glowing on them in contrasting colors. It could be apples or flowers or candles. Rope lights dangled below along the water and above like a canopy. Every once in awhile a kiosk of crazy light scenes appeared, mini North Poles or mini Bethlehems all in lights.
Once we left the Rio we even came across a park with yet another theme of lights. It was decorated with mini scenes of how the rest of the world spends Christmas (a small menorah was thrown in there somewhere) and giant letters spelling out how other languages say Merry Christmas as well.
After getting our Christmas light cravings out of our system we headed back to our room along the slightly abandoned- and yes- slighty sketchy streets. We drank more rum in our pajamas and when midnight hit we listened to the sounds of the insane amount of fireworks going off in the streets.