Hello! and welcome to the second part my Medellin blog. I hope you have enjoyed the first part to this trip and now we will continue the food and other great places to go when you visit Medellin.
Pretty much the areas that we discussed previously were very close to the city center. Most places are approximately 20-30 minutes from the city center depending on traffic. The tram is a great way to get to these other areas, but taxi is really best unless you have your own vehicle. I won’t lie to you, traffic can be stressful as a passenger, so its best to let the taxi drivers take over the driving for you.
Sabaneta
The first town to visit is called Sabaneta. Sabaneta is home to the GIANT Bunelos. Bunelos that are bigger than your head. If you don’t know what a Bunelo is, it is a delicious friend cheese bread that is home grown to Colombia. We have them here in the states, but nothing compares to the Bunelos in Colombia. They are so delicious and they taste so much better there than here. The corn meal and cheese they use have much greater flavor than those here in the States.
Like the Parque Boston, Sabaneta also have a very nice park where the people of the town go to sit and relax and enjoy being outside. Typically by these parks, there is always a church in the courtyard as well so the parks become a very popular hang out after the service has ended. Around the perimeter of the courtyard, there are restaurants and bars all around. There are beautiful birdhouses throughout the park as well so the birds have a place to rest if needed. The parks are also filled with flowers and fountains, kids running around and the elders of the town playing dominos.
We started our day here, a group of 14 people for breakfast. In Colombia, you want to eat something small because you will be eating all day while traveling the city. We went to a place called “El Peregrino.” Here they have the giant Bunelos, arepas con queso, chorizos and morcillas. For drinks to start the day, they always have delicious fresh juices of all kinds of fruit and of course Colombian Coffee. You can never go wrong with Colombian coffee. I attached the menus for you, so you can see how affordable it really is. After breakfast, we walked the park, took some pictures and then hopped in the van to our next stop.
The next stop was the cable car ride up the mountain to Parque Arvi, which was already discussed so I won’t do it again, but then after that, we stopped for coffee at this Jeep and then awaited for our van to meet us at the top of the mountain. At the top of the mountain, we ate fruit, arepas, flan, papa rellenos, dedos de queso just to name a few things. Good thing we had a small breakfast.
San Antonio de Periera
Once our van arrived, our next stop was in the town of San Antonio de Periera for lunch. We easily found a table to accommodate the 14 people in our party at Cazuela y Tizon for lunch. There had the typical dishes of Colombia such as Mondongo (tripe stew), chuzos (kebabs) with salads, avocados and beans amd of course, Gaurapo ( which is a natural juice made with sugarcane lemon and water). It’s so very delicous and I have it every chance I can! Again it’s one of those things that just tastes better in Colombia. I highly reccomend Cazuela y Tizon.
After lunch we walked to the park to enjoy to street market of jewelry, clothes and of course, more food. There is NEVER a shortage of food in Colombia, like FOR REAL. One of the reasons to go to San Antonio is actually the desserts. This is where you go for dessert. I have heard about it just never got to experience it. And FINALLY, I got to go! It was VERY exciting for me. I have attached the pictures from the place that we got the desserts from. These are not my pictures, I will say that, but they are from the website of the place we went and I highly recommend.
Night Life
So many of you might now be asking, Ok Kristen, you have given us all these places to go during the day, what about at night? We didn’t actually go out clubbing on this trip but we have the last 2 times we have gone. It’s easy for me because this is the home of my boyfriend, so he knows all the places to go so everything I am about to talk about is from him and our experiences together.
Mercado del Rio
Another fun place to go is called Mercado del Rio. It is exactly what the title of it is called. Its a market on the river. There are different restaurants and bars here with different vendors as well selling jewelry and local merchandise. I don’t remember dancing here at all, so I can only recommend the delicious wine and food. It is a very nice place to go for dinner to start the festivities or have a drink before the night begins. It’s calm and relaxing and very chill. I highly recommend this!
El Poblado
In El Poblado, you will find lots of restaurants and bars. Here is pretty touristy so you will also find hotels and again a park. It isn’t like the other parks though that we have already discussed. Most places here you will be able to drink, dance, people watch and have a great time. But if you go too early, it will be like a ghost town. The party doesn’t typically start till 11 pm at the earliest. This is a more affluent trendy area, I will caution you though, because this is also a touristy area, make sure you get everything sorted out with your server ahead of time, because they will sometimes try to take advantage and charge you for things that you didn’t ask for and they brought. Set everything up with them ahead of time so there is no confusion. It’s super fun though, so if you want to try your Salsa Dancing, this is a great place to go. But there are some serious dancers out there and they will just wow you with their talent. It’s pretty impressive. Typically, in Colombia, you will being dancing salsa, bachata and meringue.
Calle 70
On Calle 70, you will find a street lined with bars and dance clubs. This is where the locals tend to go and it is much less expensive than El Poblado. Here you can find a liter of Ron Medellin Rum or Colombia’s delicacy of Aguardiente for about $20 US dollars. A LITER, that is a crazy amount to drink for so cheap. You will be able to dance all you want and drink whatever you want. The music is just as awesome here as in El Poblado. It is typically less expensive than El Poblado too, so for us, this is where we like to go for a night out.
And can we talk about the food for a minute? Oh the food in Colombia is so delicious. Some of the BEST street food I have EVER had. There are awesome street vendors especially by Calle 70. When you are dancing and drinking, you get that urge to eat. There are all kinds of food carts around that will actually deliver the food to your table. You will just tell them where you are sitting and when its ready they will bring it to you! Its totally perfect and awesome. It’s one of the best things when you are out and about.
THE FOOD
That was the perfect segway for the next topic. We kinda already talked about some of the food in Colombia, BUT, lets discuss the street food and our favorite place for lunch. Being in the city center in a neighborhood called Boston, there is a great Colombian restaurant called Casa Vieja. There they have daily soups with an array of beef, chicken or pork with all of the delicious sides, salad, avocado, plantains with rice and beans. Don’t forget your fresh juice too. Below you will see a Bandeja Paisa which is essentially their signature dish, its a little bit of everything.
This particular dish has chicharron which is fried pig skin if you will and it is so delicious and crispy. If you love bacon, you will love this. Sometimes, there is chorizo or carne asada as the meat on this. It all depends on what you would like to have. The avocados here are so yummy too and creamy like butter. AND if you go to the grocery store, they are incredibly affordable, not like here. You can get 2 giant green avocados for about a dollar. Honestly, when I buy fruits or avocados here, I usually buy them from the vendors on the street, it’s the freshest and homegrown, not to mention I prefer to support small business and all the vendors are small business. I know where the money is going.
So let’s talk about the arepas con queso or the chuzos from the street vendors, I cannot even describe what it is, it is just something you have to experience it yourself. The cheese has such great flavor and the homemade arepas are something that I wish I had the talent to make. Luckily you can easily find these anywhere in Colombia
Avocados 
Uchuvas 
Fresh Berries 
Fresh Mangos
Wrap Up
I hope that I have shown you how amazing and fun Medellin can be. It really is a beautiful city and country with so much to offer. There are more and more people visiting everyday from all over the world. It’s very affordable to visit here and the culture that you experience is priceless.
If you haven’t read my first blog post about Medellin, its never too late. You can read it here! Thank you for visiting! Enjoy!
https://healthyworldtravels.com/bienvenido-a-medellin-colombia/
