I travel around in South America and that was a good moment to visit Cartagena and the Lalexpo in Medellin.
First: Cartagena is much nicer than Medellin and has more sightseeing to offer and has some beaches and a great historical center. The good news; I heard next year the Lalexpo might be in Cartagena…. In Medellin we took a tour and visited the ‘old’ center, cablecars, made a limo tour. The tourguide didn’t want to talk much about Escobar cause they ruined the reputation of the country he said. We went with the number 1 tourguide on tripadvisor, and in 4 hours we where shown the hotspots in the center.
The streetlife
Near the Event hotel was a small park, Lleras Park, and in the street around it there are like 100 – 150 bars, clubs, restaurants. This is the high end part of Medellin and is the safest area in Medellin. Every street salesman (cigaraettes/candies) also could offer marihuana, coke, prostitutes. In this small park backpackers and locals gather before going to the clubs, you buy a bottle of beer for 60 cents in a shop and can hang around. Also freelance girls where looking for work here. This area is safe and police is around and the atmosphere was good. It is all about the people that make you feel welcome and give the bars and disco’s a latin vibe.
In the old center we walked around with a big camera around the shoulder, and we didn’t get robed. We saw some people looking at this expensive equipment. Maybe they thought it was a set up, cause no normal person would walk around like that. We wanted to go in a erotic club, but changed our mind when a girl came out that was stabbed in both shoulders and police showed up. But this wasn’t in the tourist part of town… Around the corner of Park Bolivar we also a street with trannies. We visited some stripclubs and whore houses, that felt safe, but it wasn’t top notch like we know in Pattaya. Offcourse we only went there to do some erotic market research. There was also a small square ‘periodista park’ where ‘free minded’ people gathered, like weed smoking hippies and streetartist and some trannies. Maybe there are more updates coming.
The Lalexpo
The lalexpo attracted a big crowd, most of them working in the webcam business. Therefore the big seminars where in Spanish and was about making money as a webcamstudio or model. Also there where several English seminars about the latin market. People where friendly and liked to start a conversation. Even my beginners Spanish was good enough to start small talk and most spoke also a little English. The Translation App can help you out also. It was not all about cams, there where webmasters, affiliates, producers that where busy shooting content for their sites etcetra.
I noticed that all Colombians, including the ‘normal’ tourguide love that more and more people start visiting their country and are open to welcome tourists. They want to get rid of the bad reputation, the last 10 years a lot has changed. I think the Lalexpo will improve and attract more and more people. A move to Cartagena would be great cause that is more ‘cosy’ and historic (must be one of the nicest historic city in the region).
The organisers and sponsors gave everyone a good time and connect. The party’s where great with Colombian music and artists. I want to thank the organisers, sponsors and attendees for a great time.
I will be around for some more weeks, tips are welcome
It was afe, if you don't start wondering around like we did. I didn't hear 1 person that had problems. Budapest has the record if it comes to crime during an event.