Medellin Travel Guide Affiliate Sites

As a portal, Medellin Travel Guide can be somewhat overwhelming for the casual surfer looking for specific information in a Medellin Related topic.  It is now over 175 pages in length and covers just about anything you might want to know about Medellin Antioquia Colombia.

 

Realizing that most travelers just want information on Medellin Accommodations, Medellin Transportation, Medellin Attractions, Medellin Tours, Medellin Events and Medellin Nightlife, we have launched a number of sister affiliate sites that deal with those individual topics.

www.MedellinPenthouses.com This site lists a number of Medellin Penthouses available for sale or as furnished Medellin apartments.  Medellin penthouses are becoming quite popular for furnished apartment accommodation consideration in Medellin.  They are also quite popular as realestate investments by foreigners.

www.medellinrealestateguide.com Medellin is experiencing a building boom of high rise apartments and commercial properties. There are many great buys on new and previously lived in Medellin apartments, Condos, Penthouses and Medellin Homes.  This is a good place to see some consolidated listings and price ranges for various types of Medellin properties.  Since there is no MLS type of listings and comps. are not available either, these can serve as good benchmarks if you are searching for price ranges for Medellin Property.

www.medellinfincas.com Many investors are looking to buy a “country home” finca for personal use or as an investment rental.  There is also a long list of Finca Hotels and Finca Rentals in and around the Medellin Antioquia Colombia area.

 

We have plans to launch other Medellin related web sites that zero in on a specific topic to make your search query far simpler to find out the information you are looking for about visiting or traveling to Medellin.

 

Thank you for your patronage and welcome to Medellin Antioquia Colombia!

Medellin Apartments and Penthouses

Now working with several realtors and property management firms in Medellin has afforded Medellin Travel Guide a unique opportunity to see (at least the photos) many properties available or sale and rent in Medellin.  We are amazed, daily, at the photos we receive for Apartments that are available for rent on a short term or long term basis here; the Medellin Penthouses available or sale or rent, the Medellin Fincas and Finca Hotels and most importantly, their affordability.

 

It is not unusual to see hard wood and marble floors, built in bookshelves whose craftmanship would rival any western finished carpentry, Million dollar views that would cost 10X the price in any other country, 24 hour manned and gated security, parking garages, storage rooms and incredibly low monthly condominium fees.

 

We keep asking ourselves, “What is wong with this picture”?  We keep responding, “Not a darn thing”!

Safety in Colombia- Think Helicopters

Colombias tarnished past as the Murder Capitol of the World and continuting civil war does not necessairly endear it in people minds when they are thinking of a travel destination.  In fact, when foreigners announce they are traveling to Colombia to their friends, families and co-workers they are usually assaulted with a “are you crazy?”

Now well into my second year of living in Medellin, I can personally tell you the hype is far greater than the reality of the situation.  Probably similar to people that visited Chicago a few years after the arrest of Al Capone and the city was made safe by a law and order mayor, yet it still had the shadow of it’s recent past to contend with for travelers.

The other day, I was having coffee with a young PHD in anthropology.  He is starting a business of eco tourism and taking people on tours of historically relevant places in Colombia.  Of course, I was intrigued by this young, handsome, tall (unusual for a Paisa) young man that boasted a PHD from the University of Paris, spoke perfect English having received his undergraduate and Masters in the US, is fluent in French (and his girlfriend in fluent in Spanish, English, French and German) who spoke to me of historically related items of Colombia (and he was surprised how much I knew of the countries history and I even stumped him on a few things).

 

Of course, the issue of safety came up in conversation.  I told him people are going to want assurances when they leave a major city, that where they are going will be safe.  He paused before responding, smiled and said the most prolific thing I think I have heard since living here, “anywhere in Colombia is safe that you can be seen by a helicopter”.

It was a rare occasion for me not to have some quick countermanding response to an opinion offered on a very generalized subject (I hate people making generalities and usually take pride in shooting holes in their thinking). I was literally quite dumbfounded to find a flaw in his thinking. 

 

“Of course”, I thought.  If the army can see you from a helicopter, they could also see guerrillas.  If they can’t see you from a helicopter…….well, that is probably an area to avoid.

 

I smiled and asked him if I could use his profound comment on this BOLG and he politely gave his permission.  His tours are also listed on the Medellin Travel Guide site along with several others and are awaiting additional photos and links to be published. We also discussed addtitional types of tours he could include in his portfolio including native indigenous tribal village tours, bird watching and photography tours (at 1,810, Colombia has more native bird species than any other country in the world), cave exploration tours (with a PHD in Anthropology this one appealed to him) and several others.

I thought about his comment for days before writing this post.  I kept trying to poke holes in his theory.  The more I thought about it, the more I realized he was right…….!

Medellin Fincas

Going to your finca (country home) for the weekend is a Paisa way of life.  Many times it is just family, sometimes family and friends and often a whole group of friends to party. There are some very elaborate fincas in Medellin Antioquia but most are more like weekend lake or mountain homes in the US.  Somewhat rustic and more of a lodge typ of structure.

Well, Medellin Travel Guide began asking around about fincas that were available for rentals, either by the room or the entire finca.  Afterall, why should the Paisas have all the fun.  We were very surprised at what we found.

 

Many of the fincas in the surrounding area around Medellin (Copacabana, El Penol, Andes, Santa Fe de Antioquia, Rio Negro and other small communities are actually finca hotels, bed and breakfast types of places. We became intrigued and decided to visit one close to Jose Maria Cordoba Airport in Rio Negro  with the aid of a local AgroTourist company.  What we found was not only a pleasant surprise but it turne out to be a very worthwhile use of our time.

 

We visited Siete Cueros (it means seven skins…more later).  The main house is like a big hostel. It has 4 rooms but only two of them would really be usable.  The other two are equipped with bunkbeds for families with children.  Then, there were 4 cabanas.  Cabana del Agucate (avocado), Cabana Siete Cueros, and Cabana de Paja (Straw Roof)  These were all former care takers residences that have been converted to rooms. They are all very rustic, especially Cabana de Paja but you are only going to be sleeping in them. They all have hot water, double beds, small kitchens, living rooms and dining areas (well, Paja is more of an outdoor balcony dining area).

What became even more interesting was meeting the owner. He used to live in the US for almost 15 years and spoke very good English.  I asked about the history of the place (and about the name…Promise, I’ll get to it).  He was the original owner of 35 years ago and built the first house on the property.  It consisted of…get this….20,000 Cuadras (blocks) of property.  They mainly raised agricultural products and some cattle.  He began subdiving the estate and selling large tracts to friends, neighbors and people from Medellin that wanted to build fincas. Much of the progress came to an end during the Pablo Escobar era when the owner and his family moved to the US.  They were delighted to return and resume their Paisa country lifestyle. The owners wife is a very pleasant lady and the staff of the finca hotel were quite delightful as well.  We had a simple dinner of “Carne en el Trapo” which is like a filet mignon wrapped is a cheese cloth that has been rubbed down with salt and other spices.  They throw it right into the flames of a fireplace and let it cook until all the cloth has been burned away.  They then slice off the burned outer layer of meat to get to the juicy and succulent inside of the filet.  Interestingly enough, there was an ample supply of well done, medium, medium rare and rare pieces to go around to suit everyones taste.  Also inclued were salted potatoes, salad and green beans.  No one went hungry.

 

The owner offered to show me around some more and I found a very large outside patio where one could throw a huge party.  ” Wouldn’t it bother the neighbors?” I asked.  He smiled and said, ‘There is only one and they don’t mind”! Also discovered a huge steam room that could easily accommodate 15-20 people, lush grounds that are actually used for raising avocados and ferns for use in flower arrangements. The are also two very small but stocked lakes (he plans to do some additional work on these)

 

So, I finally got around to asking him about the name.  You see, Cuero is Spanish for leather or hides.  I asked, “Why did you name the place 7 hides?”   He smiled and said, “It also means 7 skins”.  I was almost afraid to ask but he volunteered. Seems there are 7 very unique trees on the place. Flowering trees that rival a bogainvillea  in colors but is much larger. It’s bark resembles a birch tree and does in fact look like thin layers of skin.  I think he realized my relief and just chuckled.

It was a wonderful experience and hopefully I will be able to return with a group of friends for a weekend fiesta at our very own Medellin Finca Hotel.  We now have a large list of finca available for rent and have posted our first three on the web site at www.medellintravelguide.com/medellin_fincarentals.html  We will be adding more frequently (there are about 50 to choose from).

 

MTG