Disorganized Thoughts - week 2.5 in Medellin

Yesterday the guesthouse I am staying at received some new faces. For the first 10 days I stayed here the group of people didn’t change at all, now in the last three days we went from half-full to turning people away for a lack of space. Semi-related, the longest staying resident (6+ months) just moved out less than 5 minutes ago because he found a cheap place within walking distance of his school. He was a cool guy (taught English in China for a few years, so we had a lot to talk about), but I won’t miss waking up in the late morning to his girlfriend’s squeals while they fucked. His room was the penthouse upstairs, so her uh’s and ooh’s echoed down through the open laundry space right through my bedroom window.

Annyways, I was hanging out in the foyer area when three newbies poked their heads in. One was/is a cool older Jew(we talked about Israel and Jordan a lot, plus he gave me about 25 movies off his hard drive) named Moses, maybe 60. I think he’s in Colombia just to see what it’s like post-Escobar before he dies, the other is a couple from Florida.
“So, what is the area around here like”, asks the guy with his novia.
“Crack heads and underage prostitutes”
*Moses throws his head back as a flinch and grimaces, then nods with acceptance pursing his lips together.

Throughout our conversation I tried to tone down how shitty our neighborhood was, but I couldn’t lie and mislead them. If you want a nice clean safe neighbor hood that feels like an extension of the US, get your ass back to Poblado and don’t leave your padded room. Voluntarily living in Prado Centro is to live in the “real”, grimy, disgusting Medellin that is a much more accurate representation of the city.

“Is there any good nightlife around here?”
“Only if you take a cab or walk straight to the Metro, the streets aren’t safe at night”
“Oh..”
“Well, I guess you can—in some places—but you have to turn on your ‘don’t fuck with me face’”
“What does that look like?” He smirks, waiting for me to provide an example.
Christ, this guy is going to get eaten alive out there.
“It’s your atmosphere, you have to eat and breath confidence, walk like you know where you’re going no matter what. Like you’ll rip anyone who gives you shit apart”
I will fill another post on just this matter later..

This guy made me think how green I must have looked in Cartagena.
“Omg there’s nearly naked street beggers covered in 2 months of filth pissing and shitting in the streets”
“Eek, no traffic rules, or driving lanes, how do I cross the street?”
“That hooker is looking at me, oh no, aids!”

Later in the evening I was out having a few drinks with some of my local friends (in Poblado, I’ll mock the neighborhood, but Poblado has 90% of the cities bars, alright?).
It was my first time “partying” near Parque Lleras (full of gringo chumps paying for sex or taking girls they barely know on shopping sprees and shit so they can fuck them later).
Thankfully we were about 4 blocks off the square and around bars that actually had near-local prices again. We sat on this little ledge overlooking the street, I had a local girl under my arm, surrounded in good company, speaking Spanish well enough to carry a conversation; life was good. I think back to my first few days in Medellin and reminisce on my “green-ness”, once again struggling to even remember what worries were on my mind at the time.

The rumors about Medellin being a hotspot for gorgeous women is completely accurate. You can’t go on the Metro without running into a Colombiana that would stand out in a crowd back home. All of this hotness DOES come at a cost though.
Bitch list:
-Sex tourists, fuck off you pervy twats that can’t get laid at home. You are pathetic. You ruin it for every other man by throwing cash at these girls all day long. I woke up two days ago to a text from a girl saying, “Corazoon! No tengo dinero.. :(“

She invited me to go to a Finca with her friends this weekend, two days before we’re supposed to go she says she doesn’t have enough cash, and that she can only go if she can *somehow find the dinero* -> i.e. convince me to pay for everything, perhaps even for her friends too.

Another guy at this guesthouse gets calls everyday from women asking for 50mil or whatever to “tide them over” for a few days.

Two weekends ago the female friend of a girl I was hanging out with (I had only known this girl for a few hours) goes up to a street vender late at night, grabs a bunch of shit, then looks at me and sticks her hand out silently waiting for me to put some paper in it.

Bitch, I am not an ATM.

I can keep going with these examples but I want to save it for another post to really do it justice.

All it takes is a few guys without backbones to give in to these stupid demands and the whole city is wrecked. Every girl here seems to have a friend who is extorting cash from a North American or European, so when they meet one in a bar.. they want a sugar daddy too.

The girl I was out with last night went up to the bar (on her own) and bought me a beer while she got her own drink. I was absolutely astounded. I told the guys back at the guesthouse and received, “that’s when you know she’s a good girl”, “you better hold on to that one” and similar comments. The only problem is that I don’t get the “butterflies” with this one, that could be another post on it’s own.. again.

To wrap up this spiraling mess of a post, cute girls in Medellin that don’t want your money DO exist, it just requires a lot of searching, and that’s a shame.