El Poblado as seen from Pueblito Paisa

By now almost everyone in Medellin knows the story. Or some version of it.

New Yorker Dennis Levy, 58, resisted a robber and was killed from two gunshot wounds to his chest late last month at El Tamarindo Hostel in the popular Parque Lleras area of El Poblado, one of the biggest tourist draws in Medellín.

He apparently was minding his business when the robbers came in, then tried to help the front desk. At least that’s one way it’s been told.

That led to discussion about other incidents:

The recent near-robbery at the nearby Tiger Paw Hostel, as well as two homicides last year — another U.S. tourist, this incident in the northern suburb of Bello, and a British tourist who was murdered in the Belén district west of El Poblado.

It makes Medellín sound so dangerous and some of the comments that follow on news websites only exacerbate the situation.

Unfortunately, in these situations, it’s hard to find out exactly what happened. People don’t want to be associated with violent crime, not even as witnesses, especially not in a place like Medellín, once the murder capital of the world with 381 homicides per 100,000 people during the peak of the drug violence — almost four times as high as the rate is today — according to the latest figures at the Brookings Institute, a left-leaning American policy institute

Finding someone to provide a clear, eye-witness account of what happened at El Tamarindo has proved futile. It’s almost the same with the Tiger Paw incident, although there is one person, someone who agreed to share what he knows as long as his name is not used, and I plan to respect that.

This is the email, verbatim, that I received from this person, who was staying at the Tiger Paw that night (and, again, I will not disclose their name):

So it happened around 2.30am on Monday 16th April. It had been a fairly busy night for the Tiger Paw bar for a Sunday. There were around 7 or 8 people still drinking at that time, sitting on the tables just outside and the security door was open. Most of them were backpackers from other hostels.

It seems that the robber (with his gun concealed) walked right in to the hostel without anyone even noticing him or questioning him and he proceeded straight up the stairs to the 1st floor.

The alarm was raised by the girl working on reception that night as she noticed that her handbag which she had left behind the reception desk was open and wet. When she looked closer she found that 100,000 pesos had been taken from her purse. She immediately told a couple of the lads (regulars at the bar that week) and two of them (one Portuguese) went to look around the hostel to see if there was an intruder.

The Portuguese guy (in his late 20s / early 30s) went upstairs and physically tackled the robber as he came out of a room. He told me that he tried to pin the robber against the wall but eventually backed off. The Portuguese guy was quite drunk as he had been at the bar for at least 3 or 4 hours by that stage.

By this time, the shouting and commotion had woken up a lot of people. The robber went back downstairs, shouting at people to put their hands up. The security door had been closed, so he smashed through the big glass window to escape, and he had an accomplice waiting in a car.

From talking to people afterwards, it seems that the robber only entered one room, possibly two at the most. A Canadian guy who was sleeping in there woke up and jumped on top of the robber from the top bunk which he was sleeping on. When he saw the gun, though, he backed right off.

So in total, the robber only got away with an iPad and the 100,000 pesos ($56 USD), possibly some other electronics as well. But he didn’t go for the cash register at the bar, or the money at the reception desk.

So we were lucky it wasn’t more serious and very thankful that no one was hurt, especially with these guys trying to play the hero.

Now let’s talk about two things: 1) Medellín, home to 4 million people, is a big enough city that violence is part of everyday life; 2) that’s why we need to focus on what can be done to limit our chances of becoming victims and what to do should we be confronted with trouble.

Safety Tips:

1. It’s always safer to go out in groups, especially at night.

2. Learn the city. There are neighborhoods you probably don’t want to visit even during the day. (Sound similar to some cities in the United States? I thought so.)

3. Try to blend in. That means no fancy jewelry or watches, no playing with your iPhone or Smartphone or Blackberry in public, and guys, please wear jeans. Nothing screams gringo like a guy wearing shorts in Medellín, unless he’s running, going to the gym, playing basketball, something that can be considered exercise.

4. If you’re confronted, be cooperative. Don’t resist. Sure, it sucks to lose an iPad, but is it worth your life?

5. Call the police immediately after an incident. But if you’re identifying someone as a criminal, or providing anything that could be used in court, you might want to refrain from providing your real address. You don’t want the bad guys to find out where you live through public records.

I have lived in Medellín for more than seven months and have yet to encounter anything serious. I hope it stays that way, and I plan to do the best I can to make sure it does.

The stories about Levy are the exception nowadays, not the norm. It just never feels that way when it happens.

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Salmón Fresco Sandwich

Sometimes, a deli sandwich is the only food that will suffice. I was determined to find a spot in Medellin that makes good ones.

I remembered passing a place on Calle 4 in the Oviedo section of El Poblado called Anita’s Gourmet Express, a place I later looked up online. I wanted to see their menu to get an idea if I would like what they have. With options from roast beef to chicken to salmon, I believed I had found a great place.

It took a while for me to get there because I don’t spend a lot of time in El Poblado, but after eating there, I wished I had gone sooner.

It was hard to decide among the roast beef, the pollo supremo (chicken supreme) and the salmón fresco (fresh salmon). I went with the salmon because I hadn’t eaten fish in a while. It was delicious.

The fish was fresh and it came with dill, mayonnaise, cucumbers, lettuce and tomato. The dill is an important ingredient. It always goes really well with salmon. The sandwich came on a baguette big enough to fill me up.

Now, let’s be clear about one thing: if you’re expecting a New York-style deli, you might be disappointed. I love places like Pastrami Queen as much as the next person, delis where they stack the meat almost a half foot high, where the potato knish is as good as it gets when you’re filling up on carbs.

But just because the food isn’t exactly the same at Anita’s, it doesn’t mean it’s not good.

It’s really good. Just expect to pay for it. Prices range from 12,500 pesos (about $6.25) to 24,000 pesos (about $12). My sandwich cost 16,500 pesos (about $8.25).

Cheesecake with Raspberries

Normally i would have just eaten the sandwich and left but the postres (desserts) in the glass case were too tempting to pass up. I went with the cheesecake. I’ve had better, but the raspberries that came with it made it worth the cost.

The service was great too. It’s not like a U.S. deli, where you usually have to come to the counter to get your food when someone calls out your order. The people working there bring your food to you.

In some ways, it’s more like a restaurant, like the sister business next door, El Cafetierre de Anita, a gourmet place with a variety of expensive seafood dishes.

Someday, I’ll eat there too. But before then, I’ll have a roast beef sandwich.

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Fanny Lu is a singer and actress from Cali, Colombia.

Shakira aside, she’s the first Colombian singer I became aware of upon arriving in Bogota 3 years ago.

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If you’re going to be in Medellin this weekend, you’re in for a treat.

Vibra Mi Tierra is an annual festival that takes place every May in Jardín Botánico, the city’s botanical gardens.

The event, which is co-organized by the local 3 Cordilleras beer company, aims to support the culture and entrepreneurship of Antioquia.

But really, it’s just a great excuse to get outside and enjoy a few artisanal beers, good food, and live music with friends and family in the park.

The live music begins each day at Noon, and runs throughout the event. And a host of restaurants will be setting up shop as well, including Revolucion Mexicana 1910 (one of my favorites), and Il Forno.

Details

• Cost:  Tickets are 25,000 COP ($14)
• Hours:  Saturday, May 5, 11 am – 2 am and Sunday, May 6, 11 am – 8 pm
• Location:  Jardin Botanico
• Closest Metro:  Universidad, which is situated across the street from Jardín Botánico
• Vibra Mi Tierra website

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Medellin's international airport

The procedure seemed simple enough. Show your ticket and your passport and through customs you go, on your way to your destination. For me, it was Southeast Florida, to visit my brother and his family for Christmas, and for the first time I had quite an experience with this obligatory routine.

This is what I was thinking about as I passed through the airport this month for another trip to my brother’s house. I was going there to sell my car, give away unneeded clothes (but very nice clothes) to the Salvation Army, to do my taxes.

But none of that was on my mind, not after what happened on Dec. 6, 2011. I was randomly picked to have my bag checked and to be x-rayed, to make sure I was not a drug mule. Half-asleep and bleary-eyed from waking up early to pack, I ambled to the customs office where I would pass through the fancy machine to confirm that, no, I am not carrying drugs in my stomach. I’m not stupid. I don’t want to go to jail, especially not a Colombian jail, but more than that, I don’t want to pack a bunch of packets in my intestine, any one of which could burst and kill me.

The procedure didn’t go as easily as I expected. Consider this another tip, a supplement to past posts on traveling in and out of Colombia, because this was never mentioned. I wouldn’t expect it to be included. I don’t think anyone would, unless you’re a drug trafficker.

I passed through the x-ray machine once, twice, three times, again. It wasn’t enough. The x-rays were inconclusive. The customs agents asked if I had eaten before I passed through security. I nodded. Soup at home, a sandwich at the airport, I said, but they still had questions.

“Que tipo de sandwich,” he said, wanting to know exactly what I had.

“Pavo.” I smiled a little too, because I actually remembered the word for turkey.

“Cuanto cuesta?” he said.

That, I could not remember, but I had kept the receipt so I handed it to him.

“Muy caro,” he said after seeing the price, 10,000 pesos (about $5).

“Sí, claro.” I was happy that we found something on which we agreed.

The customs agents seemed more at ease now, but they weren’t finished interrogating me. I was told to follow an agent to a back room, to lie on a couch so he could press on my stomach. It tickled and I started laughing, and I was afraid he was going to get mad, that he would think I was not taking this seriously, but he just laughed too. He understood and apologized.

“Tranquilo,” I said

He led me back to the x-ray room, where I would pass through the machine a couple more times. I felt like a character from the movie Maria Full of Grace, the film about the Colombian girl who works as a drug mule to earn more money. Come to think of it, a couple of the women sitting in the x-ray room with me reminded me of a couple of characters in the movie.

My turn finally came and I passed through twice, again drawing a reaction of raised eyebrows. I told the agents that next time, I promise I won’t eat at the airport until I have already passed through customs. They chuckled and asked me why I was in Colombia. I said it’s a beautiful place, that I’m hoping to find a teaching job at the end of the spring, either at an English language school or one of the universities. They wished me luck, told me I could leave and apologized once again.

So three tips:

1. Try not to eat at the airport until you pass through customs.

2. If you are so hungry you have to eat, keep the receipt.

3. If you get picked to pass through the x-ray machine, be friendly and cooperative. The customs agents are sincerely nice and will feel bad for any inconvenience they cause.

Three hours later, I landed in Fort Lauderdale and prepared to pass through American customs. They didn’t make me go through an x-ray machine, didn’t search my bag. But the agent I talked to was terse, rude even. Maybe American customs was quicker, I thought to myself, but Colombian customs was friendlier.

I prefer friendlier.

On this past trip, passing through Colombian customs was easier. They they didn’t x-ray me. They only checked my bag, smiled, and told me to have a good time.

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Main house at Hacienda Venecia coffee farm

Writer’s note: This is part two of a two-part story. Click here for part one.

The van headed south once again, this time about a half an hour to a coffee farm, and I wondered if I missed anything the night before in Manizales, if the Zona Rosa offered something special.

Nah, I thought. It’s so small and I have more than enough rumba in Medellín. Besides, I wanted to be fresh for an 8:30 a.m. departure to the farm because my favorite thing about Colombia is the long list of outdoor activities the country offers.

Hacienda Venecia, one of the coffee area’s famous farms, is one of them.

The Mountain House offers a tour that includes a guide and transportation for 30,000 pesos (about $15).You can see the coffee plants covering the hillside as you descend toward the farm, where a guide is there to greet you and offer you an espresso, a water, or both.

Ours was Alexander. He gave us about 30 different types of coffee samples to smell, to see if we could identify the flavor and the ingredients, then showed us how to use the machine to make espresso.

We also learned during this time that the countries outside Colombia receive their best product, always. The coffee is still great in Colombia, Alexander said — something I can attest to — but the best of it goes elsewhere — something I wouldn’t know because I never drank much coffee in the states.

We headed out to the fields after that, to see the plants up close, something the pickers see everyday as they pluck the beans that will produce some of the world’s best coffee.

The stroll through the fields took us to a dirt road, a creek, and eventually, a production house where Alexander showed us the machines used to clean the beans and prepare them for consumption. One machine peeled the skin of the beans, one cleaned them, one dried them, and so on.

We went to a room with large sacks to be sent elsewhere. I found a bag destined for Medellín.

During the walk from place to place, I noticed the brightly-colored birds that zipped from tree to tree, then vanished into the vegetation. One was bright blue, an azulejo. Another was mostly black with streaks of bright orange feathers, a nuestra candela. I wish I could have gotten pictures but I never got close enough.

Alex explained some history too, how central Colombia, from the Medellín area to the coffee region, are similar when it comes to food and the friendly disposition, but that they are not quite the same about social issues, as the coffee region is generally more conservative, the Medellín area more liberal.

The tour was almost over as we made it to the main house, a red-and-white colonial home enveloped by a spacious balcony. It’s a great place to stay if you want to be in the countryside, away from the city.

A coffee picker at work

When we returned to the guest house, our starting point, lunch was almost ready. We had ajiaco, a garlicky soup that is one of my favorite Colombian dishes, with sides of avocado and arepa. The lunch was 10,000 pesos (about $5).

We then had about an hour to use the pool, but I passed. I wanted to relax then get a couple more photos of the farm. I took a few of a lone picker in one of the fields.

On the drive back to the city, Fabio, our driver, talked to me about fútbol. We talked about the amazing Lionel Messi and his recent play for Barcelona, and how he has a hard time duplicating it when he’s with Argentina’s national team. And we talked about the upcoming game between Caldas and Armenia, what they call a clasico in this region.

That reminded me: there was a clasico in a couple of days at the estadio in Medellín, the city rivalry game between Atlético Nacional and Independiente Medellín. We chatted about that, then shifted the conversation back to the Coffee Triangle, an area I surely will visit again.

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Juan Luis Guerra is a Domincan born singer/songwriter. He first popped on my radar with the smash hit Cuando Me Enamaro with Enrique Iglesias.

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Me, at 12,000 feet

Writer’s Note: This is part one of a two-part story.

Almost everyone wants to see the flag.

It’s one of the main attractions as you meander toward the top of the highest volcano in Parque Nacional Natural Los Nevados. But we could not make it that far up Nevado del Ruiz. The weather was a little wicked and the volcano was rumbling like a tummy full of Guaro, possibly ready to explode.

A picture beneath that flapping fabric of blue, gold and red would have to wait for another time. But it was still a great trip, one of two excursions I took last month in the coffee region, the other, naturally, being a coffee farm tour.

The van arrived at 7 a.m. to pick me up from Mountain House hostel, then went to get the others. We headed south of the city and winded along a skinny mountain road, maneuvering around a couple of spots where the weather has pushed the dirt and rocks from the hillside to the pavement.

We made more than a half dozen stops, one for breakfast, something everyone seemed to look forward to, knowing we were about to rise to about 14,000 feet. The eggs and the arepa topped with cheese did us good.

Other stops as we headed skyward included Laguna Negra, a small dark lake that’s aptly named; a little market at the entrance to the park where we drank coca leaf tea to help defeat the possible altitude sickness that awaited; a quick look at some of the vegetation, the distichia and werneria, plants as hard as rocks; and then the final resting spot at around 12,000 feet.

The air is thinner but the snow is thicker. It’s a fair trade, I think. From there we walked until we stood at more than 13,000 feet, some of us (like me) slower than others.

There were people from Estonia and Switzerland who made the uphill trek look easy, because they are apparently used to this kind of hike. But no one got sick and the guides, Milton and Germán, were both happy about that.

Milton, one of our guides

Affable and knowledgeable, like many others I met in the region, they did a great job explaining everything, from the original name of Nevado del Ruiz (Kumanday) to the glacial erosion that formed the peaks and valleys there today. Even if the altitude didn’t test your breathing, the beauty would have done so.

On the way down, we had a couple of bathroom breaks, a brief roadside break to look at the city of Manizales from above, and a lunch break at the restaurant where we had just had breakfast.

By then it was about 2:30 p.m. Everyone was hungry again, and made fast work of the pollo a la plancha, a plate of grilled chicken, beans, rice, a fried plantain and a small salad.

Now it was time to relax. Our final stop was at Termales El Otoño where you sit in the soothing hot springs that felt great on a chilly, rainy day. I didn’t stay in as long as the others because I can take only so much heat. I ended up talking more with Milton, learning that he speaks not only English and Spanish, but French and Portuguese too.

I wish we could have done a little more, could have climbed to the Colombian flag, but I feel the 130,000 pesos (about $65) I spent was worth it.

When I got back to the hostel, I finished my homework then planned to go out because we were staying in the Zona Rosa and I did not go out the night before, choosing instead to rest for a long day in the national park. I made it out to eat, for some decent nachos at a tiny fast food spot.

Then I decided to go to my room to lie down for just a little bit before heading back out but that never happened. I fell asleep.

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