Five Days in Medellín: The City of Eternal Spring

I just got back from Medellín, Colombia with Sarah and Eliza, where I spent five days. The short version is simple: the food was good, the people were kind, and everywhere you look there are mountains and trees.

Here’s the longer version.

A green city in a valley

Medellín sits in a valley with mountains rising up on every side. The city climbs the hillsides, and then the green takes over near the tops of the ridges. From almost anywhere in town you can look up and see trees. For someone who lives in Texas, that alone was worth the trip.

Medellín is known as the City of Eternal Spring, la ciudad de la eterna primavera. It sits about a mile up in the mountains and close to the equator, so the weather is nice all year long. Most buildings are simply open to the outside, with open-air lobbies, hallways, and restaurants with no front wall, so the whole city breathes.

The city lights of Medellín at night, seen between two brick apartment towers and a line of trees.

A big iguana with a black-banded tail sunning itself on a gravel path.

We spent time in El Poblado, where Sarah and Eliza take English classes. We rode the metro, which was crowded, shoulder to shoulder at times. But it got us where we needed to go, and it made me a little envious. Public transit there is good, and a lot of people clearly depend on it.

One of my favorite meals was a traditional lunch: rice, fried plantain, a simple salad, and sea bass. Nothing fancy. It was simple and just right, the kind of meal I’ll think about the next time I’m standing in front of my own fridge wondering what to make.

Eliza twirling a big forkful of spaghetti at lunch, with a chicken and avocado bowl in the foreground.

Comuna 13

Not that long ago, Comuna 13 was known for gangs and killing. Today it’s peaceful, and it’s one of the most popular places for visitors in the whole city.

Eliza, Sarah, and me under the neon Medellín Comuna 13 sign, with the hillside neighborhoods and mountains behind us.

I don’t know all of the history, and I won’t pretend to. But I keep thinking about how a place that was once defined by violence is now somewhere families like ours walk around on vacation. Change like that takes a lot of people choosing something better, over and over. It gave me hope, not just for cities, but for people.

Eliza standing on a brightly painted neighborhood sports court in Comuna 13, with brick homes stacked up the hill behind her.

Me leaning into one of Medellín's steep hillside streets, next to a yellow railing.

Three hours of Spanish with Javier

Our plan for one day was Parque Arví, a big nature park up in the mountains above the city. It turned out to be closed.

So we changed plans. Instead we took a ride of about three hours up and around the mountains with our driver, Javier. The views over the valley were beautiful, but what I remember most is the conversation. I practiced my Spanish with Javier nearly the whole way.

I work on AI at eBay, and I spend a lot of my days thinking about what software can and can’t do for people. Translation apps are genuinely impressive now. I used them on this trip, and they helped. But they didn’t give me what those three hours with Javier did.

A translation app gets the words across. A real conversation asks something of both people. I had to listen hard, guess at what I missed, try a sentence, and try it again a different way. Javier had to wait for me. By the end of the drive my Spanish was a little better, and I felt like I knew him a little. I wouldn’t trade that for a perfect translation. AI tools are useful, and I’ll keep building them, but I think they work best when they help people get to that kind of conversation, not skip it.

The zoo, and what sits at the center

We also visited the zoo, Parque de la Conservación.

A jaguar resting on a large rock among green tropical leaves at Parque de la Conservación in Medellín.

The thing that stuck with me most, though, wasn’t an animal. It was a mural of the nativity, painted with zoo animals gathered around the manger. It’s not something I expected to see at a zoo, and I loved it.

All week, I noticed that Christ feels central to the culture there. You see it even in places you wouldn’t expect, like a zoo. As a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, that meant a lot to me. It was a reminder that people all over the world are looking to the same Savior, in their own language and their own way.

Eliza smiling in front of a huge aquarium tank with big fish swimming among tree roots.

It also made me think of my nephew Lincoln. He’s in the missionary training center in Mexico right now, and next month he starts serving his mission in Medellín. I found myself looking at the people around us and thinking, these are the people he’ll get to serve every day. He’s headed to a good place.

Coming home

Coming home after a trip always makes me see my own life a little differently. The house looks the same, but I don’t. I came back more grateful for kind strangers, for good simple food, for a driver who let me practice his language for three hours, and for the family I got to share it with.

A fluffy brown and white puppy sitting in a doorway on orange and speckled tile.

I came home grateful for my comfortable bed and my house and my neighbors, but also grateful to have gotten to know people from such a faraway place, and to see how friendly and similar to me they are. We kind of forget that even though we live in different places, we’re all trying to do our best to make it through each day. And how much more connects us than sets us apart.