More touring in and around Medellin

I started language school on Monday but immediately had a day off as Tuesday was a holiday.  In most of the world, May 1 is Labor Day.  To make up for the holiday, we have classes for five hours a day instead of four.  That is a lot of class.

So on Tuesday I took an excursion to Guatape.  We stopped to walk around a small village before going on to the unusual rock that juts up outside the town of Guatape.



I walked up all 650 steps for the lovely view from the top.

After climbing down the rock, we proceeded to the colorful town of Guatape.  Once a dusty farm village, Guatape reinvented itself as a tourist destination by painting zocalos on the baseboards of the houses.  The zocalos are raised or three dimensional designs or symbols.  In addition, city law requires that everyone paid their house a bright color.  The result is a beautiful city to walk around, and the city succeeded in bringing in all of the tourists who go to climb the rock.

On Friday after class I went back downtown to visit the local museum.  I had already seen the outside sculptures of favorite son Fernando Botero, but the museum houses a large collection of his paintings and drawings as well.  Again, it is not just that Botero's people are Rubenesque, but everything is out of proportion.  In his still lifes, for example, bananas are bigger than pineapples.  You just can't help smiling or even laughing out loud when you look at Botero's works.







Outside the museum a troupe of mentally disabled adults - most appeared to have Down's syndrome - put on a short show.  The second photo shows a homeless woman watching the lead singer.