Day 80 - October 21st

Today in Medellin we decided to see a few of the sites that'd we'd missed. We started out by taking the Metro to the infamous Cable Car...a part of the local metro system that connects the valley to the areas of the city that are situated further up the hill.  Turns out the cable car was actually a ski-lift style gondola...very similar (or maybe even the same) as the ones you see in Whistler. I would have thought a ski gondola to be a part of the public transportation system in a major city that brings people to and from their jobs. Pretty cool. That being said, there wasn't much to do at the top, and we'd have to pay for the metro again if we left, so once we got up...we just took the same car directly back down into the valley towards the city centre.  Next, we took the metro to the University station. There, we found a cool botanical garden where we were able to wonder and find turtles, huge iguanas, and a butterfly sanctuary. At the same area, there was a planetarium too....looked cool, but it cost money so we opted to browse the few photos we could and got out of there pretty quckly. Next, we took another metro adventure back to the downtown area where we had previously been while on that walking tour a couple days ago.  We mainly wanted to wander and see what crazyness we could find, but also had a couple small goals of finding some souveneirs and stuff. There were so many shoe stores that it was hilarious....i really don't understand how one city could possibly need that many shoes. Johanna was the only real winner of the shopping experience...after a bunch of looking around and haggling, she eventually bought a backpack in some tight stairway. For a couple guys who normally hate shopping, it was suprisingly good times. On the way back to the hostel, we picked up some beers and rum and drank on the rooftop terrace of our hostel whilst chilling out in hammocks. Not a bad way to spend a day....and we barely even spent any money!