The city streets are closed on Sundays: Joggers, artists, breakdancing flash mobs at the lights.

Chota 13 is one of the city's most famous emerging graffiti artists

Houses built on top of each other. Paramilitaries funded utilities but recruited kids at gunpoint

It's the Colombian holidays and the streets are buzzing.

Pablo interpreting for a district 13 resident and breakdancer: BBoy

October 16 2022 was operation Orion: the last and bloodiest battle against the paramilitary groups

From the vacuum has emerged a culture of art, dance and new jobs for locals run by locals

Breakdancing emerging from the streets. Makes a mid-age white lecturer seem like appropriation.

Cameras don't show just how steep the streets are

So the city installed a series of elevators and cable cars to bring the people (and dogs) together.

Hello our doggy: in front of the many Botero's which he donated to the city

A packed day finished with a Salsa. The kids all joined in and even danced with their happy mother!

The star pupil with Anna our instructor.

Pablo's Patch

15 de dezembro de 2024, Colômbia ⋅ ☁️ 20 °C

Today we were taken by our new guide, Pablo, into the home of another famous Pablo: District 13 (The epicentre of Medellin's dark past).
Medellin is a thriving, colourful, living city with huge community support to make everything work and to make everything safe.
The legacy of Pablo has left such devastation, yet he also single handedly paid off the national debt and funded the railway system. 60 bombings per year, 500 police killed per year, uncountable indiscriminate kidnappings and murders and 21 all out intra-city battles between the army and the cartels or guerrillas meant that this deal with the devil was clearly not worth it. Medellinites now, however, are desperate to move forward into what the city can be. They care for their trains, which are immaculate and safe, the youth have found a path through hip hop culture and the city is full of music, joggers and people eating on the streets. Bogota now looks boring.Leia mais

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