Arriving

‘Don’t hail a taxi on the street’ 

That’s one of the key instructions iterated by websites on How to Travel in Colombia without Getting Kidnapped. Armed with this sound advice, I have planned ahead and booked an airport pickup. So when I emerge from Customs at Medellin Airport, I am looking for someone holding an A4 piece of paper with my name on it, and I stride right past a man  holding an iPad aloft. But the four large letters that fill the ipad screen, P E E L, have a familiar ring to them, and I backtrack to see them slowly drop off the edge of the screen as new letters appear: M I M O C A E N E … It feels like a smart welcome to what is, allegedly, the world’s smartest city.

My driver does a double-take too – he tells me he is looking for a man called Mimo – but he does not flinch at my perplexing address: Cra 43b #8-56. He only speaks Spanish and, to my relief, I can follow his comments  as we drive towards Medellin through an eight km long tunnel (Spanish for ‘tunnel’ is túnel). He also obligingly pronounces ‘Medellin’ for me, three times: Meh-Deh-Jin. Although in the North of Colombia it is Meh-Deh-Yin.

Meh-Deh-Jin unfolds – sunlit in a valley surrounded by mountains, a patchwork of green dotted with orange brick semi-skyscrapers – and my spirist soar. I expect us to drive into the centre but the driver drops me off in a more peripheral area that hovers between industrial and executive. It is deserted. Not quite what I expected but hey, all part of the adventure of travel…

Both of us hesitate when we scrutinise the address on the glass doors of a tall building: Cra 43B no 16-41. Not quite right, but it is Cra 43B, and the jetlagged optimist in me figures that nos 8-56 must be very near – probably the next building. So I confidently wave away my solicitous driver (Está bien!) and wander, my orange suitcase in tow,  through a silent urban-scape. None of the nearby buildings display 43B, let alone 8-56.

I head back to the original building, where a sombre-looking man has stepped outside. He says something in Spanish that I don’t understand. I look around for other people; none appear. It starts to dawn on me that, on day 0, I’m already in the kind of situation my Warning Web Sites on Colombia  instructed me to avoid.

The man gives me a dark look as I explain in faltering Spanish what I am doing in this unlikely spot; the truth is that I’m not sure myself. He squints at the address I show him on my phone, and I remember the instruction not to flaunt mobiles because they are vulnerable to being snatched (‘in which case, do not resist!’). Cra 43b, es aqui?, I ask nervously, mispronouncing the B.

The man appears  as baffled as I am, but he has more common sense: he makes the universal gesture of How about making a phone call?  I don’t have a phone number but I do have a Slack channel. On the other hand, I don’t have data. 

The man takes my phone from me. (I don’t resist).

Swiftly, he finds Settings, types in his Wifi password  and hands the phone back to me. There is no mistaking the look in his eyes: Get this sorted. I find my Slack window and tell someone, somewhere: ‘I am at the door of Cra 43B’. Instant response from my new flatmate: ‘I’ll come downstairs’. Relief emoji!

Some minutes pass in awkward silence. Then, a new message from my flatmate: Where are you? I can’t see you. 

Where am I? I don’t know. But since I have Wifi, I can ask Google. Where is Cra 43b? Google replies that it is elsewhere. I am at Cra 43B, which is different from 43b; I need the lower case one. Una diferencia sutil pero importante.

Having already broken several security guidelines, I do remember at this point that there is Uber in Colombia, and that it is illegal as well as safe. The Uber app swiftly descends from the cloud (A donde vas?), and with sweating fingers, I include a small b in the address. When Jose pulls up within minutes, I profusely thank the man who did not kidnap me, or even offer me drugs.

Fifteen minutes later, I arrive at Cra 43-small-b, in El Poblado, Medellin, where someone I have never met is waiting for me with open arms.