Parque Arvi
La felicidad, la sonrisa, y alegria son el lenguaje del mundo.
Meeting locales has led to my best experiences in Medellin. A couple weeks ago, I went to Parque Arvi with some friends I met at a language exchange. You could say it was un buen viaje.
I have been going to language exchanges 3-4 times a week. There are different exchanges that have different vibes. Some are filled with extranjeros. Some are filled with locales. My preference is the latter.
My favorite exchange is at Dulce Posion, a small restaurant in Laureles. I love the exchange because a ton of locales go consistently. The waitresses also go out of their way to be personable, welcome you, and speak with you. This combination makes the place feel familiar and comfortable.
Because of the familiarity, we share stories, laughs, and vibes instead of having the same initial conversation that I have at all the other exchanges (Where you from? Why Medellin? What do you do? etc.). It’s a place to make real friends. And I’m incredibly grateful that I’ve been able to do just that.
One great way to fast-track making friends has been learning a ton of paisa slang. Paisa refers to people from Medellin and the surrounding region. I want to learn to speak Spanish but don’t want to sound like an academic. I want to have natural speech. And I know the only way to learn a language is to practice it. So I throw in the slang. A lot. Por ejemplo: Donde compraste eso porro. Google it.
So naturally, after the language exchange mis amigos y yo fumamos eso porro and told more stories and enjoyed each other's company. The next week I saw them again. They told me they we’re going to Parque Arvi, a huge metro park in the mountains outside of Medellin that upcoming Thursday and that I should come.
I have Spanish class every morning starting at 9 am so I told them I couldn’t come.
“Relegadooo, te enseñamos español parce”.
Great point. How better to learn spanish than spending the day with native speakers. And I’m not hard to convince. So that Thursday we met up in the morning and took the metro cable up to Parque Arvi.
The views on the way up were mind-blowing. Medellin is a city built into a valley so the whole way up you have full panoramic views of the entire city and you’re passing over homes, shops, people, and city life from a birds eye view. Then it transitions and you’re passing over dense forests and stunning nature.
We were prepared for the park. We brought fruits, snacks, water, vegetables (por ejemplo: hongos y mota). Again, google it.
When we arrived we started a long trek into the park to a really nice spot that my friends knew. We smoked and listened to music on my speaker on the walk-in. Tranquil.
It was a solid hike in, and with my achilles it was especially tough (more on that soon, PT has been going well and I have my first follow-up soon), but fuck it we ball.
We got to the spot and they were right. Era un chimba! It was a clearing next to river with some rapids close by, sun poking through the trees, and just generally great nature vibes.
On the walk a dog was following us. He ended up staying with us for more than 2 hours and when we reached the clearing and set up our base he laid down next to us. We were looking at him like he was our spirit animal.
Our base was pretty simple. We laid out a huge blanket and put out the fruits we brought. We ate our “vegetables” and commenced our buen viaje.
We stared at the trees and the water. We explored the area near the base and chilled out watching the clouds. I melted into the ground and watched the trees sway. Breathing.
My friends speak great english and I do my best with spanish, but at times both got really tough for us because of the vegetables. But we spoke with vibes. Laughing, smiling, pointing. Just bliss. The language of the world.
We had explored the area near our base for about an hour before heading back. When we got back our “spirit animal” had ate our sandwiches. We thought he liked us. He was just hungry. Bobo hijue puta.
After a few hours the vegetables started to wear off and we started heading back to the city. Again, the views were absolutely surreal as we descended into the city as the sunset. I don’t even really have words to describe it.
Sublime is the closest I can think of.
Que chimba might come close too.
Un buen viaje.
Side note:
If you’re going to visit a place, especially for a long time, take some time and meet the locals and try and learn what you can of the language. I see so many foreigners in Medellin that don’t try to learn a lick of Spanish or meet anybody here. Can’t even express how much they’re missing out. Don’t be them.
