Medellin Metro

“Cities are distinguished by the catastrophic forms they presuppose and which are a vital part of their essential charm. New York is King Kong, or the blackout, or vertical bombardment: Towering Inferno. Los Angeles is the horizontal fault, California breaking off and sliding into the Pacific: Earthquake.” Jean Baudrillard
Medellin, Colombia - late 1980's world murder capitol, Pablo Escobar, cocaine, right wing paramilitaries, left wing guerrillas . . . a short list of "catastrophic forms."

The city of nearly four million people is no longer noted as the murder capitol of the world but is the wealthiest city in Colombia with a thriving night life, over 95% of city households having electricity and clean drinking water, and all in a valley with an average temperature of 72 degrees year around. While the city was founded at the turn of the 17th century, the new and modern overshadows any remnants of the old. The city has a new metro system that opened in the mid to late 1990's giving easy access to the valley and hills via a metro cable car system.

Presently, the city has two metro cable lines with plans to open a third. The entire system is accessible for a fare of 1500 pesos or about 75 cents. The gondolas, of the metrocable system, rise out of the valley climbing and descending the hills surrounding the city. Mid stations give access to neighborhoods formerly difficult to access. As Matt and I stood on the platform observing the scene below a guard approached us saying not to linger because he did not want us shot from the street below. Take three pictures that is enough. The city crawls up the hillsides in a scene that is hard to describe. Houses built upon houses the bricks of houses below keeping houses above from tumbling to the valley below in a continuous mass. You are no longer passing through the city but passing over it. The gondola is a voyeurs dream as you look down stitching together an image of the city without passing through the city. Listening to other riders name neighborhoods, relating events from headlines about shootings, and speculating on current events observed below. One young woman nervously chatters about the gondola falling off the cable to the street below.


There but not there.