Armenia, the capital of Quindio, is a perfect base to explore Colombia’s coffee region. Count on top-class coffee shops, traditional coffee towns, stunning hikes amid epic palm trees, iconic jeeps to ferry you around, and an up and coming city growing in confidence. Here are my tips on what to do in Armenia, Colombia.
The Museo or Oro (or Quimbaya Museum) presents a large collection of pre-colombian crafts, including almost 400 gold objects, mainly from the Quimbaya civilization. Some of the most valuable objects are the gold poporas, devices used for chewing coca, an act considered spiritual by the Quimbaya people. The museum is housed in a red-brick building, accompanied by a enchanting botanic garden, designed by RogelioSalmona, the renowned Colombian architect.
Learn more about the history and origin of the Colombian people here.
Potter aroundhistorical Salento
Founded in 1850, it is one of the oldest towns in Quindio. As one of Colombia’s most iconic colonial towns, tourists are enticed by the quaint streets, the paisa architecture and its tranquil setting amid green mountains and the unforgettable Valle de Cocora. A trip is not complete without pottering around Calle Real (carrera 6), an evocative and colourful street packed with charming and high end local craft shops. The end of the road leads up the Alto de La Cruz, a hill topped with a cross, which offers great views.
Regular colectivos set off from the transport terminal in the South West of the city will get you to Salento for about $5,000 COP.
Hike in the Valle de Cocora
The Valle de Cocora is one of the most striking landscapes in Colombia. A bucolic valley surrounded by imposing peaks, it’s most famous for the iconic wax palms (or palma de cera), the largest palms in the world that reach up to 60 metres tall. The misty conditions amid the spindly trees, give an other-worldly feel to the glen. The Valle de Cocora loop hike is the best way to appreciate the valley, stopping midway for refreshments at the humming-bird (colibri) retreat to appreciate the inimitable birds amid the tranquillity. Willys (WW2 style jeeps) go to and fro Salento; cost is about $4000 for the round-trip. See next tip.
Admiring the palms amid the fog
Ride in one of the Willys
A classic world war 2 jeep, Willys are one of the emblematic symbols of the Zona Cafetera. At first I couldn’t resist a chuckle at the name (willy is an informal name for a penis in British English), they are an important form of transportation in the region, ferrying everything from passengers, livestock, fruit, and of course coffee. The jeeps were army surplus models that first arrived in the area from the United States in 1950. In order to sell the vehicles to local farmers, a sales show ventured from town to town, showing off the jeep’s practicality, including driving up and down stairs and traversing obstacle courses set up in the plazas. The locals were hooked.
AppreciatecolourfulFilandia
Filandia is a traditional coffee town with well-preserved colonial architecture that is every bit as charming as its more famous neighbour, Salento, but not nearly as jammed with tourists. Go to the Colina Iluminada just outside town to take in the spectacular views, which include three different Colombian departments on a clear day. A colectivo from the transport terminal in Armenia will drop you off in the centre of town within about 40 minutes.
Enjoying a choclo arepa in Filandia
Savour thecoffees shops
Colombia traditionally has exported its best coffee, with the dregs left to the locals – this is starting to change. Armenia boasts a suite of top quality coffee shops that showcase the excellent coffee from the region. Ones to try are Cafe Quindio, Del Toro Cafe, Azahar Coffee – all with their own roasts. The passionate and knowledgeable staff are very happy to explain the process behind their own coffee.
Speaking of gastronomy, a shoutout to Anonima – a modern and welcoming restaurant that makes use of top-quality Colombian produce to re-interpret traditional dishes. Some of the best food I’ve tried in Colombia.
How to get there
The Aeropuerto Internacional El Eden is 15km southwest of Armenia town-centre and has connections to Bogota, Medellin and Panama city. Taxis to and from the airport cost about $35,000.
The bus transport terminal serves Bogota (8 hours), Medellin (6 hours) and Cali (3.5 hours). It also has minibusesses to Pereira and Manizales.
Colombia is the second most biologically diverse country in the world. It’s also the second most populous country in South America, with over 50 million inhabitants. It’s a nation with two oceans, the final northward thrust of the Andes, five contrasting deserts and a vast chunk of the Amazon jungle. Colombia is multiple countries in one, a nation bursting with diversity. This post examines the origin and history of the Colombian people.
The majority of Colombians are classified as mestizo or caucasian, accounting for 88% of the population [2018 census]. The first expeditions of the Spanish to the Atlantic coast date back to 1499 and the first settlements began to be established from 1509.
Santa Marta was founded in 1525 and has the distinction of being the second oldest surviving colonial settlement in South America. In 1533, further up the coast, Cartegena was founded where its strategic position and superior harbour led it to becoming the principal trade centre on the Colombian coast.
At the turn of the 16th century, the most dominant civilization in present day Colombia was the Muisca (also known as the Chibcha). The tribe didn’t have the renown of their neighbours, such as the Incas or the Mayans, and tended to live in small and scattered communities, surviving on agriculture and trade. The Chibchas were most prominent in present day Boyacá and Cundinamarca, near Bogota, which itself was named from the Muisca word.
Unlike traditional western civilisations, in Muisca society, the virginity of women was considered negatively, signifying that the woman possessed little value. The civilisation consumed an alcohol that was prepared from fermented maize, known as chicha, and smoked tobacco. Tribal leaders adorned their bodies with gemstones and gold.
It was the Muisca that inspired the the myth of El Dorado, a mysterious jungle kingdom rich in gold, and was part of the motivation for the rapid spread of the conquistadors southward, leading to the establishment of more cities across the territory and widespread intermixing. Long into the colonial period, the economy of the Viceroyalty of New Granada(the name given by the Spanish crown to the jurisdiction, corresponding to modern Colombia, Ecuador, Panama and Venezuela) depended almost entirely on gold.
The Colombian Ministry of Culture estimates that 10 million Colombians have roots from the Muisca. Today thousands still maintain their traditions.
Spanish (and Basque) immigration
Colombia has the distinction, compared to other South American countries, of primarily drawing its European immigrants from Spain and not receiving a broader spread from across Europe. The overwhelming majority of immigrants left from Spain and most waves arrived before the country’s independence in 1819.
Within Spain, the most common origin was from the South and from the Basque region. In Colombia you can find 3,500 surnames that have roots in Euskadi, the the Basque language. It’s estimated that almost 3 million Colombians have Basque roots. Gaviria and Uribe are examples of popular Basque surnames.
The majority of Basques settled in Antoquia, the mountainous region home to Medellin. A study in 1957 found that 15% of surnames in the Medellin phonebook were of Basque origin. Descendents of the Basques have been particularly successful in Colombia: the same study found that 25% of employers in the city had a Basque surname.
During the colonial period, there was a significant imbalance between the number of males and females that arrived to the shores. A study published in the journal of Human Genetics found that 90% of the paternal lineage found in Antoquia comes from Spain, whereas 90% of the maternal lineage derives from the native population. Mixing was the inevitable outcome.
Unlike other parts of the new world, such as the United States and Argentina, Colombia did not receive many immigrants from Europe and Asia during the second half of the 19th century and first part of the 20th century. An exception was the arrival of a large wave of predominantly Italian males. Famous Colombians, such as Shakira and the painter Botero have Italian roots.
The African influence and slavery
Africa has been another important part of Colombia’s genetic mix. African slaves arrived at a similar time to the European immigrants but in very different conditions. Slaves underpinned much of the economy, especially in agriculture and mining.
The Viceroyalty of New Granada received at least 250,000 slaves between the 16th and 19th century. Cartagena was the most important centre of trade of slaves in Latin America, from where they were distributed across the Spanish territories. [See my post on when the British tried to invade Cartagena in 1741]
Fugitive slaves formed the first ever free town in America in San Basilio del Palenque between the years 1570 and 1580. Today the inhabitants speak Criollo Palenquero, a mix of Spanish and different African languages.
Slavery was abolished in 1851, over 30 years after independence. However, today Colombia’s black population lags in educational achievement and access to basic services, such as the internet. According to the 2018 census, 30% of Afro-Colombians live in “multidimensional poverty,”
At least 10% of Colombians have African roots.
Geographic distribution
The African descendants account for a very high share of populations along the coast, both on the Pacific and the Atlantic. The indigenous populations are more common in the east rather than the west, where the landscape is given over to jungle. The centre of Colombia acts as an axis where you find the largest cities and the highest share of people with mestizo backgrounds.
A weekend exploring the Santorini inspired neighbourhood in Doradal, Antioquia, and the nearby Hacienda Napoles, a theme park cum zoo and formerly Pablo Escobar’s infamous finca.
The journey to Doradal
The North Terminal bus station in Medellin overwhelms. The concourse throbs with animation. Ticket booths stretch on endlessly, each run by different companies. 42 I count. Transoriente is the one we need, I eventually work out.
“A ticket to Doradal please?”
We’re told we can either run to the autopista (main road) to catch the departing bus. Or wait two hours. We take the leisurely approach. The station is labyrinthine like, eventually we find a crook on the third level to nurse a coffee.
The bus journey drags on. The winding mountainous terrain means only one lane on each side and before long we’re stuck behind a truck ferrying hay. We crawl from the cooler andean climes to stickier and hotter weather. The passing valleys and jungle like hills dense with forked trees soften the delay.
Doradal and Santorini
Dropped onto a dusty urban road, Doradal’s main thoroughfare. The heat contrasts with balmy Medellin. Nothing grecian. In fact, it’s typically Colombian. Topless locals buzz around their motorbikes. An almost empty restaurant sits across the road where the wafts from the basted rotisserie chickens mixes with petrol smells from the nearby garage. Trucks rumble by.
Turns out the Greek inspired village – Santorini – is a 5 minute climb up the hill. It’s a world away.
All of a sudden you’re immersed in cubic whites, transported across the Atlantic to the Aegean Sea. Potted geraniums adorn the cottages and bougainvillaea drapes across doorways. Marine blue shutters contrast against the whitewashed walls.
The open plaza is the heart of Santorini and boasts a greek orthodox style church. The maverick architect true to his inspiration. The warm climate adds to the mystique. Unfortunately there’s no beach nearby to cool you down. A Colombian flag flutters from the blue domed tower overlooking the plaza, incongruous to its surroundings.
Tourists – almost entirely Colombian – mill around determined to try to capture this novelty, taking turns to pose for photos. The classic collective action problem arises, the more photographers, the worse and less original the shot.
The eating options are paltry and unfortunately Greek cuisine is not part of the deal. No gyros or moussaka to be found. Dining in the terraza of Hotel Aldea at least allows you to soak up the atmosphere. I’m fleetingly brought back to my teenage family holiday to Greece. The rest of the evening is spent ambling along the winding cobblestone alleys.
Built in the beginning of the 1980s, the origin of ‘Santorini’ is a mystery. The rumour is that Pablo Escobar, with his ranch nearby, had a hand behind it. The audacity of the endeavour fits with his vanity.
Yes its kitsch and odd, but there’s something warming about people being able to experience a semi authentic greek island village in the heart of Colombia. I remember that most Colombians I’ve met haven’t had the opportunity to leave the country, let alone visit Greece.
Hacienda Napoles
The next day, it’s five minutes by car from Doradal to the Hacienda’s roadside entrance and a further five minutes inland across the rolling hills to the theme park’s official entrance.
Pablo Escobar’s most lavish finca, he acquired it in 1978 and quickly set to work, ostentatiously constructing, among other extravagances, seven swimming pools, 27 artificial lakes, a landing strip, a botanical garden, and an exotic zoo. It regularly hosted the cartel’s leaders for business and pleasure.
After the assassination of Rodrigo Lara Bonilla in 1984, Escobar was forced to flee Colombia and the hacienda began to fall into disrepair. Following a legal struggle with Escobar’s family after his death in 1993, it passed to state ownership, and was later converted into a theme park by a private company. The park in many ways is emblematic of the rise and fall of the drug-leader.
Hacienda Nápoles is so enormous and sprawling that you wouldn’t get far walking in the blazing heat. The advice to hire a guide to ferry us around the main sights in a golf-buggy is gratefully received.
As we trundle along the dirt-track, our guide begins to explain its chequered past. For so-called political reasons, he can’t directly use Escobar’s name. Reminiscent of Harry Potter’s, ‘he who must not be named’, my guide uses ‘el dueno antiguo’ (or previous owner) as code.
First stop is to see the iconic hippos. The only survivors from the original private zoo. They thrived on the myriad of lakes and plentiful grassland, the numbers multiplied so much that they are said to have colonised parts of the nearby Magdalena river and authorities are striving to control the population of the ‘invasive species’.
The remaining hippos, those still in the park at least, languidly bask in front of us, without care in the world. Afterwards, we see lions, tigers, pumas, elephants and more.
Pablo’s son was obsessed with dinosaurs as a child (a characteristic my childhood self happened to share with him). While my parents indulged me with furry toys and dinosaur encyclopaedias. Escobar built his son life size replicas that still stalk the grounds. We play around the renovated sculptures and explore the Jurassic theme park, built by the new owners, seemingly deciding to run with the original idea.
Next is the plaza de toros or bullring. Another of the outlandish constructions of the Escobar era. We’re told performers from around the world, including Julio Iglesias, would come to entertain Pablo and his guests. It’s since been turned into a tribute to all things related to Africa. A curious hotchpotch of exhibits, including tribal drawings dating from the colonial period and an eccentric list of Africa’s most famous people, at least, the exhibition is somewhat well-intentioned.
The final stop is the museo of memoria where dramatic condemnations of Escobar’s actions are interweaved with some of the few remaining antiques from his finca, such as old cars and the famous portal, on which is mounted a replica of the first plane used to smuggle cocaine. My guide tells me you’ve haven’t come to Hacienda Napoles if you don’t get a picture in front. I oblige.
As I smile in front of the camera, I can’t help but think Escobar would have been proud of what has come of this bizarre and extravagant theme park.
Further information:
Bus ticket from North Terminal in Medellin to Doradal (Transoriente): 34,000 CUP; 4 – 5 hours depending on traffic
Motor taxi to and from Hacienda Napoles: 15,000 – 20,000 CUP x2
Basic entrance ticket “salvaje” to Hacienda Naples: 54,500 CUP
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Cuba, with its unique history and Caribbean backdrop, is fascinating, compelling and inspiring. However, what attracts can also frustrate and madden. It’s often a country that doesn’t work. Exacerbated by the downturn in the economy since the pandemic and Trump’s reversal of the Obama reforms, it is a tough place to backpack. Here are my essential tips for a first-time traveller to Cuba in 2023.
Very few establishments accept card payments and when they do the exchange rate is worse than the street value (see next tip). ATMs are hard to come by and when functioning are subject to long queues. All those working in the tourist industry – whether drivers or host families – have a strong preference for foreign currency (as opposed to the Cuban peso) and sometimes insist on it. Err on the side of caution and bring more than you anticipate spending. It also helps to conserve cash when you get the opportunity by paying for accommodation and activities online. [US bank cards do not work]
Exchange your foreign currency (with someone you can trust)
The Cuban peso (COP) is pegged at 120 units to the dollar / euro, whereas the street value is about 175 COP to a euro / dollar (at time of writing). By bringing foreign cash, preferably the euro or dollar, and exchanging it informally, you can get significantly more value. Best to exchange with someone who has skin in the game and a reputation to protect. Good examples might be your casa particular host (read about my experience on my first day arriving) or someone who runs an established market stall. Black market rates can be found here.
Be prepared to go without electricity
Almost every day we experienced a blackout, usually in the evening. At its worst it lasted for 16 hours, whereas sometimes it was so brief you barely noticed it. Regardless, you should be prepared. It helps to make hay while the sun shines, such as charging your electronic items, and using the patchy internet to research what you need. Bringing battery packs and torches will make life easier too.
Reflecting on tips for future travellers…
Don’t expect much internet
The internet is patchy and slow. It is also restricted (see next tip). Most plazas in the cities and bigger towns will have public wifi, which you’ll probably notice by the crowds of people huddled around phones. The internet operates differently too. Once connected to a network, you need to login with a username and password, which you’ll get from purchasing internet cards. You can get them in some tourist offices and hotels, however it is far cheaper to buy them from the ubiquitous ETECSA shops, Cuba’s single internet and telecoms provider. Another tip is to download maps in advance and screenshot useful information, such as restaurant reviews.
Purchase a VPN in advance
In Cuba many websites are banned. All forms of internet banking are inaccessible and accommodation websites, such as AirBbB and booking.com, don’t allow you to complete the transaction. A virtual private network will allow you to overcome this obstacle. Of course, purchasing a VPN is also banned – so doing so in advance of your trip is essential. This is something we only realised midday way into our trip and initially had to rely on friends and family to help us access money and book onward accommodation.
Wary of the street hustlers
The Cuba street hustlers (or jineteros as they’re known locally, which translates as jockey) can be very pushy. Given poverty and the measly wages from state employment, Cubans need to look to the private sector to make money. This has gone hand in hand with a rise and desperation of the jineteros. Generally friendly and often charismatic, they will try to reel you in by making a personal connection, such as asking where you’re from. A polite but firm gracias usually suffices. Common scams to be wary of include suspect restaurant recommendations, and one-day cigar festivals. Jineteros were particularly prominent (and pushy) in Trinidad where they seemed to outnumber the tourists.
Be flexible in your food choices
Cuba is subject to significant shortages and limited in its ingredients. It was very common that our restaurant wouldn’t have our first choice from the menu so we soon learned to be prepared with a back-up and / or ask in advance what they didn’t have.
Despite an improvement in recent years, food can be quite bland. Carrying a surreptitious bottle of tabasco to add flavour as I once witnessed one enterprising Cuban do isn’t a bad idea.
Our souped up Ford in Cienfuegos
Learn how to queue
Unfortunately queues are a quintessential part of Cuban life and take up a significant chunk of the average Cuban’s day. Unsurprisingly society has adapted to make them as efficient as possible. At some stage you’ll need to join one too, and it feels like a right of passage. The first thing to do is ask ‘Quien es el ultimo?’ (who is last in line?) As long as you know who is ahead of you (who will in turn know who is ahead of them), you can be rest assured that order will be followed.
The unspoilt beach in Varadero
Be resilient
The most important piece of advice. Often things go wrong or not to plan. Your bus doesn’t turn up, the museum is closed, your guidebook restaurant recommendation turns out to be long closed. It’s important to be resilient, come up with an alternative and move on. Appreciate the unique beauty and charm of the country. You’ll face lows but the highs will be all the more satisfying.
I’ve started this blog to share my experiences while travelling during my sabbatical. Focus on travel, food, drink, and history.
It started with a bang. Soon the valley and hills were alight. Colourful fireworks danced and weaved around the sky, shooting up from around the valley. Families and friends gathered on balconies to watch the show. Thunderous noises bellowed from all directions. A constant racket. Medellin was on fire, figuratively.
I had been warned in advance that the 30th would be different and it certainly was memorable.
Each year on the ultimate night of November, all the comunas of Medellin light up with fireworks to ring in December and the Christmas season, in a tradition known as La Alborada. It’s a custom that’s since spread to other Colombian cities.
Little did I know that its origins lie in the murky past of narco traffickers and paramilitaries. Medellin is a city in which history can feel like yesterday. A city that is modern and vibrant but with a foot dragging in the past.
Aqui la navidad no llega, estalla
Here Christmas doesn’t arrive, it explodes
MeDEllin SAYING
The origin story of the Alborada
At midnight on the 30th of November 2003 Medellin woke up in a panic. Initially the citizens didn’t know whether the flashes were fireworks or bullets. Had the city returned to violence? The authorities didn’t know what was going on either.
Ostensibly it was supposed to be a celebration of the laying down of arms by the paramilitaries – a show prepared and executed by the paramilitaries themselves. A spectacle to mark the end of abnormal times – when the state had to turn to private armies in order to do their dirty work. But in reality it was a dramatic display of power from Don Berna, the paramilitary leader, to show who really called the shots in the city.
Don Berna’s paramilitaries
At the turn of the 21st century, a paramilitary organisation named the Block Cacique Nutibara led by Don Berna was established to try to take back control of the north eastern communes in the city which were ridden by guerillas and narco traffickers.
In sweeping and bloody military operations, paramilitary groups – that is groups operating outside of the law – worked hand in hand with the military to exterminate the criminal enterprises that controlled vast swathes in the city. One such operation named Orion, which led to the pacification of Comuna 13, resulted in 88 deaths, 12 cases of torture and the disappearance of 92 people.
A year later, the paramilitary group, which maintained control of about 10 comunas, agreed to give up their arms as a means to transition to peacetime. Ostensibly to celebrate and mark the occasion, their leader, Don Berna, ordered the purchase of all the fireworks possible in the city. Five days later they met to light their loot in a number of the city’s comunas.
In fact the fireworks were a statement of the territories in which Don Berna would maintain his power and control. His organisation – the Nutibara – would function as a sweeping criminal enterprise focused on narco-trafficking. His control of the city was so complete that during his time the murder rate actually decreased.
The Don, probably the most renowned Medellin crime leader since Pablo Escobar, was later captured for violating the terms of his agreement and in 2008 he was extradited to the United States where he is serving a 31 year sentence for drug trafficking.
The celebration today
Although with Berna locked up thousands of miles away from the city, the tradition in Medellin has continued to grow in popularity, despite the authorities efforts to discourage it, and has become a firm fixture in the city’s Christmas calendar, as well as in other parts of Colombia.
A billboard tries to discourage participation in La Alborada: “what do you celebrate if others die?: fireworks can kill them!”
Many people I talked to resented the night – not due to its origin – in fact its background seemed to be little known – but due to the tremendous noise and its traumatic effect on animals, including cats and dogs, and birds that fall from the sky disorientated by the racket. Animal rights groups campaign every year against it.
The final words are left to Juan Mosquera Restrepo, journalist, scriptwriter and director, who eloquently lamented the celebration’s significance:
A sadness called Medellín has just attacked me. It was like this: detonations in the distance and I wonder, out loud, “is that gunpowder or a bullet?” Then I say to myself, in a low voice: “Damn it, that phrase is from here.” There are phrases that hurt to have learned in your city
Some of the information for this blog was sourced from an infobae article published in 2018.
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Known as the “slave of the blacks”, San Pedro Claver was a revered yet polemical character who dedicated his life to the aid of slaves. A visit to his eponymous church and cloister in Cartagena is recommended. A historic colonial city Cartagena sweats history. It was founded in 1533 on… Read more: Slave of the blacks: a visit to San Pedro Claver church and cloister
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"Tourists, go home, you are not welcome", anti-tourist graffiti in Gracia, Barcelona
Marcus
Tourists go home
Seeing the first graffiti was a novelty. A rush of intrigue and levity. A brief distraction to the mundane. A gentle act of dissent. “Tourists go home”, the blue scrawl boldly proclaimed.
Very soon we saw more. More and more. Every block, corner and wall seemed to be inscribed with the message. A coordinated and planned act of defiance.
A sinking sense of unease built. “What the f*ck are we doing here”, I thought.
“Tourists, go home, you are not welcome”, anti-tourist graffiti in Gracia, Barcelona
This was my first experience of Gracia, the traditionally working class area in Barcelona. At the forefront of the debate: has tourism gone too far?
Barcelona as a tourist destination
Barcelona hasn’t always been such an emblematic tourist destination. The 1992 Olympic triggered urban regeneration and put the city in the consciousness of travellers. Given Barcelona’s endowment of sun, history and a rich catalan culture as well as a concerted push from the local government, the city was ready to take off.
Prior to the pandemic, there were approximately 32 million annual visitors to the city, in 1992 the figure was 1.7 million. The permanent population within the city limits is 1.6 million, giving a ratio of about 19 visitors to permanent residents.
This contrasts with London that has a population of about 9 million and welcomed 22 million international visitors in 2019.
It’s not simply the bare numbers. Half of the 32 million are day-trippers, of which a large chunk are cruise passengers. As a result many of the tourists congregate in the most popular areas, such as Las Ramblas, Park Guell and La Sagrada, determined to see the iconic sights in their short-time. This leads to extreme congestion in certain spots and means that the vast sums spent by tourists are concentrated in a limited number of tourist cafes and gift-shops, with little left over for other parts of the city.
Quoted in the Guardian, Marti Cuso, a resident in the Gothic Quarter, the city’s busiest tourist area bemoaned,
“My barrio is so saturated with tourists it’s impossible to meet someone in the street or for children to play or even to get a good night’s sleep,”
“Tourism kills the city”, street art in Gracia near Park Guell
A consultation carried out in 2015 by the local government pointed to various issues with overtourism, including anti-social behaviour, overcrowding and a loss of identity.
Tourism brings enormous revenue to the city and accounts for a significant part of the economy, but as with many economic issues society grapples with today, it’s not just the size of the pie – it’s how you share it. The consultation highlighted ‘poor redistribution of the wealth generated and poor quality jobs”.
“Tourists go home, carteristas welcome” – graffiti in Gracia Barcelona. Carteristas translates as ‘pickpockets’
A salutory encounter in Valencia
The ethics of tourism and its effects on local communities have particularly interested me since first moving to Valencia. An ever growing ex-pat community, drawn mainly from Northern Europe, have decamped to the mediterranean city, taking advantage of looser working remote rules since the pandemic and the city’s attractive climate, cost of living and cultural offerings.
One sunny saturday afternoon I was in St. Patrick’s, Valencia’s best Irish pub, and had brought along a friend (and also my Spanish teacher), Pedro, who, like me, had recently moved to the city – but instead of coming from London, he had moved from Cadiz in Andalucia. Whereas I was finding the cost of living cheap, to Pedro, Valencia was more expensive. [Before you judge me too quickly, I found myself in a Irish pub as I had wanted to watch an Irish rugby match and Pedro wanted to experience a raucous Irish pub atmosphere.]
Very soon we started talking with another Irishman, Paul, 30, from the Northside of Dublin. Paul had decided to move to Valencia as even with a good job the cost of living in Dublin was not sustainable. Why, he thought, should I put up with a non-existent life where nearly all his earnings were swallowed up by rent, when I could move with my Irish salary and live comfortably in a sunny and culturally rich city. No one disagreed.
Later that evening Pedro revealed to me that he was thinking of moving back home to live with his parents in Andalucia. Despite his best efforts, he couldn’t make his teacher wage stack up against the rising cost of living. A box room without daylight was all he could afford at that point.
One month later, Pedro was back in Cadiz and Paul was still enjoying life in Valencia. The linked nature of Europe’s housing markets had become visibily apparent, bonded by the freedom of remote working. Dublin’s rental crisis (as well as other cities’) could spill into Valencia.
Back to Barcelona
Back to Barcelona, and as we ventured further into Gracia, there was no let-up in the grafiti. However, something new caught my eye: tourists gleefully posing by the inscriptions thumbs up and ironic smiles, excited by the potential for an edgy insta shot. In a kafkaesque turn, instead of putting people off, the grafiti had itself become an attraction.
It partly demonstrates the gordian knot with which tourist dependent locations grapple: how to extricate yourself from an addictive dependency on the supposedly easy cash of foreign tourists? Like an oil rich country that grows fat on its natural resources, leaving other industries lying fallow, an alternative path becomes less and less attractive. For many governments, the natural equilibrium is then to double down on the tourist industry instead of trying to resurrect or develop other parts of the economy. The alternative path involves too much short-term pain, making it politically unviable.
When it comes down to it, the grafiti is not so much aimed at the tourists but really the local authorities that encourage tourism, whether its through loose regulation or financial incentives, and the businesses that exploit these conditions.
The tragedy is that with a greater focus on tourism, the place loses its identity and the reasons that people came in the first place start to fade away. It simply becomes like everywhere else. In Barcelona, a new word has been coined: parquetematización – the act of becoming a theme park. Barcelona is reduced to an imitation of itself.
What can you do?
The website “Responsible Travel” gives some tips on how to visit Barcelona more sustainably, such as going outside of the summer months, going midweek, staying for longer than a day and, when doing so, booking registered accommodation. [Alas our weekend stay in the middle of August broke their first two rules…]. The excellent resource for responsible travel provides advice not just for Barcelona but across the world.
An alternative option of course is to eschew Barcelona in favour of another Spanish city: Valencia is an excellent option (notwithstanding the story relayed above) with its unique culture, mediterranean seaside location, rich cuisine and history – but significantly cheaper and without the hordes of tourists. My blog contains numerous guides to Valencia, including tips on alternative things to see and to do, and how best to settle in if moving there..
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While Poblado and Laureles are the most popular neighbourhoods in Medellin for tourists, Prado is the most interesting and enigmatic. Here’s to 10 facts to enrich your visit to Prado, Medellin. 1. Prado is the… Read more: 10 facts about the Prado barrio in Medellin
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You’ve left your exorbitantly priced flat, waved goodbye to grey skies and rain, and are ready to perfect your Spanish. Or indeed whatever it was that prompted you to upsticks and emigrate to Valencia, that… Read more: Essential tips on how to settle in to Valencia quickly
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