The Nomad MBA Part III - Medellín
The previous months in Chile and Peru had set the bar pretty damn high, but upon arrival in Medellín we were absolutely blown away by the accommodation in which we would spend our final Nomad MBA month. The city has a completely different vibe than the raw, traditional Valparaiso and the isolated, historical Cusco; Medellin is a big city - home to 2 million people, a fusion of 13 smaller towns that are now the different neighborhoods of Medellin, filled with a mix of older and modern buildings and always bustling with life. Different than in the previous months, we would now all live in the same building, which also happened to have a co-working space, a bar, a cafe, a restaurant, a playground, a cinema room, a yoga deck, a meditation room, a music studio, a hairdresser and even a tattoo shop in house. Needless to say, we spent the first week exploring the endless possibilities in this surreal bubble of amazing facilities and other likeminded nomad guests before we started venturing out to experience more of the fantastic city of Medellin.
# This perfect accommodation is called Selina and is part of a chain of hybrid hotel/hostel accommodations specifically aimed at digital nomads and other open minded travellers who are looking to share knowledge, skills and experiences. My room was located at the top floor and had the most amazing view over Medellin - so so lucky! It is located in the rather wealthy part of Medellin - El Poblado - and surrounded by designer outlets, boutique shops, the cutest cafes, all types of lunchrooms and restaurants and an de-li-cious gelato shop right next door. And because we spent so much time there, we became great friends with Selina’s super cool staff, who did everything in their power and more to keep building a strong community and to make us feel at home. We’ve been feeling like kids in a candy shop for the complete month - we could not have been in a better place! 🍭💗
# Colombia happens to be the home of two of my lovely Imagineering study mates Paola and Ivan, which is why I made my way to Bogota for a weekend of reunion and introduction to the city and Colombian habits in a truly local way, YESS! From the moment Paola picked me up from the airport it has been absolutely lovely - we had so much catching up to do and it was really fantastic just to see her again. She and her partner showed me all around the city; we drove through different areas, we went to the local Paloquemao market where I learnt about fruits and veggies I had never seen before and tried some of the best typically Colombian juices, we went up the cablecar to Cerro Monserrate to overlook (part of) the endless skyline of Bogota, we went to a truly Colombian party with live music, dancing Salsa and shotting Aguardiente, we met Ivan and his family for a city tour through the center and the beautiful historical area of La Candelaria, we went to the Inca Gold Museum, we made a daytrip to the amazing Guatavita and looked for El Dorado in the lake - all the while having ALL the traditional foods; arepa and hot chocolate for breakfast, typical bread rolls for lunch, patacones for dinner, juices to accompany everything, roasted corn as a snack and fermented corn liquor chicha just whenever. And all of that in just one weekend! It was amazing, and SO GOOD to see Paola, Ivan and their families again! Thanks a billion, I am really looking forward to our next reunion! ✨
# Back in Medellín, I fell right back into Selina’s inspiring work and study atmosphere, tribe exploring and special events in and around the local community. Somehow the sense that this would be our last month as a tribe in a place like this made us all work harder but definitely play harder too - we had to do all the things while we could! Courses were completed, the job hunting game was strong, new business ideas were formed and loads of feedback was shared during the daytime, after which we ventured further out of the beautiful El Poblado into Medellín’s different areas, soaked up some fresh air in the botanical gardens, visited museums and churches, filled up each and every last bit of space in our suitcases with the nicest things we found in the countless boutique shops, markets and malls all around town, tried out all the food, cheered with the locals while the Colombian team kept progressing in the soccer World Cup, danced all night at the alsmost weeklong Boilerroom party and all the other parties in Selina’s Playground, practically lived in the cinema room and had tribe drinks in the nighttime. Sleep is SO overrated! ✌🏻
# The third week was assigned to tribe travel week, so a small group of us made our way to the airport and flew to Cartagena de Indias - one of Colombia’s prettiest cities and the highlight of the Caribbean coast. Surrounded by a solid, 13 kilometers long, centuries old colonial stone wall, we found Cartagena’s beautiful, brightly colored Old Town - which is listed as a Unesco World Heritage site - with its maze of narrow, cobbled streets, beautiful colonial houses, cute balconies covered in bright pink flowers, the prettiest doors only just visible in the with tropical plants overgrown walls, horses and carriages, massive churches and romantic plazas. No wonder that this stunning place, in combination with its tropical temperatures, beaches to access the warmest sea I ever swam in, the many cute restaurants and cafes and the most amazing shops is one of the most popular destinations on the rise in the world! We enjoyed our days exploring the old town, eating out, walking along the boulevard to the more modern end of town while watching the sun set, tanning at the ugly tourist overrun Playa Blanca, daytripping to and around the beautiful neighboring Isla Grande, watching the World Cup from deserted beachclubs, playing volleyball in the sea and ending the days with vegan ice-cream. Such a good time! 🌞
# After the rest of the group had returned to Medellín, my Hungarian buddy Attila and me stayed behind to make a trip a bit further along the coast to Santa Marta and the beautiful Tayrona National Park. Santa Marta is only a 4 hrs busride away from Cartagena and has a lovely, lively centre with live music and street artists in the evenings. Other than that it wasn’t that much of a highlight - possibly because we mainly passed through on our way to Tayrona National Park. We spent the night in a lovely homestay and followed our hosts advice to take the bus into the park’s entrance, there transfer to another bus deeper into the park and walk from there. We entered the thick jungle and watched the scenery change the closer we got to the beach. After a refreshing swim once there (and maybe a little powernap on the beach) we followed the coastline until we arrived at the amazing El Cabo camp area, right at a beautiful open area with two bays and a lighthouse on the rocks in the middle. After claiming our hideously gross tent, we enjoyed the amazing view from the rock, explored the deserted beaches around El Cabo and lay down at the beach to watch the colourful sunset while the moon rose through the palmtrees. The no-reception-nor-technologies evening we spent eating fresh fish (and veggies for me) for dinner, talking loads and playing cards until we couldn’t procrastinate going to sleep in the sweaty, smelly tent any longer. That one humid, short and mosquito filled night was all worth it though; we woke up to the sound of the waves and the most spectacular sunrise evur. All of El Cabo breathed peacefulness and happiness while the sun slowly rose out of the ocean and the sky changed all colors. It was fantastic! We washed the memory of the tentnight away with a crisp dive into the sea and watched the time to breakfast roll away with the waves on a stunning, completely deserted piece of beach. After breakfast we packed up our stuff and walked back into the jungle to make our way over rocky hills, through leafy paths with herds of monkeys and all kinds of insects and past old traditional huts back to civilization. What an adventure! 👌 Back in Santa Marta we treated ourselves to the best ever late lunch while watching the World Cup and waiting for the intense tropical rainstorm that we had so luckily managed to avoid to pass. Completely exhausted but oh so satisfied we got to the airport far too early so there was no way we would miss our flight. We never considered the option though that a bird would fly into the engines of our plane while coming in so we would not be able to fly out of Santa Marta that day. Luckily, together with an awesome couple from Australia, we managed to get our tickets changed and find a hostel that would let us in in the middle of the night. After that many peaks it was expected to encounter a low at some point, but we forgot right about all of it when we woke up to another day in sunny Santa Marta.
# Back in Medellín we had only one week left to do all the things that we still wanted to do before we would all go our separate ways. So we filled our days with hyper productive study sessions in yet another cafe, eating more ice-creams than ever before, watching each other’s favorite movies and documentaries, partying, last minute souvenir shopping, growing even closer with the Selina staff and getting in-house metamorphoses. We went on various tours - from a self-guided citywalk to a busride/boattrip to the colorful town Guatape and its beautiful wetland-sounds-like surroundings to the amazing Transformation Tour to learn about Medellín before, during and after its tumultuous drugs war. On this last tour Fede, our very interesting tourguide who experienced the dangers and negativity from the drugs war first hand and openly shared his intense life story with us, guided us through the different areas of town that were once controlled by Pablo Escobar and his cartel, took us to where Pablo Escobar used to live and where he died, explained that the people sitting on the street’s corners weren’t just sitting there and showed us and how the streets changed after Pablo died and how Comuna 13, once Colombia’s most notorious neighborhood, expressed and reinvented itself through various forms of arts like grafiti and hiphop dancing. Also, he educated us about the many conventional tours that are often operated by Pablo’s family - thus still fueling his empire in a way - and how the Colombian people want to show tourists Colombia’s beauty and friendliness to break out of the dangerous reputation. You can definitely experience that wherever you go! ✨
# And then, before we knew it, our final day as a tribe arrived. To not let that get by unnoticed we were all taken to the most perfect location for this special occasion; a beautiful villa - on other days used as the decor of Colombian music videos - on the hills just outside Medellín with the most amazing design features, luxurious rooms, rooftop terrace with hot tub and breathtaking city view. We spent the day doing workshops on reflecting the past months and getting ready for post Nomad MBA life. We ended the day with the most beautiful graduation ceremony, loads and loads of drinks and even more party. And then, all of a sudden, the sun was up and the first bus to rip our tribe apart pulled into the driveway.. All through the day people left to catch their planes back to all corners of the world while me and some others stayed behind for one more night on the South American continent. And then, another short night, a quick last walk through El Poblado, a final FAR toooo big had-to-have-one-last-time Colombian lunch and 7486793 goodbyes later, it was my turn to go. Feeling all weird, very full from all that lunch, all alone for the first time in months and incredibly grateful I found myself boarding my first plane - to Madrid, where I had a loooong 9 hour layover to review the unbelievable three months that I just lived. At the end of this amazing adventure, this is just a small selection of things that made going on the Nomad MBA was the best thing evur:
I made 26 fan-tas-tic new friends from all over the world (and learnt one can still make lifelong friends at 27).
We stayed in the most amazing places and were part of really cool co-working spaces, helping us to really integrate in the local communities.
On top of the online programming course that I took during the trip, I gained tons of new skills and knowledge during the bonding weekend, the weekly workshops, the traveling through the different cultures and the interactions at the co-working spaces.
Practicing radical transparency, one of the Nomad MBA’s key values, and the openness it results in is a true delight.
The countless unforgettable memories we made during the remarkable fitness bootcamp to Macchu Pichu and the meditation retrait in the Sacred Valley.
The constant personal development that was inevitable.
With mixed feelings I then boarded a second plane that brought me back to Schiphol, where I was reunited with my loved ones. SO GOOD to see them again, I am so extremely lucky to have such a wonderful home full of love to get back to!
Different from the last time that I returned from long term travels, coming home this time felt more ‘permanent’. Even though my never-ending wanderlust has not nearly been satisfied, there is so much more to see on this beautiful globe of ours and all my travels have definitely made me so much richer, my wallet doesn’t feel much of that and it is time to get back to work and ‘normal’ life. For now though, as I am sure that I will be back! 👋