Valdivia – What Lies 4 Hours North Of Medellin

If Valdivia is known to locals as “The Capitol of the Mountains”, then “The Land of the Constant Vallenato” would be a close second. (Vallenato is the popular folk music here in Colombia and it is the constant soundtrack to Valdivia). Located some four hours north of Medellin, local friends of The Arepa said we were crazy to go to Valdivia given its stories of narco-traffico crime, Farc bullying, and overall possibility of danger (we even called the local police and they said come at your own risk!)

So here is the skinny. Valdivia has about 10,000 people and local exports include milk, coffee, yucca, and not to spin a bad rap, but Valdivians have no qualms about stating that theirs is a land of cocaine (and where there is coke, there is crime and the FARC is not to0 far behind). Surrounded by mountaintops, the people from Valdivia are ruddy with grit, we’re talking people without noses, massive goiters, crippled and broken laborers, and an overall talent for just standing around. Nor does Saturday night bring out the rocking nightlife a la “Girls Gone Wild” that we were hoping to find. On the contrary, the mid-20s crowd is already obliged to taking care of toddlers, leaving the only youth still able to have a night out at a maximum age of sixteen (picture drunk teenagers at a county fair walking around in circles).

So is Valdivia ready for tourism? Let me offer an assured, no! As I was told, Valdivia clocks in at about 2 gringos a month and if you don’t know Spanish, you had better have the ipod  charged and a good book to read. On the other hand, if you can swing a little chit-chat in Spanish then being a gringo here accords a few perks in the form of a warm country-style hospitality: such as being served the largest portion of beef for dinner, offered the best room in the hotel, and there are no shortage of stares from children and community-wide introductions fro m people eager to learn English. It must also be stated that just outside of Valdivia lie the waterfall pools of Cascada de Santa Inés which for 2000 pesos offer a delightful respite from the afternoon heat. That and Valdivia is home to Arepas made from yellow corn instead of white corn (this is of course news only because we work for a magazine entitled The Arepa).

But Valdivia has had its fair share of bad luck. In addition to being situated in narco-territory ground zero and several acts of violence in the 2000s, in 1999 heavy rainfall and poor foundations led to landslides that took the homes of hundreds. Corruption in the distribution of funds left many displaced and the city had to rebuild itself with gumption and heart. Today in Valdivia, jobs are few, single moms are plentiful, and farmers wonder how they can make a living without coca cultivation.

At night as I stared into the onyx-like abyss of the night in Valdivia I felt surprisingly small and insignificant amidst the ocean of mountains surrounding me, without a single light seen across the hinterlands. But then the owner of the waterfall pools had spotted me and in a drunken stupor hailed out to everyone in the central plaza, “Hey, it’s the gringo, he is from the U.S. but he likes our pueblo, HE REALLY LIKES OUR PUEBLO!” No longer feeling insignificant I found Valdivia to be a place to make acquaintances with common people, poor in their pockets, rich in their hearts, and earnest to share a bottle of agua-ardiente.

Hotel Diocelina in the central plaza has rooms for 15.000 pesos a night. The Coonorte bus line has about 4 buses a day to Valdivia from Medellin. More info can be found at: www.valdivia-antioquia.gov.co