Medellin (pronounced more like medejean in this area) is a large city of about 2.5 million people. It has a lot to offer culturally and is now considered a safe city. It is also very smoggy and Dan and I both had respiratory problems there. That said, we spent 10 fun days there with our friends Lesia and Jim Thompson, the owners of Vista Grande in Boquete Panama.
A few years ago, Medellin was rated one of the 10 best places is the world for Christmas lights. It is still very nice with something like 70,000 tourists visiting during the 4 weeks or so that the lights are up.
Every park that we went to had fairly elaborate displays of lights. We only went to 3 large ones and a couple of smaller ones. There were many more that we could have seen but our understanding is that we saw the best of them.
I had expected cars moving slowly through areas like Wind Crest when we grew up in San Antonio where individual houses were decorated. Here, houses are sometimes decorated but they concentrate on their parks. (I understand that the electric company “donates” the power for these lights.) People use public transit (trains and buses) or walk to these parks. I’m sure some drive as well but once they are at the park (large or small), it is by foot.
It is hard to really capture the lights but this gallery is our best attempt at that. Enjoy!