We went to the botanical gardens today. Again, by metro; Medellin’s metro is so very impressive. Clean, inexpensive, fast, airy. Such a pleasure. The entrance to the Jardin Botanico was a smooth modern structure with a circular path around a sort of basin. It made me feel very much like a little silver ball rolling down the gutter of a pinball machine.
Inside was a very pleasant garden, not very big but with nice old trees. We didn’t see any macaws, but did see a large number of iguanas, many of them placidly eating papas fritas fed to them by delighted families. One pair of older women were besieged on their park bench by a particularly large iguana, and sat with feet raised, laughing as the creature stared imploringly at their lunch. Another seemed to make friends with me as it started following me, occasionally bobbing its head or flickering out that startlingly human looking pink tongue.
As part of the Feria de Flores there was a flower and artisanl wares exhibition. The latter was depressing, as it seemed to consist only of stalls from South Asia rather than the Colombian crafts I was hoping to see. The flower show was good though. One display had stuffed jeans with straw in a very anatomically sound manner, and had flowers spilling out of the waist and legs. Odd. A few others were clearly better in imagination than in reality, such as a horn of plenty. But otherwise there were a few beautiful displays of orchids and similar, composed with a great eye for colour and balance.