Alborada: A Return to the City of Eternal Spring
- Timothy Agnew
- Dec 17, 2025
- 6 min read
Updated: Dec 23, 2025
As we rocketed out of the Túnel de Oriente (Tunnel of the East) fromJosé María Córdova International Airport, Medellín’s rich, green Aburrá Valley burst into the taxi.
Just like last year, the stark contrast after twenty-five minutes of darkness and the sudden brightness of the valley settled me. Lights from the myriad pueblos blinked as though fireflies, the eclectic casas stacked like Lego up into the rocky canyons.
It was bittersweet to be back in Medellin after a year, and on this visit I’d be here for a month looking at properties and getting a vibe for living here. Now that I felt like I knew this city better, I was more prepared, and I’d practice my Spanish.
A black and white glamour picture of a young woman hung on the driver’s mirror.
“¿Esa es tu novia?” I asked.
He grinned. “Si, mi chica!”
“Ella es muy hermosa.”
“Gracias.”
My flat this year in Antioquia is a spacious, two-story loft on the tenth floor overlooking Circle 48, a narrow and incredibly busy street that shoots north downtown into the Andes mountains. I wanted to explore the more downtown area of Medellin to compare it to Laureles, where I stayed before.
Unlike last year, where I left for Santa Marta and La Ciudad Perdida (read about the Lost City here) on Thanksgiving, this time I was here at the start of the Navidad season, which officially begins November 30th, but as I discovered, much earlier.
The Alborada (dawn) is marked by Paisas’ (locals) fireworks that unofficially rings in the Christmas season on the night of November 30th. In Antioquia, it began the first Saturday I was here.
The fireworks began at dusk and went on though the morning, with thunderous explosions. Alborada meant everyone had illegal or handmade fireworks and they’d be up all night launching them — as I’d learn later, from my roof.
Yet, Alborada, like Medellin, has a foreboding history rooted in drug cartels’ power struggle.
In 2003, Don Berna, a former leader of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia paramilitary group, as well as the leader of The Office of Envigado cartel, wanted to bookmark the demobilization of his Cacique Nutibara bloc, proving he still ran the city.
Despite the public story of a peaceful transition, the fireworks show was a dark show of force and a reminder that violence is still present in Medellin.
Today, Alborada is excepted as a festive welcome to the holidays — with a caveat. The fireworks are mostly handmade and precarious — more like sticks of dynamite and not bursts of color in the sky. Perhaps more ingratiating to me were the plaintive wails from the neighborhood dogs who, like their owners, found the noise insufferable.
My Alborada occurred every night into December, with “bombs” exploding incessantly, some as loud as cherry bombs or M-80s outside my window (I surmised they were dropping them from my rooftop). I decided that on my next trip to Medellin I would stay in Laureles.
After three sleepless nights, I devised a plan. Homemade earplugs and I’d shut my slider and crank up my fan. These Paisas were not giving up their pyrotechnics, but I must sleep.
Unlike the more muy tranquilo of Laureles — Estadio, Antioquia is lazily noisy and ceaseless, with strips of tiny, shiny bodegas selling electronics, cosmetics, shoes, and dreams. Carts line both sides of the street selling hand made leather goods, art work, and candy.
Every morning I walk down Circle 43, past the Metro de Medellín, and join the masses walking to work. The Metro train is sleek and modern and I enjoy walking next to the rail line and feeling it brush by me.
When the train passes, the motorcyclists use the space to get ahead of traffic, skillfully maneuvering the pedestrians, dogs, and vendors like masked ghosts.
I see the same dark young man every morning in the same space, serenading the streets with Colombian folk songs from a make-shift aluminum speaker and ancient microphone.
Like many of the musicians on the autobus, who enter at one stop to sing and parade their wares and exit on the next, he sings with a joyful exuberance that radiates an inner peace, a peace that says I am fine, this is all I want, I want nothing more.
And I realize that is what we seek, that same solitude where music and existence is all you require to recognize happiness. It’s that same peace and joy I see when I come here. It’s in the waitresses and mall employees and street sweepers, a rhythmic tranquility no matter what they are doing.
The food vendors line both side with carts full of tropical fruit and cheese Buñuelos, crispy corn Empanadas, double-fried plantain Patacones, and the infamous pork crackling Chicharrón.
The greasy vapors are a sensory delight and the vendors sit on wooden stools and chat with each other, eyeing me because with my light hair, green eyes, and pale skin I am an outlier.
The police presence is everywhere. The stand along busy streets in full combat wear. When I get cash from a mall’s ATM, they stand behind me carefully scanning the streets.
This year I’m more cautious. My friends told me stories of young women drugging tourists then robbing them, or worse, killing them. Yet, this happens in bars and with men who find women on dating sites. The foreigners who get robbed or kidnapped make dumb decisions, and why I hear don’t come to Medellin to get robbed.
I stop for coffee, which is some of the best in the world. “Un café con leche, por favor.” Every time I speak I savor the return, that she understood my Englo-Spanish, and it encourages me.
As I continue in the stream of people toward the second train station, I feel as though I’m in a wave, simply gliding along with this city. I note the oddities of people approaching me. The disabled, the elderly, the disfigured, the lost tourists.
Unlike New York or large cities, there are no golf cart rules of left or right, and people often cross into my path or step across me with no awareness of space.
Limping farmers struggle to push large carts full of mango, bananas, and papaya across the sidewalk while a speaker shouts “Mango, bananas, papaya!”
On these mornings, homeless bodies lie sleeping on trash bags or makeshift mattresses. Unlike many cities I’ve visited, the homeless here are incredibly consciences. Wherever they decide to sleep, the lay out a blanket or trash bag and sort through dumpsters to find tangible items. In the morning, they neatly wrap everything up and the space they occupied is left as it was.
I visit Plaza Botero, a gorgeous courtyard in front of Museum of Antioquia, filled with native artists Fernando Botero & Pedro Nel Gómez, plus modern works like Rodin, Picasso, and Rauschenberg.
The architecture of the old building is spectacular, with wide open views of courtyards filled with fountains and enormous Botero statues.
The Plaza is a chaotic place. Gangs of teens circle about, smoking cigarettes as they eye the tourists. Vendedores approach me trying to sell me flowers or jewelry or knives.
Taxis emerge from the vein of the city and coalesce with the large autobuses as motorcycles zip in and out, again defying physics. Horns honk endlessly, the traffic circling the square.
I have lunch on the patio of the museum overlooking the Plaza. My friend Thom, who lives here, messages me on WhatsApp. “Want to help me in the pueblos this week?” he asks.
Thom has a charity here that brings food and water into the pueblos for displaced families, mostly children, that escaped from the cartels. It’s an extremely dangerous situation (for his protection, my friend’s face is hidden in this photo), but he serves this population with more love than anyone I've ever met).
“As long as they don’t put a gun to my head,” I say. Years ago, Thom often faced the cartel soldiers as he brought supplies into the hills. On more than one occasion they put a gun to his head.
He sends me a picture of him with police in combat gear carrying rifles. “I have security now,” he says under the photo.
After I finish my lunch, I sit watching the traffic and tourists and teenagers all circling the Plaza’s enormous Botero statues in this frenetic yet tranquilo city.
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