Colombia Día 13: Jardín Botánico y Museo de Botero

Today we hit up the Botanical Gardens, on the first day of its Feria de las Flores exhibit. To say it was crazy there would not be doing it justice. The place was packed, but we found our way around and truly it was so, so worth it.

The Botanical Gardens in Medellín are already well regarded, and their orchid area is by the far the most famous installation (pictured above), but what they had going on for their Exposiciones de las Orquídeas was truly mind blowing. There truly are no words to describe how incredible it was, and since it takes forever to upload one picture here, I’m going to wait and post a bunch from the show when I get home. Here are just a couple of the most amazing (it’s going to be hard to pick!)

Oh, and we ran into the guy from the airport line who told me about the Feria de las Flores in the first place!

I could have stayed in the orchid exhibit for hours, but the kids got bored pretty fast. I’m glad I can relive it with pictures, which I’ll need to show my mom. She would have loved it there. I need to bring her some time.

At this point the kids were ready to leave the gardens but luckily I coaxed then over to the lake area, where the iguana situation was absolutely out of control.

There were giant iguanas everywhere, just mingling with the people. We even got to see a few swimming across the lake! Then this guy started feeding one a banana and the whole place flipped out. It climbed up on his lap and had no intention of getting down until he ate the entire thing.

The kids LOVED the iguanas and we stayed there for well over and hour, before heading out of the gardens for good.

We had a rough time when everyone was really hungry and we couldn’t find a McDonalds that was on the map, but we figured it out eventually.

Finally we hit up a museum that has a massive gallery of Botero paintings and sculptures. There are also a ton of sculptures outside in the square, which was really cool. Botero is from Colombia, but I wonder if he’s more specifically from Medellín because they have a lot of Botero stuff here.

I’m going to try to use this hand in some kind of sign in my room. Either a “raise your hand” sign, or a “talk to the hand” sign (to remind them to try to figure out an issue by themselves before asking me).

I really like Botero, so I kind of pushed the museum even though the kids weren’t super interested. We only went into the Botero rooms, though the museum had lots of other stuff. The kids did a REALLY good job speaking quietly and holding my hands (which the museum required), and I repaid them by getting in and out quickly.

Now we are back and resting for a bit before we head out later for a few things (I need to buy feminine products because of course my period couldn’t wait 2 more days).

Out flight is technically at 1am on Thursday morning, so we need to get to the airport tomorrow night. I lucked out again and our AirBnB host is letting us stay way past check out time, which will be an immense help – ending the trip just like we started it. 😉

Tomorrow I plan to take the kids to a park and then bring them home early for showers and packing and dinner before we head to the airport. Then we’re on our way back home.