Medellin, Colombia

I've talked about the research we did in Colombia and shared some photos, but I might not have said much about how impressive Medellin is. It's a clean and incredibly modern city. The traffic sucks, but they have an efficient metro system and plentiful taxis that aren't expensive.

Much of the time we stayed a section of the city called Laureles that was a wonderfully walkable part of town. There were shops of all sorts, from small tiendas to large malls -- all within a few blocks of us. Better yet, we frequented a delightful Cuban restaurant that offered five-year old Cuban rum.

The hotel we stayed in had a nice breakfast area in the picture below. Often I would set up my computer in the morning and work on our short story INVISIBLE FORTUNE that came out of the days we spent in Cartagena. My coauthor J. Lee Porter and I would pass the drafts back and forth until we were happy with them.

As both of us tend to be early risers, we could often have a story conference over breakfast. Get the work stuff out of the way and explore. If you aren't a writer, chatting about the plot of a crime story might not seem the stuff of breakfast conversation, but it worked well for us. And we needed to make sure that the story fits in, in terms of tone and style, with the Bitpats novel series we are writing. The first book, CRYPTO SHRUGGED is coming in May and you can read about the series at Nomadic Giant.

As you can see, this neighborhood is tree-lined and pleasant. Every morning the shopkeepers were out sweeping the sidewalks and keeping everything nice. And given that this picture was taken in January, you can see that it's a perfect place for escaping snow and ice. We understand that the temperature doesn't vary that much year round.

Medellin is above 5000 feet and in a valley surrounded by mountains. Rather idyllic. We will certainly be tempted to return there.