Dispatch is a series of first-person stories from the road. Readers can share their experiences, from the sublime to the strange.
'This way, por favor … this way! Escalator tour starts here … this way … rapido, por favor," shouted our guide, pointing toward an unmarked van behind a pack of armed policemen. Pushing my way through a crowded, diesel-choked intersection, I leaped into the back of the van in what seemed like a premeditated getaway from a brazen bank robbery. This was the chaotic beginning of a 45-minute thrill ride up to the escalators in Comuna 13, once the most feared and dangerous place in all of Latin America.
High above the city centre of Medellin, our van came to a cul-de-sac walled in on three sides by the slopes of Comuna 13 – home to more than 20 local barrios, or neighbourhoods. In the 1980s and 1990s, barrio San Javier was a battleground for gangs and gunfights – a history that still clings to the hillside. It's a much safer place today, though it's still a tough, working-class neighbourhood that no tourist should visit without a local guide.
Recently, it's become a popular stop for walking tours of its unique outdoor escalators. The escalators – like one might expect at the Mall of America in Minneapolis, not the barrios of Medellin – are beacons of urban renewal. They are a curious form of public transportation found in the most unlikely of places.
Standing close by the van and surveying our route deeper into San Javier, I was suddenly struck by the lively beat of Cumbia Colombiana dancing down the hills and into the streets and around every shop and shanty. Adding to the rhythm of life here was the echo of hammer on nail, out of sync with the background beat but keeping a vigorous tempo nevertheless. The community was aglow in colour, as if a giant beach towel had been draped across the hills: hand-painted murals of orchids and butterflies, bluebirds on tin roofs, and red, turquoise and mustard brick houses stacked one atop another. The barrio was luring me in for a closer look.
Our group was greeted by friendly, uniformed workers who answered questions about wayfinding, food services and local history. The escalators are the centrepiece of an aggressive slum-upgrading program. Theory suggests that they can create safer and more inclusive neighbourhoods by connecting people to jobs, services and communities. With crime rates down, residents now glide up through the community, alighting the top of one escalator and boarding another, connecting to a third, fourth, fifth and sixth. Each segment of the ride is framed with brilliant dioramas of peacocks and palm trees and young lovers kissing under rainbow skies. In pre-escalator days, the infrastructure here was like any other hillside slum, with narrow, impassable roads and steep, treacherous footpaths. These were the conditions that allowed criminal activity to breed. Now, residents can mingle freely.
As we traversed higher into the barrio, the views across Aburra Valley became more impressive, and more poignant. I could see the full sprawl of Medellin's informal settlements, reaching up the valley sides like the fingers of an open hand, to the very tips of the mountains, sticking to the steepest of grades. Up here, at 5,000 feet above sea level, the residents are privileged to a benign climate and a splendid Andean view, but to little else.
The challenge of slum upgrading seemed formidable from here, yet all around me were encouraging signs of progress, such as the fruit-coloured shacks and life-themed artwork that decorate the hills.
The upgrade is far from complete, but each day it expands, one tin roof at a time, gathering more people, more labour and more land.
We began our descent back to the city centre, and I felt envious of those who lived in San Javier. This poor community is rebuilding itself around trust, humility and co-operation – virtues that are too often lost in wealthier cities. The "comuna" ethos is visible in the brick shanties that bunch up like close friends, hugging the hills and squeezing out any sentiments of selfishness or alienation.
People live and work side by side to improve social and physical ties, and the means they come up with, such as outdoor escalators and painted tin roofs, are simple and ingenious. Community upgrading demands that you believe in the people beside you, and that you work efficiently and creatively with limited resources. This, I decided, would be the moral of my story, and one that I'm spreading through my community, one roof at a time.
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