Colombia

Colombia

The heat hits you the moment you step out of the airport, thick and salt-edged from the Caribbean. Inside the walled city, the walls themselves are the colour of ochre and rust, and every balcony has something spilling over it: bougainvillea, laundry, a cat. Street vendors carry baskets of fruit on their heads and call out prices you'll negotiate badly the first time.

Colombia

The cable cars glide up over rooftops so densely packed they look like terracotta scales on a hillside. Down in El Poblado, brunch spots and coworking spaces have colonised what used to be a narco neighbourhood. Medellín sits in a valley at 1,500 metres, which keeps it cooler than you expect. The people are almost aggressively friendly, and the flower festival will stop traffic for a week.