Medellin River at Christmas

We are just starting to get oriented to our neighborhood and have discovered the Medellin River is only a three minute walk from our front door. The Parques del Rio is five minutes away and that is where the famous Christmas lights of Medellin are the most concentrated and where the river lights end at the Medellin Manger of Light.

Our apartment is only a 4 minute walk to a lovely promenade along the Medellin River which has cafes, restaurants and exotic rare trees and plants.

This is where we get in our daily exercise of combo run/walk as it is flat and smooth. The circuit we do is only 1 mile so we loop it several times to get in our minimum daily average of three miles. Usually we walk another 2 miles at least exploring or grocery shopping.

Along the river walk is some information in English about the biodiversity along the river.

Spectacular foliage here along the river and everywhere.

The river walkway is now decorated for Christmas with the most amazing light show we have ever seen.

These photos were taken out on our walk during the day exploring. We returned that night to see the full magical show. Medellin is known for its charismatic locals, who love to celebrate every special occasion. And Christmas is no different.

Each year in early December the streets and river of Medellin light up. While decorations in countries in Europe and North America revolve around Santa and gifts, Medellin light displays includes animals, plants, cultural characters and more.

We are amazed by how much work this must entail in setting up.

As you will see in this post these structure come alive when lit up at night.

This building dominates the skyline of the river walk

Beautiful orange and yellow hibiscus bushes are in bloom everywhere.

Not sure what this was all about. He was being filmed as he played. Guess he is just a musician who wanted to be ‘cool”.

For New Years Eve they have some unusual traditions. They wear yellow underwear for good luck in the coming year. It is a tradition to eat twelve grapes at the stroke of midnight as the clock chimes twelve times, making a wish for each grape. It is believed if you successfully eat all 12 grapes, your wish will come true. It is also believed that walking around the block with empty luggage means you will have good fortune in the form of travel opportunities. Guess we will do that one.

There are so many beautiful Bird of Paradise bushes

Also so many flowering trees that we have never seen before.

Fun and delicious but fattening food trucks are everywhere.

This is the official name of our neighborhood park.

This was a massive temporary discount shopping store set up in the Convention Center that Sandy wanted to check out so Jim reluctantly walked through with her but he was not happy about it 😩.

It was like an Ikea store that you need to walk the entire store before you can exit. Oh Jim was beside himself 😣.

They convey their produce and sell it on the streets.

Just more pretty flowers we saw walking around.

They decorated the lobby of our building. This is a very cute manger in the Entrance way.

This video shows the lights of our neighborhood buildings.

Our twinkling apartment Christmas tree.

Ok it is 6pm time to go out to the Riverwalk and see the Christmas lights lit up.

Click on this and the next three photos to start videos of the light show.

So we were told that other countries buy these lights from Colombia after Christmas. National Geographic considers these as one of the 10 most amazing Christmas lights in the world.

Video of some musical performers.

Videos of booths selling food and artisanal goods.

Awoke the next morning to the Hillside in fog.

That kind of just scratches the surface of what they do for Christmas here. We only walked the very end of the lights. They run the other direction an unknown distance but at least a half mile. We will probably walk some of that in the next few weeks as they stay on until January 12th. Their goal this year is to create the largest nativity scene in the world, which could enter the Guinness Book of Records for its length and size.

2 responses to “Medellin River at Christmas”

Mark Neylon

December 25, 2024 at 10:08 am

Feliz navidad!!

Mark Krahling

December 25, 2024 at 4:21 am

I’m enjoying reading about your adventures in Medellin. We’re leaving for London in a few days and will be staying in Kensington, so I’ve been also reading some of your London blogs for ideas on what to see. Merry Christmas to the two of you!

Living the retirement dream