Comuna13, Medellin
Comuna13, nestled in the vibrant city of Medellin, Colombia, embodies resilience, transformation, and cultural dynamism. This historically marginalized neighborhood has emerged as a symbol of urban revitalization, featuring awe-inspiring street art, innovative social programs, and breathtaking escalators that navigate its steep hills, inviting visitors to explore its colorful alleys and savor the authentic charm of a community reborn. In this guide, we share our experience and take you through our guided tour of the area.
Comuna13 is an absolute must while visiting Colombia and specifically when visiting Medellin. The day before visiting Comuna13, we had spent time at the Casa de la Memoria, a museum that a taxi driver had recommended. The information we had learned during this visit made this tour mean more as we had so much information going into it.
I do highly recommend visiting the Casa de la Memoria before coming to the comuna 13. Read my blog, A guide to visiting Casa de la Memoria, Medellin before the visit.
Stiven was our fantastic guide.
We opted to do a walking tour which was a great idea as we got to learn so much about the history of the area and also see first hand how much the community is rebuilding. We were very lucky to have found a tour company called Zippy tours from a recommendation on the ioverlander app. All the tour guides grew up in this community and have been directly affected by all the changes that this area has gone through.
We had a guide Stiven who spoke English, his story about learning English went like, about 7 years ago he met 3 guys, an Aussie, a Brit and a Scot who were visiting Medellin, he got to spend time with them and learn English from them. They came to watch him doing the tours in Spanish and realized that he would be a great help to English speaking tourists. Well, they had a great idea because Stiven was an amazing guide and offered fantastic information about comuna13.
So what is Comuna13?
A little back history about how comuna13 came to be. Medellin has over 200 neighbourhoods that are divided into 16 comunas. These 16 comunas are then divided into 6 zones that are dependent on the taxable income of the residents. Zona 1 is the lowest socioeconomically and 6 has the highest income brackets. An example of a comuna in the 6 zone is El Poblado. This is one of the most touristy communities in Medellin with the most luxurious hotels, residencies and restaurants. This is where the famous Museum of modern art is located. El Poblado is the largest comuna with the fewest residents meaning the homes of the wealthiest community have the largest real estate space.
An example of a community in the zona 1 is San Javier and this is where comuna13 is located. Communities in zona 1 have long been neglected by the government and do not have access to clean water, accessible healthcare, safe housing and education. Due to this neglect, it was easy for the gangs set up territories within the comuna13 to transport drugs without interference from the government.
Comuna13 was originally built by the farming families that were displaced due to the fighting that was happening between the FARC, paramilitary groups and the government. These families that came from rural areas in the 1970s and 1980s migrated to the mountains that surround Medellin and built homes . It was easy to set up their homes on this mountain side because geographically, this was an area that was already neglected by the city's government but it lacked roads or infrastructure. Unlike other comunas, there was no direct roads that connected this community well enough to allow for commerce, building of schools or hospitals but the residents here had no other choice.
Unfortunately, with the fall of Pablo Escobar, small time gang members could now rise and show their power and the easiest place for the them to settle was in San Javier and around comuna13 area. The families that had escaped the war brought on by Pablo Escobar were now facing the same problems due to his death. This area became known as the most dangerous place in Colombia. It was a place that was run by the gangs and paramilitary all fighting for power.
The governments negligence helped with the festering of crime for decades. Children were born into crime and there was no education to know otherwise. Gang members only stayed in their territory and crossing the territories meant death through shooting. Dealing in drugs and guns was what the youth knew for years until 2002 when the president Alvaro Uribe launched a mission to abolish the crime and clean up the city. Operation Orion as it was called was meant to get rid of the crimes in comuna13 but a lot of residents were caught in the crossfire and there are controversies about how this was carried out especially due to the numbers of innocent people that went missing. This was something we had seen the previous day at Casa de la Memoria.
A lot of work still needed to be done to truly clean up the area, the residents still had no access to education, healthcare and even jobs. The residents who had enough of the fighting decided to come together to really clean up the comuna. Stiven told us about how the gangs held a peace agreement amongst each other. They agreed to cease fire and only have peace for just a month. This went well and what they noticed is that with fewer gang wars in that month, there was less police presence. With this in mind, they decided to go for a peaceful year. The best thing about less police presence is that the gangs could carry out drug deals more successfully. It sounds counterintuitive but this really helped with bringing peace to the community.
The residents of the comuna were really coming together to help each other truly rebuild this as a community worth visiting.
One of the first real changes made was in the building of the outdoor escalators. Our guide Stiven expressed how much of a difference this made to his community, he spoke about them with so much pride, a first of their kind possibly in the world he said.
Escalators:
These electrical outdoor escalators made sure that the residents that lived on the tops of the mountains could access the rest of the city easily without having to walk thousands of steps up and down. He was so proud that this is something that they had. Now the reason where there are no buses to connect people to the bottom of the hill is due to the fact that there were no roads built in the years of neglect. Building a road now would mean destruction of thousands of homes and so the escalators that connect the top of the hill to the bottom where buses can then be used to easily and quickly transport people to the metro station was a huge accomplishment.
Street art:
One of the absolute favourites for most people while visiting comuna13 is seeing the street art and murals painted all over the community. Stiven gave us a rundown on how this came to be. Being a street artist is now a coveted position. Artists started using their skills by painting murals and doing graffiti to tell their stories of the violence that griped them for so long and what the consequences were. The government seeing this decided to pay them for their art and these artists that used to be in the lowest tax bracket have now through this program gone up to the 6th or highest tax bracket. What a way to encourage young people to use their skills.
The art is displayed for 2 years and then is replaced by different artists but this is a competitive landscape. What Stiven taught us as well was that there was a difference between the graffiti and murals. Graffiti is illegal to do and if caught could lead to hefty fines, graffiti is done quick with spray paint and usually incorporate wording. Murals are legal and the artists have to apply for a permit to do one. They are done by painting with brushes and other mediums and take time. Their art is a way to show resilience and a true transformation in the people and how humans together can create extreme change in their communities when they choose to.
Hiphop:
Part of our tour was watching a young hiphop group called Big Boss Dance Group, enthusiastically display their dance to us and also invite us to dance with them. I loved watching the kids really get into the dancing with everyone. These young dancers live in this community and use dance a way to tell their stories. I loved hearing stories of young dancers that were recruited by gangs but due to programs like these offering an alternative, they can live a life free of crime.
These kids just want to dance and draw and paint and do art, not shoot guns or dealing drugs. It is really humbling when you hear these stories. Real stories not written or acted stories. That's what made this tour so invaluable to me.
Community school:
One of the things that comuna13 does not have is direct access to schools, moreover, due to the way the community is designed, there is no easy way to build a school without destroying homes, however at the bottom of the hill with easy access from the escalators, a school was built. With a capacity of 1500 but with 3000 students, they make it work.
Is it all good now?
Mostly, Stiven told us about how the government and the cartels came together and made an agreement where the gangs are sort of still in charge of the community. So the way it works he said is, the residents of comuna13 have to pay 2 taxes, one to the government 20% and the other to the gangs 1%. What the 1% tax does is keep the community free of crime. In fact Stiven claimed that it is safer in comuna13 than it is in other communities like El Poblado because crime in gang run comuna13 leads to more dire consequences than other communities where the police protect the people.
Taking tours like we did and general tourism pump money into this community that is working so hard to rebuild. I truly loved this experience.
What is the best thing about comuna13?
Hope, in one word hope , and this is more than anything. To walk around the area and interact with people, to see the smiles on their faces when dealing with foreigners. To see how much they're thriving in this new age, where guns are replaced with brushes. Where the young want to dance, want to show off their dance moves, the smiles on their faces when they do , hope is the word that comes to my mind. This change was done by the young and positive support makes them go even further.
I hope to visit comuna13 in the future because I know the progression with be immense.
How to visit Comuna13:
We took the metro to the San Javier station. We got there at 10am and there were different guiding groups waiting for the tourists. It was very easy to find Zippy tours as the different tour groups have different uniforms. This is a free walking tour but tips are expected. It was a fantastic tour by young people who have experienced a lot more than the average youth do and they do a great job sharing their experiences.
A tip of at least COP30,000 is greatly appreciated. That's about CAD$10 or USD$7.
The tours wait right at 10am and at 4pm.
Visiting Comuna13 with young children:
We had a tour from 10am to about 2pm and our kids did great the whole time. There was a lot of walking so we made sure to have proper walking shoes for the whole family. As well, the tour had stops in places where there were play grounds and the kids were within eye distance for us swinging and sliding away as we enjoyed absorbing the history.
Our kids have always been able to find a way to keep themselves entertained as long as they are not hungry. Also with the promise of treats at the end of the tour, it was an easy day despite the 4 hours.
Doing Comuna13 without a guide:
I honestly wouldn't recommend it, the point of doing this tour was to gain the knowledge about the history as well as support a community working for their future. We thought about doing it ourselves to save money but after doing the tour, we appreciated the fact that we would not know where to start. Right away from the metro, without the guidance of the tour, we would have been just wondering around.
The other thing to be aware of is that not all the areas are safe, Comuna 13 is safe but you would have to know it's limit because the next Comuna 12 has unsafe areas where robberies of people wondering have been reported. With that in mind, I definitely would recommend a guided tour especially with Zippy tours.