A Day in Medellín: Cable Cars, the Corrientazo, and a Library That Came Back (2026)

Episode guide

This episode follows a composite resident through an ordinary weekday in Medellín, Colombia. The day is built from Colombian and international reporting, the city's own transport material, the national statistics office, the restaurant trade association, and residents' own accounts. No single person's routine stands for the whole city.

Medellín is the capital of Antioquia and the second-largest city in Colombia. It sits at about 1,495 metres in the Aburrá Valley, in the Andes. 1

What to listen for

Breakfast is small and it is nearly always coffee. A tinto is a small glass of sweetened black coffee; with it come arepas — white corn cakes, split and filled with fresh white cheese — or calentao, yesterday's beans and rice fried with hogao, a sauce of tomato and spring onion. Hot water and panela, unrefined cane sugar, make the drink that reaches the table first. 2

The commute runs on one card and one fare. From 10 January 2026 the frequent-user fare on the Cívica card is 3,820 pesos; a single ticket at the booth is 4,400, a municipal student fare 1,600, a senior fare 3,330. One fare covers the train, the urban cable cars, the tram and the integrated buses, as long as the rider never leaves the system. The Metro runs Monday to Saturday from 4:30 a.m. to 11 p.m., and on Sundays and holidays from 5 a.m. to 10 p.m. 3 4 Since 1 July 2026 the blue Cívica Classic cards issued between 2007 and 2014 no longer work; the Metro says it replaced 88,400 of them and that about 140,000 more are still in use. 5

The Metrocable is not a sightseeing ride. Before Line K opened in 2004, residents of Santo Domingo spent up to two and a half hours getting to work, each way; Line K alone now carries about 30,000 people a day, and it is one of six cable lines in the system. 6

Lunch is the corrientazo: soup, then rice, beans, a piece of meat, sweet plantain, a small salad and an arepa, sold at one price to everyone in the queue. In Antioquia the price rose more than 10 per cent at the start of 2026, and the restaurant association Acodres puts an ordinary lunch in the cities between 14,000 and 18,000 pesos — past 20,000 in the business districts. 7 The heavier weekend plate is the bandeja paisa, which runs to eleven ingredients: rice, beans, shredded beef, chorizo, black pudding, fried pork belly, avocado, plantain, an arepa, a fried egg and hogao. 2

The money. From 1 January 2026 Colombia's minimum monthly wage is 1,750,905 pesos, plus a transport allowance of 249,095 — 2,000,000 pesos in total, a rise of 23 per cent that has been contested in the courts. 8 Two metro fares a day come to 7,640 pesos, and one corrientazo costs about twice that.

The afternoon takes you to the Parque Biblioteca Santo Domingo Savio, for most of its life the Biblioteca España. It was designed by Giancarlo Mazzanti and opened on 24 March 2007 in the presence of King Juan Carlos I and Queen Sofía of Spain, whose government had helped fund it through the Spanish development agency; it won the best-architecture prize at the Ibero-American Biennial in Lisbon in 2008. The slate facade did not meet the wind-load requirements it was designed for, the buildings were shrouded from 2013, and the library closed in 2015. 9 10

The repair stalled with 2 per cent of the work left when the contractor suspended it in February 2025; the city signed a new contract that September, and the library reopened on 18 June 2026, with the first two of its three boxes open — a children's room and a technology room with more than 100 new computers — and the third, holding a 300-seat auditorium, close behind. The rescue took eleven years and 55,029 million pesos. 11 12

At home, the utility bill carries the city's classification. Colombian homes are assigned one of six estratos by the physical characteristics of the dwelling and its surroundings rather than by the household's income; estrato 4 pays the full cost, estratos 5 and 6 pay an extra 20 per cent in solidarity contributions, and that money discounts the bills of estratos 1 to 3, where most of the country lives. 13

Five grounded details

The name comes from Medellín, a village in the Extremadura region of Spain and the birthplace of Hernán Cortés. The valley's earlier name, Aburrá, was recorded by the Spanish as meaning "painters", after the patterned cloth worn by the local rulers. 1
Medellín's average annual temperature is 22 °C, with a yearly range of roughly 17 to 28 °C, because the city sits at 1,495 metres close to the equator. That is why it is called the city of the eternal spring. 1
The Medellín Metro is Colombia's only metro. It opened on 30 November 1995 and carried 202.45 million passengers in 2025, across 27 stations and 31.3 kilometres. 14
Line K of the Metrocable was the first cable line in the world dedicated to public transport, with a fixed service schedule. The cable network now has six lines, 14.62 kilometres and 20 stations, and carried 22.5 million passengers in 2025. 6
The outdoor escalators in Comuna 13, the Sendero de conexión Independencias, were inaugurated on 25 December 2011. Six double flights replace 350 concrete steps over about 384 metres of slope steeper than 45 degrees; they are free to ride and serve roughly 12,000 residents. 15

References

1
Wikipedia — Medellín
en.wikipedia.org
2
Los Viajes de Nena — Qué comer en Medellín
losviajesdenena.com
3
Cronista — ¿Cómo quedó el pasaje del Metro de Medellín para 2026?
cronista.com
4
MOVE City Tours — How to Use the Medellín Metro (2026)
movecitytour.com
5
Infobae — Desde julio ya no se podrá usar esta tarjeta en el metro de Medellín
infobae.com
6
Wikipedia — Metrocable (Medellín)
en.wikipedia.org
7
Valora Analitik vía Yahoo Noticias — El 'corrientazo' de $15.000 ya es historia
es-us.noticias.yahoo.com
8
Holland & Knight — Colombia decreta aumento del salario mínimo y auxilio de transporte para 2026
hklaw.com
9
Colombia Reports — Social project turned eyesore: Medellin's Biblioteca de España
colombiareports.com
10
Wikipedia (es) — Parque Biblioteca Santo Domingo Savio
es.wikipedia.org
11
El Colombiano — Entre febrero y mayo de 2026 estaría lista la Biblioteca de Santo Domingo Savio
elcolombiano.com
12
El Colombiano vía Yahoo Noticias — Así será la "nueva Biblioteca España"
es-us.noticias.yahoo.com
13
ColombiaMove — Explicación del sistema de estratos en Colombia
colombiamove.com
14
Wikipedia — Medellín Metro
en.wikipedia.org
15
Wikipedia (es) — Sendero de conexión Independencias
es.wikipedia.org

Episode guide

Medellín is the capital of Antioquia and the second-largest city in Colombia. It sits at about 1,495 metres in the Aburrá Valley, in the Andes. 1

What to listen for

Five grounded details

The name comes from Medellín, a village in the Extremadura region of Spain and the birthplace of Hernán Cortés. The valley's earlier name, Aburrá, was recorded by the Spanish as meaning "painters", after the patterned cloth worn by the local rulers. 1

Medellín's average annual temperature is 22 °C, with a yearly range of roughly 17 to 28 °C, because the city sits at 1,495 metres close to the equator. That is why it is called the city of the eternal spring. 1

The Medellín Metro is Colombia's only metro. It opened on 30 November 1995 and carried 202.45 million passengers in 2025, across 27 stations and 31.3 kilometres. 14

Line K of the Metrocable was the first cable line in the world dedicated to public transport, with a fixed service schedule. The cable network now has six lines, 14.62 kilometres and 20 stations, and carried 22.5 million passengers in 2025. 6

The outdoor escalators in Comuna 13, the Sendero de conexión Independencias, were inaugurated on 25 December 2011. Six double flights replace 350 concrete steps over about 384 metres of slope steeper than 45 degrees; they are free to ride and serve roughly 12,000 residents. 15

A Day in Medellín: Cable Cars, the Corrientazo, and a Library That Came Back

Episode guide

What to listen for

Five grounded details

References

Related content

A Day in Medellín: Cable Cars, the Corrientazo, and a Library That Came Back

Episode guide

What to listen for

Five grounded details

References

Related content