How to get out of Medellín for the day

Medellín's day trips are cheap, frequent and easy once you know the system. The system is not signposted in English and almost nothing written for foreigners explains it properly.

This is the practical layer underneath every other post in this cluster.

The two terminals

There is a third departure point worth knowing: buses to Santa Elena and Parque Arví leave from La Placita de Flores in the centre on the El Tambo route, roughly every thirty minutes from 6am. Most people take the Metrocable instead, and should.

Buying a ticket

At both terminals, ticket counters are grouped by operator rather than by destination, and several companies often serve the same route with no meaningful difference in price or comfort. Walk along the counters, say the destination, and take whichever leaves soonest.

Two words on the printed ticket are worth learning, because they are easy to confuse: puesto is your seat number, rampa is the gate you board from.

For popular routes on weekends, buy your return ticket when you arrive at your destination rather than at the end of the day. Buses fill, and the last departure on several of these routes is mid-to-late afternoon.

Metro fares and the Arví supplement

A standard metro ride runs around 3,800 pesos flat rate and covers integrated buses and the commuter Metrocable lines. A monthly pass is about 248,000 pesos, which is poor value unless you ride daily.

Metrocable Line L to Parque Arví is the exception: it is a tourist line and carries a separate supplement well above the standard fare. Published figures for it vary considerably and have changed; confirm at the station.

Published metro fares in recent travel writing range from 2,650 to 4,400 pesos, which tells you how much confidence to place in any single quoted figure, including this one.

What to carry

• Cash, in small notes. Entrance fees, tuk-tuks, market stalls and small restaurants are cash. Change for a 50,000 note is often a problem in a pueblo.
• A layer and something waterproof. Every destination in this cluster except Santa Fe de Antioquia is cooler than Medellín, some of them considerably. Santa Fe is hotter, and needs sun protection instead.
• Shoes with grip. Colonial cobblestones are uneven and slick when wet. This is the most common cause of injury on these trips by a wide margin.
• Your cédula or a passport copy. Carry identification; leave the passport itself in the apartment safe.
• Medication for the day, plus a margin. Roads delay. A four-hour return leg becoming six is ordinary rather than exceptional.

Timing

• Go on a weekday. Antioquians take these trips at weekends and on public holidays, and the roads east in particular can add hours in each direction.
• Leave early. Morning departures beat both the traffic and, on the hot routes, the heat.
• Know the last bus. On several routes it runs mid-to-late afternoon. Ask when you arrive, not when you want to leave.
• Check the season. Heavy rain in April–May and September–November has caused landslides and road damage on some of these routes. Ask locally before committing to a long day in the wet season.

When to hire a driver instead

Public buses are cheap and perfectly comfortable, and for Guatapé or Santa Fe they are the obvious choice. There are three situations where hiring a car and driver for the day is worth the money rather than an indulgence:

• Multi-town circuits in eastern Antioquia, where bus connections between small towns are the whole difficulty.
• Long routes like Jardín and Jericó, where the ability to stop, stretch and find a bathroom changes the experience entirely.
• Any mobility limitation, because a driver drops you at the plaza rather than at a terminal on the edge of town.

Split between two or four people, a driver for a day is not far off the cost of a guided group tour and gives you control over the pace, which for most retirees is the thing that actually matters.